How often do you make or receive personal introductions? Considering the value that’s created through personal networks, I wonder why people don’t do it more often. For example, this week I received an email from a new client we’d landed because of a personal introduction. “Thank you!” said the subject line, expressing very clearly the
Psychologists say that anger is a “secondary” emotion. It safeguards you from dealing with harder emotions, like shame, sadness, or fear. It also generates a powerful, self-soothing neurochemical. And it creates a heightened sense of control. As the anger expert Dr. Leon Seltzer says, “If anger helps you feel in control, no wonder you can’t
After my post last week about a difficult conversation I’d had with a colleague, several people reached out to me to share their own experiences. They told me things like: We have tense dynamics like that in our partner group. I’m struggling to have a hard conversation about performance with an employee. I’ve been there.
The same woman has been cutting my hair for the past 20 years. Over the course of that time, I’ve come to know her as an emotionally resilient single mother. So I was surprised when she told me that she recently left a work-related meeting “feeling empty inside.” It also piqued my interest, because I
The other day, my son burst through the door from a baseball game. Sweaty and breathing hard, he went straight for food. He flung open the cupboard, swiveled his arms around with the food, and knocked my full glass of water onto the floor. The glass (one of my favorites) shattered, and water splashed everywhere.
Collaboration can make 1 + 1 = 3. But in order to reach that shared gain, there will be trade-offs. Whether it’s at work, at home or in the community, collaboration can sometimes feel like a painful tug-of-war between your needs and the needs of others. Consider the case of John. John is a member
During a recruiting visit to Ohio State University, a young athlete met with John Cooper, head football coach at the time. Coach Cooper told this young athlete that he was a great player and that he wanted him to play for Ohio State. A week later, the young athlete saw Cooper in an airport. Cooper
Do you ever notice people’s relationship skills? How well they talk, listen, look, act and sound with different people? And how people respond to their behavior? I’ve been paying more attention to others’ relationship skills since my grandmother passed away this year. Eulogies and tributes can have a certain clarifying effect on what’s most important,
I arrived with great suspicion at the baseball card shop on 98th and Lyndale last week, hauling five years of my childhood from the trunk of my car to the feet of the shop’s owner. I was burned by baseball card trades in my childhood, so I fully expected this guy might try to take
Competing priorities are very evident when dealing with a two-year-old. Adults compromise, negotiate, persuade, enforce and request. Two-year-olds demand. Responding to those demands requires great diplomacy. Two-year-olds don’t have patience for unsatisfactory answers. And they don’t take the high road by letting you off the hook. One night last week, my two-year-old told me she
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE