Category: Communication

How you listen and respond to others has a significant impact on the quality of your relationships—be it workplace, family or friends. There's a cost to not listening—stress in the workplace, poor relationships, misunderstandings, errors, missed opportunities, arguments, stalled projects, avoidable conflicts, and wasted time.

Communication / Personal Development

10 Practices to Master the Art of Active Listening

How do you feel when you’re not being heard—frustrated, annoyed and angry at the other person? Do you feel like they don’t really know you or they don’t really get who you are? This is exactly how others feel when you don’t listen. Listening poorly limits your understanding of others which deprives you from bonding, building trust, learning, growing and most important of all, evolving as a human being. How you listen and respond to others has a significant impact on the quality of your relationships—be it workplace, family or friends.

Working with an aggressive manager has pros and cons. On one hand, they can teach you valuable skills (resilience, negotiation, excellence) that can help you excel in your career. On the other hand, giving in to all their demands can make you exhausted, resentful and may even lead to burnout.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Handle an Aggressive Manager

Aggressive managers aren’t easy. Working with them may leave you feeling overwhelmed, fill you with self-doubt and lower your self-worth. It is like running on a treadmill that just never stops. Just when you’re about to heave a sigh of relief, a new challenge is thrown your way. You dread coming to the office with the worry of what awaits you and how you’re barely going to make it through the day. While aggressive managers are difficult, they aren’t impossible to work with. With the right strategies, you can turn them around while also learning valuable lessons along the way.

Apologizing at work is necessary in certain situations. But what if instead of saying sorry when it’s needed, you say it way too often. Apologizing can become an unconscious habit if you let the ‘sorry’ word slip too often from your mouth and don’t pay attention to how often you use it.

Communication / Personal Development

Stop Over-Apologizing at Work

Apologizing at work is necessary in certain situations. But what if instead of saying sorry when it’s needed, you say it way too often. Saying sorry may seem polite, but apologizing even when it’s not required can hurt your image and credibility—you may come across as defensive, submissive, or someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. Over-apologizing hurts your career. Absolutely apologize when it’s necessary. Just don’t do it for things that don’t merit an apology in the workplace. Do it for the right reasons so that your apology is not only accepted, but also valued.

You may like to say things as they are because beating around the bush is not your style. But an honest and direct communication that lacks compassion can leave others feeling hurt, angry and annoyed. When others perceive disrespect in a conversation, they either shut down or turn defensive. When you come across too harshly, others can secretly hate you. Instead of enabling collaboration, such conversations can damage relationships. There’s a fine line between being direct and being inconsiderate. Stepping over the line from directness to rudeness is easy if you don’t pay attention to your communication style.

Communication / Leadership

How to be Direct Without Being Rude 

When trying to be direct do you often come across as too strong? Are you being called pushy, rude, insensitive or assigned other such labels? You may like to say things as they are because beating around the bush is not your style. But an honest and direct communication that lacks compassion can leave others feeling hurt, angry and annoyed. There’s a fine line between being direct and being inconsiderate. Stepping over the line from directness to rudeness is easy if you don’t pay attention to your communication style.

Difficult conversations though necessary are hard to crack. Fear of a bad outcome or not knowing what to say can prevent you from engaging in meaningful dialogue right when you need it the most. To handle difficult conversations well, practice these 6 rules of effective communication.

Communication / Leadership

6 Rules of Effective Communication in Difficult Conversations

Difficult conversations by nature are tricky. They are touchy topics that no one likes to talk about. They involve addressing differences of opinion, emotional issues, sensitive subjects or other potential reasons of conflict. They are challenging because they require us to navigate through discomfort, uncertainty and a wide range of complex emotions. No matter how hard a conversation is, you can’t put it off or delay it forever. Addressing issues directly, providing clarity and seeking closure can help you gain trust, respect and also alleviate stress.

Emotionally charged conversations are often spontaneous—they come out of nowhere. When you’re caught off-guard and expected to navigate complex interactions in real time, without knowing how to handle them, you’re most likely to act in self-defeating ways—with arguments, debates or other negative behaviors that do not solve the problem at hand and only makes matters worse.

