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you talkin’ to me?
In recent years we have begun to rely on emails, voicemail and text messages as primary methods of communication as we seek that immediacy of communication. Like me you probably know people who run more than one mobile ‘phone (maybe you do yourself?) and can’t bear to be out of touch. We seem to have developed an insatiable appetite for instant contact, but without any thought of the consequences. Read more…
people only see what they want to see
I often talk about the difference between perception and reality, especially in terms of customer service, but it is true in so many ways; people do see, or believe, things even when there is evidence to the contrary. Read more…
So what if Big Brother is watching?
There is little doubt that we are all under surveillance, whether from CCTV, people prying into our social media and e-mail utterings or tracking where we have been and what we have bought through our use of plastic in various forms. This seems to get a lot of people hot under the collar, but if we are being watched at every turn so what? Read more…
Are we nearly there yet?
“Are we nearly there yet?”, that familiar cry from the back seat, and sometimes from the front. The answer may be yes, maybe no, but how do we know? These days when we are on a day out we probably know where we are from our SatNav system and, if you have that set up to do so, it will also tell you whether you are going to arrive on time or not. At work we don’t have SatNav though, so whether we are looking at the day’s work or a project we need to have something else to keep track of where we are. Read more…
Indignation plays no part in objectivity.
This was something that came to me when reviewing the notes from a mentoring session last week where we had been working on dealing with unwelcome feedback. Read more…
let’s outlaw management speak
Following on from last week and some of the things I mentioned on meetings another aspect jarred with me the other day; management speak. Read more…
meetings; what a waste of time
Is that how you feel about meetings? It certainly reflected my view for much of my management time and influenced the way that I ran meetings myself. And whilst much of the fault lies with the participants, the real blame for a bad meeting lies with the person chairing. Read more…
instant communication does not imply good communication
Communication has been on my mind this week and I have been reflecting on the way that it has changed so much in the last twenty years or so. The vehicle for that change has been technology and it has affected verbal and written communication by giving us an opportunity to interact in different ways, the most striking of which, perhaps, is in the immediacy with which we can reach others. Read more…
communicating in a crisis
As I write this the world is waiting for news of Malaysian Airways flight 370 and my thoughts are with the families and friends of those missing for there can be little hope now of finding survivors. I’ll not waste time speculating on the cause of this loss, but instead look at the issue of communication in crisis management. Read more…
a thought, or two, at Christmas
I wrote the other week about how thrilled that I was when someone publicly disagreed with something that I had written. Disagreement is what moves us forward and allows us to grow and being able to challenge, in an appropriate way, an idea is important. Read more…
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