Influence, Power, & Politics

Given the age in which we live, it’s easy to equate intelligence with access to information. And, of course, information is a significant part of knowledge and intelligence. But it […]

Conversation involves taking turns. The challenge comes from the fact that we don’t follow the same pace in taking turns. Something as seemingly simple as taking turns in talk involves […]

How do corporations that have perpetuated dysfunctional, despicable, and illegal cultures turn those around? Is it even possible?  

Whether right or wrong, eloquent or simple, if your ideas are not phrased in ways that encourage others to listen and learn, they won’t do either. Even Robert Redford, actor, […]

Meanness is not exactly ebola, but it chips away at our quality of life. When we’re the recipients, there are comeback options to halt its spread.

The shunning of fairness as a business value has fostered a climate in which what’s right, good, or fair matters far less than getting jobs done efficiently and effectively. 

Robert Downey Jr.’s interview this week with reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 in the United Kingdom is drawing much attention there. Downey stood up and left the interview, ostensibly […]

Hillary Clinton faces a challenge not shared by males running for the U.S. presidency. Women are still rare among government and business leaders. Hence, their choices, even seemingly innocuous ones […]

One of the most common mistakes in the back-and-forth trading of favors at work is that of showing insufficient gratitude. Now, it can be difficult to figure out what someone […]

Giving others credit when it isn’t due may sound counterintuitive, but it is what skilled managers and leaders do. The principle applies to people who work for us as much […]

Conflict is inevitable in most relationships. So, it’s useful to know how to engage in it without inflicting damage. This requires learning how to persuade by focusing more on the […]

The key to making valuable connections involves conveying to others a sense of having truly noticed and listened to them. 

Under a new law passed last week, a number of Germany’s largest companies must award at least 30 percent of board seats to women by January of 2016. Germany has […]

Is it sloppiness, laziness, or actual deceit that causes television newspersons to rely on phrases like, “Some people say,” “Some people think,” “It’s been said,” and “A lot of people […]

In 1995, I published They Don’t Get It, Do They? Closing the Communication Gap Between Women and Men after writing “The Memo Every Woman Keeps in Her Desk” — a […]

Most young women in the workforce don’t remember firsthand the battles their mothers and grandmothers fought over issues that are still relevant today. Among those who’ve read about them or […]

We begin our careers full of optimism. We expect to encounter people who are eager to hear what we have to say — as our teachers were in school or […]

We know that a body of research shows women to be more nurturing, team-oriented, and collaborative.  This is expected of us.  And so, it’s lately been recommended that women consider […]

All day long people everywhere say the wrong thing, or they say the right thing, but in the wrong way. Hazard pay should be offered to people whose jobs require […]

Before most of today’s heavy users of social media were born, persuasion researchers were exploring what it takes to not be suckered by mass media messages. Early on, they found that […]

It isn’t that women desire power less than men do, but in traditional organizations some common avenues to obtaining and maintaining power are blocked for them.  A host of stereotypes […]

The answer to that question is, probably not.  Wherever people come together seeking goals – whether the same or different ones – and especially where there is competition for scarce resources, […]

   

How often does a CEO directly and publicly address organizational politics?  How many compose a list of the worst forms or could even identify them? 

“Never try to teach a pig to read,” the saying goes. “It’s a waste of time and it annoys the pig.” But how do you know when you’re at that point?  When does attempting to persuade someone do more harm than good?

As Rolling Stone magazine apologized not once, but twice, for its article last month about a young woman who had allegedly been raped on the University of Virginia campus, we witnessed something rarely seen these days: UVA President Teresa Sullivan, took the high road in responding to the fiasco.

At this time of year social interaction increases, including where many of us work.  With pressure to meet year-end goals, tension may be in the air and made worse by more meetings than anyone wants to attend.  This climate offers an opportunity to assess if what you say is actually being heard — to examine when and whether your comments are talked over, interrupted or even ignored.

As children, many of us read in our U.S. history classes about the “great compromiser,” Henry Clay, congressman and secretary of state under John Quincy Adams.  Clay argued effectively for […]

Scientists have yet to determine exactly how emotions happen, let alone how we differentiate between our experiences of them.  University of Connecticut professor Ross Buck, expert in emotion and nonverbal […]

Every person who ventures into the company of others engages in persuasion.  Granted, at times it may be annoying to engage in conversation that requires you to develop effective arguments, but if such conversations are on the wane or largely absent, then important relationships can slip toward reliance on manipulation, coercion or even toward a lack of any significant communication at all.