Communication / Productivity

How to Defuse an Emotionally Charged Conversation

Sometimes, for no good reason, conversations can get heated. Handling an unpleasant emotional reaction can trigger anxiety, cloud your judgment and make you react in unexpected ways. Losing your calm in such moments, reacting to the other person and saying mean things is a deadly mistake. You may not only lose the opportunity to bring the conversation back to normalcy and have a productive discussion, showing anger, frustration or judgment in emotionally charged conversations can potentially harm your relationship.

Work without boundaries can impact your productivity and harm your mental health. Exhaustion from being available 24/7, never saying no or tolerating bad behavior can impact you emotionally and make you ineffective in your job. Apply the right strategies to set boundaries at work.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Set Boundaries At Work

If you’re constantly irritated, feel demotivated or drained out, there’s a strong possibility that you’ve failed to set personal boundaries at work. Your personal boundaries involve setting limits and defining expectations on what you will and will not tolerate. Work without boundaries can impact your productivity and harm your mental health. Exhaustion from being available 24/7, never saying no or tolerating bad behavior can impact you emotionally and make you ineffective in your job.

Positive feedback from your team is essential for your well-being while negative feedback from them is critical to your growth. Learn to handle negative feedback well.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Handle Negative Feedback From Team

When our team appreciates our work or applauds us for a job well done, we feel proud, joy and inspired. Having a team that celebrates our wins and keeps us motivated to do even better is key to happiness and long-lasting work satisfaction. However, to grow in our career, cheer and admiration is not enough. We also need people who can point out our faults, highlight our flaws and help us see our imperfections. Negative feedback, however good it may be for our growth, is hard to accept.

Learning to converse with others is one of the most important skills at work—we all need to learn and improve upon it. It requires conscious effort to hash things out, embrace uncomfortable conversations and desire to listen and learn from others. Use these practices to reduce communication gaps at work.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Reduce Communication Gaps at Work

Communication problems are the source of a lot of misery at work. They lead to expectation mismatch, misalignment, confusion and even friction between people. When communication breaks down, project deadlines are missed, stakeholders lose trust and business suffers. Poor communication makes it hard to get things done and achieve success. Learning to converse with others is one of the most important skills at work—we all need to learn and improve upon it. Reducing communication gaps requires conscious effort to hash things out, embrace uncomfortable conversations and desire to listen and learn from others.

Disagreeing with people above you is not easy. Fear of reprisal can make you nod in agreement even when you disagree. Holding back on your ideas and opinions keeps you safe, but it also means turning a blind eye to preventable mistakes. Practice courage and confidence to share your viewpoint without letting your fear get in the way.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Disagree With Someone More Powerful Than You

What do you do when you disagree with your manager or someone senior to you? Do you voice your opinion or do you choose to keep quiet? Speaking truth to power is a rare skill. Telling someone above you that they’re wrong requires courage and confidence. Holding your tongue and staying silent or nodding your head in agreement even when you disagree definitely feels safe.

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst.

Communication / Personal Development

Recovering From an Emotional Outburst At Work

Workplaces are filled with moments when it’s easy to lose your calm. Uncontrollable, sudden, and intense emotions that overwhelm you, can dramatically and unexpectedly lead to an emotional outburst. Negative emotions like anger, fear or frustration show up when your expectations aren’t met or people say or do things that conflict with your personal values and aspirations.

Good sponsors can take you to the next level in your career by identifying where your work might be valuable and signing you up for it.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Find a Sponsor Who Can Advocate For You

To succeed at work, you need someone to advocate for you. Someone with the real power to shape your career by aligning your aspirations with the opportunities you need and making them possible for you. Good sponsors can take you to the next level in your career by identifying where your work might be valuable and signing you up for it. Finding the right sponsor can help accelerate your career.

Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible. It doesn’t require being noisy or bragging about your knowledge and skills. Just the right intent and a few good practices will do the trick.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Showcase Your Value Without Bragging

There are two types of people at work—those who make a lot of noise and others who actually do the work. Loud ones get the attention and opportunities even though they may not have the skills. Quiet ones keep adding value behind the scenes silently but never get the appreciation and recognition they deserve. Value creation and appreciation of that value doesn’t happen by simply doing great work—you also need to promote yourself and make yourself visible.

