Conversations Can Lower Satisfaction

If you want to increase satisfaction at work, talk about the things people like.  If you want to increase dissatisfaction, talk about what makes them unhappy.

I recently talked to a manager – let’s call him Roy – whose company had completed a series of employee satisfaction surveys.  It turns out that although Roy’s unit scored

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Not Responding Can Cost You

A former Mastery of Execution student sent me the link to a great blog article posted by Fast Company entitled “2010: The Year of Saying ‘I Got It’ “.  The focus of the article, written by Lynette Chiang,  is how companies, as well as individuals, have gotten into the habit of not responding to inquiries

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Just Tell Me Why

I recently participated in a book group discussion about The Four Conversations with the managers of COSI, the science museum in Columbus Ohio.  Our topic for this session was Initiative Conversations, which are used anytime you want to propose or recommend a new idea, project, or undertaking that involves others.  Initiative Conversations tell people what

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Convert Expectations into Agreements

Don’t risk being held to account for things you don’t know about. Take the time to find out what people really expect you to do, and what they expect you to deliver.  If they don’t tell you, ask.

I recently had a conversation with a manager who was disturbed by her inability to meet the

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“High Priority” Isn’t A Deadline

Laurie and I recently conducted a training program on The Four Conversations for a group of project managers.  Since most of the managers were from the same organization, they all encountered the same problem when given an assignment.  Rather than being told a due date or deadline by when the assignment was to be completed,

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Listening to the “Other” Side

I recently read The Things People Say, a column by staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert for The New Yorker in which she reviews Cass R. Sunstein’s book “On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done.” In the article, Kolbert talks about how, and why, in the face of the quadrillions of

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The Fundamental Error in Managing Others

While flying home from a weekend visit with my son in Houston, Texas, I got a flash of insight into why it is so difficult to train managers to be more effective.  I was reading “The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making” when I realized managers make a fundamental error in their understanding of what

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