If you want to support someone…you need to ASK them what actions they would actually find supportive. Well, duh, you might say. Isn’t this obvious? Perhaps not. I’ve seen a lot of faux support circulating on social media recently, starting with the whole “wear a safety pin to show you’re an ally” meme on Twitter […]
Tag Archives: Communication
Comments Off on How to Show Support
A quick visual exercise can utterly transform how a group understands itself. I recently worked with a Board that perceived themselves as very divided. One camp was supposedly dedicated solely to the organization’s Program H and placed an extremely low value on Program C; the other camp reversed these values. They told this story over […]
Comments Off on The Value of a Pie
One of the things I love to do as I run my local rural roads is to observe the animals I pass by. I am especially interested in the variety of their responses to me. Cows strike me as curious critters. They turn and watch my progress. If I stop to tie my shoe or […]
Comments Off on Assume Nothing…
At a recent meeting, I was reminded how hard it can be to separate the quality of an idea or the validity of a fact from the popularity or authority of the person expressing it. Have you ever suggested something at work and been pooh-poohed, only to have someone ELSE suggest the same damn thing…and […]
Comments Off on Ideas without Owners
How you phrase the question influences the answer(s) you receive. We all know this intuitively. Our senses go on alert when we hear that question that seems to contain within it a judgement about what the right answer might be. Then there are the poll-takers, with questions and multiple choice answers that point to a […]
Comments Off on Asking the Right Question
How Not to Say the Wrong Thing by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman is easily the most brilliant thing I’ve read all year. I will summarize it briefly but you owe it to yourself to go read the whole thing. Basically, when someone is in a sucky situation – their dog died, they have cancer, […]
Comments Off on Comfort IN, Dump OUT
I spent all day Saturday doing landscaping work with my cohousing neighbors. I actually don’t like gardening all that much. I have very little experience or knowledge, having lived all my adult life in trailers, apartments, and condos. But the foliage was threatening to take over and so the troops were assembled and armed with […]
Comments Off on Pruning the Roots of Conflict
In a previous post, I shared a list of Twenty Declarations – things I absolutely know to be true. I’ve added to them over time: 21. Ain’t no way out but through! 22. Don’t pre-plan your bummers. 23. You can’t think outside the box if you don’t know what box you’re in. 24. Creating and […]
Comments Off on Declarations by the Dozen