Many people confuse likability with popularity, bias and favoritism. They’re not the same. Likability is not people pleasing or going out of your way to charm others. It isn’t about refusing to take a stand or avoiding actions that might upset others.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Be More Likable At Work

Who would you like on your team or choose to work with—someone who’s highly competent but unpleasant and difficult to work with or someone with decent skills but an amazing attitude? Likability plays a crucial role in your success at work. Because after all, everyone likes to work with people they like. Competence, knowledge and skills are important to get the right opportunities and additional responsibilities at work, but those things alike, likability gives people an additional reason to choose you over others.

Giving power to circling negative thoughts in your mind refrains you from contributing and sharing your valuable ideas and opinions. Staying silent inhibits you from making meaningful contributions to your team and organization. Being able to speak up in meetings is a very valuable skill. Sharing your perspective or contributing to the discussion even in small ways not only projects confidence, it also builds credibility.

Communication / Personal Development

How to be Bold and Speak Up in Meetings

Are you bold enough to say what you need to say in a meeting or do you feel knots in your stomach and refuse to speak up? Being able to speak up on the spot is a very valuable skill. Sharing your perspective or contributing to the discussion even in small ways not only projects confidence, it also builds credibility. But how do you find the courage to do so when your heart starts racing at the thought of uttering even a few words? How can you say something that can potentially make you appear silly, feel embarrassed or look incompetent?

As a leader, making your employees comfortable to criticize you isn’t easy. Don’t expect them to walk over to you and give you the feedback unless you take the first few steps in seeking it. Get actionable feedback by following the right practices.

Communication / Leadership

How Leaders Can Get the Actionable Feedback They Need to Grow

Feedback is a crucial part of growth. If you don’t know how you’re doing, it’s impossible to take corrective actions and improve. Many leaders fail at this. They either do not explicitly seek feedback or the way they ask for it only boosts their ego by getting feel-good praise about what they’re doing well without surfacing the actual areas where they’re falling short.

Meetings can be extremely stressful unless you know how to run them well. Sharing your ideas and making others lean your way is not easy. The biggest mistake we all make when trying to make our meetings impactful is to place extreme focus on ourselves and the content of the meeting without paying much attention to the process. To create an unforgettable impact during meetings, practice these 4 key strategies.

Communication / Productivity

How to Create an Unforgettable Impact During Meetings

Meetings can be extremely stressful unless you know how to run them well. Sharing your ideas and making others lean your way is not easy. The biggest mistake we all make when trying to make our meetings impactful is to place extreme focus on ourselves and the content of the meeting without paying much attention to the process. To create an unforgettable impact during meetings, practice these 4 key strategies.

We all want to get the job of our dreams and stay in them forever. But the world is not fair and most things do not end up the way we expected. Instead of wasting time ruminating about the past, follow these practices to get hired in a job of your choice and create the future you deserve—be strategic about social media, prepare your sell pitch, use the STAR technique and don’t give up.

Communication / Personal Development

Want to Get Hired? Here’s What You Need to Do to Land the Right Job

With the uncertainty in the economy, many companies have not only announced a hiring freeze but are also downsizing their entire divisions and non-profitable initiatives. Whether you’re forced to find another job or someone who’s doing it as a choice, the process to find another job is never easy. Making mistakes by not following good practices reduces the likelihood of you landing a job on time, builds stress and may even hurt you mentally and financially. If you want to get hired in a company of your choice, follow these practices.

To build empathy at work, you have to be less wrong when judging other people’s behaviors and actions. You have to stop making assumptions about their circumstances and motivations. You have to step into their shoes to understand what they’re really thinking.

Communication / MentalModels

4 Powerful Mental Models to Build Empathy At Work

Most problems we face at work involve people. We think we know others, how they think and what drives them. But most of the time we’re wrong. You can’t be empathetic towards others and lead with your beliefs and notions. To build empathy at work, you have to be less wrong when judging other people’s behaviors and actions. You have to stop making assumptions about their circumstances and motivations. You have to step into their shoes to understand what they’re really thinking.

