Better Relationship Tips For Task Oriented People: Redefine Your Task

This week, I was on the road conducting Bud To Boss training. As I called home on Sunday evening, I found myself unable to listen to my wife telling me about her day. Try as I might, I could not get my mind to focus on what she was saying. I could only think about what I still had to do to prepare for the next day before going to bed. Sadly, this is not the first time I have struggled to have a fruitful conversation with my wife while I am traveling for business. After we ended our phone call and... [Read more]

Victim or Victor – You Decide

Whose fault is it when you lose? Whose credit is it when you win? In this time of Olympic competition, I wonder about these sorts of questions. Evan Lysacek beats Yevgeny Plushenko by playing the scoring system to its fullest, and he wins. Then Plushenko plays the victim. In my opinion, he lost – end of story. Maybe Plushenko is more daring. Maybe he is the better physical skater. Maybe the scoring system should reward the quad more highly than it does. Maybe the system should be changed to... [Read more]

Decision Making 101 – Check Your Emotions Before You Decide

In a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, writes about the impact of our short-term emotions on our long-term decision making. In summary, his research found that we tend to make poor decisions when we have recently experienced a negative emotion. That makes some intuitive sense related to the short-term impact on our decision making. Surprisingly, he also found that we tend to repeat those bad decisions when we are faced with them again... [Read more]

Conflict Resolution Lessons From A Lifeguard: A Drowning Man Doesn’t Care About You

Communication, conflict resolution, leadership, and parenting can, at times, resemble working as a lifeguard. In all of these situations, you can, like a lifeguard, be in the position of a person approaching someone else when they are under distress because their needs are not being met. Picture a drowning man. He is flailing in the water. He is grasping at everything and everyone within reach. He has little or no visible concern for others. He may, at other times, be a kind, loving, considerate... [Read more]

Communicating About Change – Connect With Emotions

Today, we had our monthly Group Coaching call for Silver Remarkable Leadership Learning System members. Using the handout from this month’s Remarkable Leadership teleseminar as a discussion guide, we talked about some really powerful concepts related to communicating change. This is one of the many ideas we discussed: Change can be driven by facts, but people are driven by emotions. As we discussed this observation, we spoke about the importance of connecting with the emotional response that... [Read more]