What are communication channels and why are they important?

Communication can be split into two parts — the message or content, and the channel it’s transmitted on. For example, you may want to communicate something about your emotional state — let’s say that you are angry. You can communicate…

What is The Abilene Paradox, Communicationwise?

The Abilene Paradox, Communication and GroupThink What is The Abilene Paradox? The Abilene Paradox was presented to the world by Jerry Harvey, in his book of management essays of the same name. In the first essay in the book, Harvey…

What is the difference between advocacy communication and inquiry communication?

When you communicate, you function differently when you are in advocacy mode, and when you are in inquiry mode. Advocacy communication puts you in a position of “standing for”, or advocating a particular action, position or set of principles. In…

The Three Boorish Buckets Of Social Media Comments

Feedback To Dumb As Rocks People When The People Who NEED The Feedback Are The Least Likely To “Hear” It It’s an odd world. It seems that the people who really need to hear how they are perceived by others,…

Sweetspot: Communicating Positively and Negatively

Avoiding Overly Positive and Overly Negative Communication The Sweet Spot Between Overly Positive and Overly Negative Communication: Glass Empty, Glass Full You’ve heard the phrase: “There’s two kinds of people. Those that see the glass as half full, and those…

Why Is E-mail More Prone to Creating Unnecessary Conflict?

If you have any experience on the Internet or using your company’s internal email system, you probably realize that there is a great deal of very poor confrontational communication that occurs in the electronic medium. Why is that the case?…

Can you provide practical tips and suggestions to improve email communication?

The following is an excerpt from Conflict Prevention in the Workplace — Using Cooperative Communication When sending e-mail always reread what you have written before sending it on. Read it twice (at least) — once for content (does it say…

What You Don’t Say Counts: “You Don’t Say?” Good!

What You Don’t Say Determines The Relationship We know that “good” talk smooths and builds relationships, whether with family, or friends or in the workplace. Supportive listening and compliments are important in building a good foundation of trust and mutual…

So Much For Social Media Dialogue: Why No Questioning

Feedback To Dumb As Rocks People Why Is There So Little Questioning Used In Social Media Conversations? The other day, I was involved in a conversation with a person trying to get his new business service going, and I commented…

Is it possible to NOT communicate?

Is it possible to NOT communicate? It’s impossible to NOT Communication Common usage of language contains phrases like “He doesn’t communicate with me”, or “He’s uncommunicative”, giving us the impression that it’s possible to NOT communicate. In fact, that’s impossible….

How can understanding different types of conversations make me a better communicator?

When most people talk and interact, they don’t usually think consciously about what they are trying to achieve, the kind of conversation they want, and think about those things from the perspective of the other person. But the truth is…