Good mentors help unlock your hidden potential. They may not only offer advice when you’re stuck with a problem but also help you get over your own limiting beliefs. They tell you things you may not want to hear which keeps you grounded in reality. They’re your sounding board to determine which ideas are feasible and practical and which ones aren’t worth pursuing. With the support of a good mentor, you can build a kick-ass career instead of simply dragging your feet. But how do you find such a person and why should they mentor you?

Communication / Personal Development

How To Find a Mentor Who Can Accelerate Your Career

Good mentors help unlock your hidden potential. They may not only offer advice when you’re stuck with a problem but also help you get over your own limiting beliefs. They tell you things you may not want to hear which keeps you grounded in reality. They’re your sounding board to determine which ideas are feasible and practical and which ones aren’t worth pursuing. But how do you find such a person and why should they mentor you?

Effective communication is a key ingredient to work together, advance your career and make work a happy experience. When communication breaks down at work, more time is wasted in filling gaps in alignment and expectations and less in productive work. Adopt this powerful framework to reduce communication gaps at work.

Communication / Productivity

Powerful Framework to Reduce Communication Gaps at Work

Effective communication is a key ingredient to work together, advance your career and make work a happy experience. When communication breaks down at work, more time is wasted in filling gaps in alignment and expectations and less in productive work. Instead of seeking a perfect work environment with 100% alignment between people and teams, adopt this powerful framework to reduce communication gaps at work.

Letting difficult people have it their way for too long can cause damage beyond repair. Delivering feedback to difficult people is ineffective if it does not land right—they refuse to accept, become defensive and may even turn bitter which only makes working with them even harder. Apply the right strategies by embracing the difficult task of giving feedback to these difficult people. #toxicpeople #difficultpeople #toxicperson #toxicass #toxicity #givefeedback #constructivecriticism #honestfeedback #badbehavior #management #communication #leadership #teamgrowth #collaboration

Communication / Management

How to Give the Most Effective Feedback to a Difficult Person

Healthy boundaries are essential for the mental and personal well-being of all employees at work. When these boundaries are exploited by difficult people, the more time someone spends around them, the more damage they suffer. Apply these 4 strategies to give feedback to a difficult person without challenging them in a way that makes them quit or create more trouble.

The gap between how you view your behaviors and actions and how others perceive you is always huge. You may think you’re a great team player or the job that you just finished was outstanding. But how you view your performance may not align with how your boss or team members view it. Want to bridge this gap? Ask your manager these questions every month.

Communication / Personal Development

5 Questions to Ask Your Manager Every Month and 10X Your Impact

Do you want to 10x your impact at work? Do you know what behaviors hold you back? What about your team—do they admire, respect and acknowledge you? Do they find you helpful? The gap between how you view your behaviors and actions and how others perceive you is always huge. Don’t let your manager decide where you end up. Don’t wait for them to share feedback that you need. Ask these 5 questions every month to take charge of your own growth and 10x your impact.

Do you have a hard time saying no to last-minute requests from others with the worry that you might hurt or disappoint them? Saying no is not only healthy, it helps you recognize your limitations and empowers you to make the right choices.

Communication / Decisions

How to Say No to Last Minute Requests

Do you say yes to every last minute request? Being able to help others, put out fires, share your knowledge and expertise can lead to feelings of accomplishment. Knowing that others need you can make you feel important. But that dopamine hit comes at a cost. Accommodating all these requests into an already packed schedule leaves you feeling burnt out, and exhausted. Saying no is not only healthy, it helps you recognize your limitations and empowers you to make the right choices.

Are you getting angry at work? Are these significant issues that are making you angry or are you losing your cool over small stuff? An enraged mind is in no condition to think strategically. Staying angry makes you prone to poor judgment; it makes you say things you will regret later.

Communication / Personal Development

Getting Angry at Work? Here’s How to Use Anger in More Positive Ways

Do you get mad at work? Are these significant issues that are making you angry or are you losing your cool over small stuff? An enraged mind is in no condition to think strategically. Staying angry makes you prone to poor judgment; it makes you say things you will regret later. Emotional regulation is the key to mastering your negative emotions.

