coping

Safer Conversations with Management

You have what you believe is an important thought to share with management. You’re concerned though that management may dislike your message. How do you assess how safe it is to share your thought with management? It’s certainly perilous if management regularly scowls, aims their finger at you and fires words such as: “You have [...]

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Manager is Junior Engineering

My friend Mitch was telling me this morning more about how his company was losing hundreds of millions of dollars because they couldn’t execute their plans (see my earlier post Key Person Won’t Participate). He mentioned that he had a one-on-one meeting with his manager to discuss how his work would drastically alter one-third of [...]

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Problems: Cope, Manage or Solve?

When faced with a problem, I suggest considering three strategies: Coping Managing Solving Let’s apply the strategies to the situation where you have a new pet who defecates in your house. You (I hope) don’t like poop on the floors of your house. You could cope with the problem by cleaning up the poop. Your [...]

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You’re Too Good of a Speaker

“You’re too good of a speaker.” I’ve heard those words and they depressed me. Now they put a smile on my face. I realize now that my friends, all excellent technicians, were telling me that they preferred a complex presentation that was a little rough around the edges—just like the world they lived in I [...]

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Coping with a Double Bind

In my last post , I posed the question, “What coping strategies are better than ambivalence and apathy (in a double bind situation)?” There is nothing wrong with being ambivalent or apathetic about an environment that constantly puts you in a double bind. These coping strategies are reasonable and always available. My question was intended [...]

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The Double Bind

Are you in a relationship where no matter what action you take that you are admonished by a person whose approval you seek? For instance, a mother gives her son two different shirts as gifts for his birthday. He wears one of the shirts to his birthday party. His mother sees him and her first [...]

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The Satir Change Model

Every organization must deal with change. Virginia Satir, a pioneering family therapist, created a change model to help families process change. Her model fits organizations equally well. This article explains Satir’s model and offers insights into how to more effectively manage the change process.

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