Tag: Communication
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Negotiation: art or technique?
Negotiation: art or technique? Many of us feel anxious at the thought of having to negotiate, but, whether we like it or not, negotiation is part of everyday life, both at work and in our personal lives. Negotiation is when two people communicate with the aim of achieving goals that may initially seem contradictory or
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How to broach contentious issues
How to broach contentious issues Dan* is responsible for one of the robots in the workshop. You are his supervisor and you suspect that the rejection rate is much higher than usual when he is at the controls. You check the operations log and your suspicions are confirmed. You could wait for the problem to
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Dialogue saboteurs and how to outfox them
Dialogue saboteurs and how to outfox them Manuel* has been ill at ease with his supervisor Robert* for several months, but is having difficulty instigating a calm and constructive conversation about it. “Every time I try to start a discussion, I get flustered and feel like he’s manipulating me. I feel powerless; he always gets
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Collective intelligence
Collective intelligence In an oriental fable, six blind men decide to meet an elephant in order to broaden their horizons. The first rubs up against its side and says: “This elephant is like an unmovable wall!” His neighbour feels a tusk and exclaims: “It’s so smooth and pointy; this animal is surely an impressive weapon!”
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Bonding with colleagues can help break situations of deadlock
Bonding with colleagues can help break situations of deadlock Paul* came to see me because he’s not getting along with his colleague: “Ben* is the coordinator of the project I’m working on, but he’s doing it without really consulting any other members of the working group. He seems to work on the project from his
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Communication: nurture your relationships!
Communication: nurture your relationships! It’s not uncommon in communication for a hidden message to take on more importance than what’s actually said. Example: you’re a workshop technician and you’re waiting for your colleague, Tibor, to finish some welding so you can assemble a cryostat that needs to be delivered to an experiment next week. Tibor’s
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The Last Word
The Last Word In conflict situations, there is a tendency to want to have the last word and be proven ‘right’ and yet, that may actually be the ‘wrong’ way to go about resolving an argument, whether it is face to face or through an exchange of e-mails. Instead, the wise approach would be to
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Horns and halos
Horns and halos Labelling colleagues – either in negative (“horns”) or positive (“halos”) terms – is like looking at them through a lens that colours all our perceptions, as well as those of others around us. This may result in a preconceived bias towards them that affects our judgements and, regardless of whether this takes
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Defeating unconscious bias
Defeating unconscious bias Do you have a tendency to switch off at meetings every time a particular colleague starts to speak? Is it obvious to you that your colleagues will never accept a peer as a project leader? And doesn’t that candidate from your own alma mater clearly have a definite edge over the others?
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That’s not what I meant…
That’s not what I meant… Have you ever been surprised by a negative reaction to an e-mail that you believed to have been efficient, helpful and to-the-point? This happens more often than you may realise, as communication is about what they hear, not what you say. So you dashed off a reply to that query