Getting your ideas heard and approved is one of the first steps to creating impactful work. It’s easy to adopt a victim mindset and blame others for rejecting your ideas. But all it does is make you feel defeated and stressed. To get buy-in and gain support for your ideas, work on your process. Take responsibility for your outcomes.

Communication / Leadership

Not Getting Your Ideas Heard? Here’s How to Gain Support for Your Ideas

Failure to get buy-in and have your recommendations shut down can crush your confidence and make it difficult for you to voice your opinion the next time around. Apply these strategies to not only confidently present your ideas, but get your ideas heard and gain support too. Learn to influence the decision and make positive impact on your organization and your work.

If you are around one of those people who have the tendency to constantly complain, who turn a perfectly good outcome into an unsatisfactory one with their negative outlook, those who are overly critical or bring out the worst in others with their offensive comments, toxic behavior and pessimistic attitude towards everything, chances are these negative people are already controlling your emotions and limiting what you can achieve. Learn to deal with negative people in your life.

Communication / Personal Development

How to Deal With Negative People Without Going Crazy

Negativity can be contagious. It may not be obvious at first, but it’s easy to get trapped into a negative person’s way of thinking if you are not careful around them. Left unhandled, their cynical, gloomy, and defeatist behavior can emotionally drain you, impact your productivity, and turn you into the very person you hated at first. Learn how to deal with a negative person without going crazy.

Delivering bad news to your boss is not exactly fun. Imagining how they would react, what they would say, and how they would judge you can be terrifying and reason enough to try to cover it up. But knowing that with the right strategies you can turn things around and even win their trust and respect, you can get over your fears and take the necessary steps.

Communication / Personal Development

7 Strategies for Delivering Bad News to Boss, Build Your Credibility and Still Look Good

Delivering bad news to your boss is not exactly fun. Imagining how they would react, what they would say, and how they would judge you can be terrifying and reason enough to try to cover it up. But knowing that with the right strategies you can turn things around and even win their trust and respect, you can get over your fears and take the necessary steps.

If your employees fight in the workplace, as a manager, it's your job to define a healthy boundary between constructive disagreements and destructive behavior. Freedom to disagree with others cannot be boundaryless and it cannot come at the cost of creating a toxic work environment for the team.

Communication / Management

What to Do When Your Employees are Fighting in the Workplace

When your team members are fighting or are otherwise engaged in an uncordial relationship, the rest of the team can’t function very well. Freedom to disagree with others cannot be boundaryless and it cannot come at the cost of creating a toxic work environment for the team. As a manager, it’s your job to define a healthy boundary between constructive disagreements and destructive behavior

Saying no to your boss is never easy. But saying yes to things you don't want to do or shouldn't be doing is not an option either. It may seem uncomfortable in the moment to say no to your boss, but facing a little discomfort in the moment is far better than a miserable life later. Know what truly matters to you and using that as a guiding principle to decide.

Communication / Decisions

I Said No to My Boss and It Didn’t Work Out So Well for Me or Did It?

Saying no is never easy. And saying no to your boss may actually backfire like it did in my case. But, saying yes to things you don’t want to do shouldn’t be an option either. You can either choose comfort in the moment by saying yes and then live with the regret afterwards or you can face brief discomfort in the moment by saying no to live a life in which you can feel at ease with your decisions later. Choice is yours

Managing conflict demands that we calm down and think clearly. Instead of letting our reaction slip through our unconscious, we need to take charge of it in conscious awareness. Instead of letting destructive patterns of behaviour be our default reaction, we can choose to engage in positive action. Seeing the conflict for what it is and not how it manifests at first

Communication / Personal Development

Managing Conflict: Abandon Overconfidence And Engage In Rethinking Cycle

Managing conflict demands that we calm down and think clearly. Instead of letting our reaction slip through our unconscious, we need to take charge of it in conscious awareness. Instead of letting destructive patterns of behaviour be our default reaction, we can choose to engage in positive action. Seeing the conflict for what it is and not how it manifests at first

Asking for help signals self awareness of our own limitations, humility to accept what we don’t know and the courage to ask for it. It’s a sign that we are confident in our abilities to tackle whatever is standing in our way to get to where we need to go.

