Margaret Meloni's Articles in Empowerment - Self Improvement Articles from PositiveArticles.Com

Margaret Meloni's Articles in Empowerment

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Sending and Receiving The responsibility for communication does not reside with just the sender or just the receiver, it is a joint responsibility. Stop Wasting Time So there you are in line at the grocery store or the hardware store or the bank. It could be anyplace really. You could be on hold waiting for a customer service representative or waiting for a meeting to begin. You have time on your hands, what do you do with that time? I Already Know That! “I already know that.” Now there is a phrase that does not encourage conversation. In fact if someone approaches you to speak with you and you hit them with an “I already know that”; you might as well say “Go away” or “I don’t care what you think”. You just killed the conversation. Hairs Looking at You Kid There I was, brand new on the project, replacing a project manager who had vanished into thin air. I was beginning to envy him his vanishing act. I could see that the project had been ridiculously under estimated. Oh and I had been told I would not be assigned to run any client projects until after three to four months of home office training and assisting other project managers. On my very first day of work I was transferred immediately to a client site. Avoid Communications Chaos We have so many different ways to communicate with one another. We can pick up the phone and call using either a land line or a cell phone; we can send an email or a text using our computers or our various handheld devices and we can ‘tweet’ and ‘friend’ and make all kinds of connections AND we can still send a written note on an actual piece of paper. Does having all of these options make communications easier? Not necessarily. The Art of No *“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.”* – Tony Blair No is not always negative. It is not a bad or incorrect response. Saying no does not make you a difficult or uncooperative person. Saying no is more honest than a false yes, Please Interrupt Yourself You know that interrupting someone when they are speaking is really rude. If you have children you have probably worked very hard to teach them to say “Excuse me”, before they break into conversations. What about interrupting you? I wish you would. Narrow YOUR Focus, Increase YOUR Impact I do not know about you, but every once in a while when I think about all of the different causes I could join I start feeling overwhelmed. We have so much to do for our planet, our creatures and our people. Where do I start? Be Skeptical But Learn to Listen Be skeptical but learn to listen. This seems like an interesting agreement to use in navigating today’s world. By agreement I mean a treaty or contract that you have made with yourself. I can’t take credit for this idea; it comes from ‘The Fifth Agreement’ by Don Miguel Ruiz and his son Don Jose Ruiz. Whether you acknowledge it or not you use agreements in each aspect of your life – personal and professional. Right now let’s focus on how being skeptical can help you. What Could Happen When you are facing a difficult decision sometimes the best thing to do is to sit back and analyze the potential outcomes from your decision. What path will each outcome create for you? Trace that path to its natural termination. Are you OK with this path? In other words: If you do X, what is the worst thing that could happen? Now, what is the best thing that could happen? Are you prepared for both scenarios? Thinking Alike or Not Thinking? It sure is easy when everyone agrees with you and tells you what you want to hear. But sometimes what we want to hear is not what we NEED to hear. This is when you need a dose of conflict or opposition or a contrarian. Unless you and all of your ideas are absolutely perfect 100% of the time, it is unusual for everyone to agree with you. If they do, is it because they are afraid to tell you what they really think? New Ideas “There is no squabbling so violent as that between people who accepted an idea yesterday and those who will accept the same idea tomorrow… “ CHRISTOPHER MORLEY Wow now isn’t that the truth? Here is another excellent opportunity to sharpen your conflict resolution skills. YOU are a Role Model When children can see others disagree and disagree with respect and they see that nothing bad happens, what a terrific example! Disagreement is part of life. Becoming upset is part of life. The lesson to the children in our lives is all about how we treat ourselves and others during and after conflict. Fight Fair, Here’s How The time has come. You have a conflict and it cannot and must not be avoided. Not everyone agrees on the solution and arriving at an approach that moves you and the team forward is absolutely necessary. Now what? Stop the Shoulding! The women next to me in line said to her friend, "I am so tired of people telling me what I should do. I just want to yell, STOP SHOULDING ON ME!" I could not help but smile a bit. Not at her annoyance and frustration, but at the phrase, 'stop shoulding on me.' Why YOU avoid YOUR Resolutions and What to Do About it Here is a New Year’s resolution you almost never hear: “This year I vow to keep everything the same, I am going to weigh the same, exercise the same, talk to all of the same people and be exactly the same.” New Year’s resolutions are about change and sometimes change is difficult. Building Your Conflict Resolution Skills? Consider these tips. For many of us becoming comfortable with conflict is part of our continued personal development. Here are three tips for you to work with as you continue to make peace with conflict. 3 Ways Your EQ Resolves Conflict Your Emotional Intelligence can help make or break you. After all your Emotional Intelligence or EQ is your ability to handle yourself and others. It is all about your ability to get along with others and build relationships. In today’s world it is not enough to be good at the technical aspects of your job, if you really want to separate yourself from the pack you need to get along well with others too! What are the Five Conflict Resolution Modes? When you understand how you handle conflict, you can begin to understand when your approach is effective and when it is not. Then you can learn to adapt your behavior and draw from different conflict resolutions styles as-needed. There are five conflict handling modes and one of these is your preferred mode. These five modes come from the TKI or Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Difficult Client? Try these Quick Tips Your hands are sweating; your stomach is in knots. Once again you have a client who has become truly obnoxious. Somehow they are driving you crazy. If you say left, they say right. The hiring honeymoon is over and now you see that your client is – believe it or not – a difficult person. Part of your challenge is that your attachment to the outcome of this conversation is both financial and relationship based. Oh and it is tied to money, wait did I already say that? Well which one of you The Face of Conflict One of the more common definitions of conflict is that it is a clash between two (or more) opposing groups or that it is a power struggle or a battle between opposing forces. When you think of conflict, you may think of it as a negative (think power struggle or battle) or you may think that it must always be about other people. Next Time YOU Make a Mistake Most of you are your own worst critic. So when you make a mistake you are much harder on yourself than you would be on anyone else. It is completely normal to be disappointed with yourself, but the longer you beat yourself up the longer it takes for you to regain your confidence.

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