How to Ask for Feedback
A focus of this blog is to help you have better conversations. Enhancing dialogue makes our communities more engaged, diverse and healthier. Accepting and offering feedback are essential elements of great conversations. Giving and receiving praise or criticism isn’t easy,…
Five Professional Lessons from a Negative Customer Experience
For my family, 2016 ended with a less-than-pleasant travel experience with BC Ferries to my family home in Merville on Vancouver Island. We encountered poor customer service a lot and, as we consider the service that we deliver in our…
Four Tips for Dealing with Awkward Holiday Conversations
Holidays bring families from all over the country and world together. This can sometimes be recipes for awkwardness when your gun-toting, freedom loving, conservative uncle breaks bread with your gay, socialist brother. The inevitable train wreck of a conversation…
How to Compromise
Meaningful dialogue is an elusive thing in our communities. Having a respectful conversation with someone about something on which we do not agree isn’t common. Yelling opinions over someone else or building a newsfeed that reinforces your worldview are common…
How to be a Good Listener
THE POTENTIAL OF DIALOGUE Meaningful dialogue is an elusive thing in our communities. Having a respectful conversation with someone about something on which we do not agree isn’t common. Yelling opinions over someone else or building a newsfeed that reinforces…
Three Negotiation Tactics I Learned from Toddlers
My son is two years old and he is fast becoming a competent negotiator. Well, not really. But he does try really hard, his logic is pretty funny, and kids are adorable and we can learn a lot from them….
Career Lessons from Comedians
These days I’m on a real podcasting kick. One of my favourites is the Nerdist, which is moderated by comedian Chris Hardwick. Hardwick has all sorts of guests, but some of the most interesting are his fellow comics. During the…
Four Tips For Asking Great Questions
Asking good questions is an important quality of a friend, a partner and a co-worker. It’s also particularly helpful in a work setting. Whether you are meeting with colleagues or attending your monthly board meeting, asking good and insightful questions…
Three Trends Impacting the Communications World
There’s a lot of change happening in the communications industry these days. Seasoned journalists are flooding into the profession, traditional barriers between advertising and editorial are blurring, and the predominance of digital tools and channels is increasingly challenging traditional media…
Five Steps for Becoming a Great Listener
You and your partner are locked in verbal battle. No matter how you express it, they don’t seem to get it. Instead they seem to be waiting for the last word to come out of your mouth so that they…