Communication / Personal Development

The Right Way To Ask For Help At Work

Why are we so afraid to ask for help when we need it. Is it because we are worried others will question our intelligence and smartness? Asking for help signals self awareness of our own limitations, humility to accept what we don’t know and the courage to ask for it. It’s a sign that we are confident in our abilities to tackle whatever is standing in our way to get to where we need to go

Instead of placing all criticism into the same bucket, it’s usually useful to categorize them into four different types of criticism. Out of many who criticise your work for no reason, there’s usually one with valuable feedback and the uncomfortable truth you need to hear. You possibly don’t want to lose that nugget of wisdom.

Communication / Personal Development

How To Use Criticism To Fuel Your Growth

No doubt some people are bad at delivering criticism. But aren’t we far worse at receiving it? We don’t know when it’s useful to tune in to someone’s criticism and when it makes sense to politely shove it aside and move on. It is easy to ignore feedback with the attitude that it doesn’t apply to you, but accepting the uncomfortable truth, even if it’s painful at first is the only way to grow

A common language for team communication is an agreement on how to communicate effectively and it is the binding force that connects people in a team together through shared understanding

Communication / Management

Managers, Do You Have A Language For Your Team?

What’s your contribution to the communication structure of your team? What assumptions did you make, how did you separate what’s acceptable from what’s not and what problems do you see in the current way of working together. Letting every team member develop their own communication playbook is not only inefficient, it leaves a lot to interpretation

When leaders practice effective listening, they listen more than they talk, they not only bring their ears to the conversation but observe with their eyes as well, they commit to being mentally and physically present, they keep their judgments aside and make the other person feel comfortable by using positive body language and engage wholeheartedly in the conversation

Communication / Leadership

How Effective Listening Can Make You A Better Leader

When leaders don’t practice effective listening, they are disconnected from their people and their problems. These leaders fail to recognise that true value is created only when people listen to each other, when they are free to share an opinion and when they feel heard and respected for their views

Striking up a conversation at work can be intimidating. We avoid eye contact, turn our heads away and pretend to be busy on our phones all in an attempt to save ourselves from the awkward moment of meeting someone and not sure what to say. Learn how to start a conversation by being curious about others, paying attention to them and trying to form a connection

Communication / Personal Development

How To Start A Conversation: Get Beyond Small Talk To Forming Meaningful Connections At Work

Striking up a conversation at work can be intimidating. We avoid eye contact, turn our heads away and pretend to be busy on our phones all in an attempt to save ourselves from the awkward moment of meeting someone and not sure what to say. Learn how to start a conversation that does not involve small talk and adds value to work without making you feel uncomfortable

While difficult people are a reality of life and everything we feel about them may be true, is it really in our best interest to navigate our lives by blaming them, holding them responsible for not reaching our goals and pretending that we didn’t succeed because of some mean co-workers

Communication / Personal Development

How To Deal With Difficult People

Difficult people push our buttons by acting in undesirable ways. Their behaviour gives us permission to pass judgement and offload responsibility by blaming them. Is it really in our best interest to navigate our lives by blaming them, holding them responsible for not reaching our goals and pretending that we didn’t succeed because of some mean co-workers

Skip level meetings provide a mechanism to dive deep into people’s minds, develop the intelligence and perspective required to stay close to reality. If you let hierarchy magnify the distance that you have from your people especially those who do not report to you, you can never learn about the issues that impact people on a day-to-day basis. Are they looking for more empowerment, recognition, engagement, growth or are they happy with the way things are? How are they learning?

Communication / Leadership

Skip-Level Meetings: Uncovering Your Organisation’s Reality

Do you let hierarchy magnify the distance that you have from your people, especially those who do not report to you. How do you learn about the issues that impact people on a day-to-day basis? Skip-level meetings are powerful conversations that can give you access to the personal map every person uses to navigate the organisation