Showing posts in the category “Conflict”

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• March 9, 2021
  9Mar2021

  Centering, Not Centered

  

  Beginning again and again is the actual practice, not a problem to be overcome.
  --Sharon Salzberg

  How centered are you right now? Are we ever completely centered, or centered for very long? The more I teach and practice centering myself in this life, the more I'm pretty sure (at least for me) that being centered is really a continual RE-centering process. 

  Life is always changing, as difficulty and conflict arise and recede. The continuous losing and coming back to center is natural. There may not be a Perfect Center. Only Centering, as we make continual little adjustments and return again and again--a natural and beautiful part of what it means to be human and to be aware.

  So let's practice....

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• January 12, 2021
  12Jan2021

  What is Leadership Presence? -- Finding Center, Accomplishing Purpose

  

  Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose...."

  ~ Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here"

  "Presence" can be tricky to define, and "leadership presence" trickier. Google searches produce thousands of pages and hundreds of thousands of hits. We're interested, it seems, in knowing what they mean, whether we have them, and how to acquire them.

  Fact is, we all have presence--a quality of mind, body and spirit that is us. Sometimes our presence is more evident to others, sometimes less. Sometimes we feel big, sometimes small and contracted.

  When we walk into a room, we influence the people and the environment in that room by our presence in it. It has changed because of us. And we are changed by our experience of what is already there.

  If you're aware of energy flow, you'll observe these changes when people enter and leave, and you'll gain awareness of how you can be more intentional about the influence you have.

  How would you describe your unique presence? ...

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• December 15, 2020
  15Dec2020

  When Opinions Contrast Sharply, Practice Scales

  

  As my friend and colleague, Tammy Lenski says on her website, she supports people and organizations to...

  "Disagree better. Buffer important personal and professional relationships from the negative effects of conflict without sacrificing creativity and collaboration."

  I've know Tammy a long time and admired her work and dedication to providing ways we can touch into our humanity in order to meet each other half way and get along better. As a professor, professional mediator and coach, Tammy practices what she teaches and always has something interesting to say in her writing. I'm happy to share a recent post today:

  When opinions contrast sharply, practice scales

  By Tammy Lenski

  Practicing scales is an elegantly simple way to get a read on where someone stands along a continuum. It’s useful for illuminating the nuances in disagreements that sound polarized.

  When arguments sound black and white, it’s time to find the gray....

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• November 3, 2020
  3Nov2020

  Difficult People Are Angels Sent To Help You. No, Seriously.

  

  In Which My Difficult Neighbor, Who I Don’t Like, Teaches Me Something

  Many thanks to Joe Dunn, Executive Coach, for his guest post....

  Bob The Neighbor

  I have a neighbor. Let’s call him Bob (it’s not his name). I really, really don’t like Bob, and apparently he doesn’t like me. The details don’t matter a lot, but ten years ago Bob and I got into a nasty altercation involving my young son. It was bad. We got close to having lawyers involved. It was never resolved and since then we ignore each other, cross to the other side of the street when we pass. Ugh.

  This seems unlikely to change. When I think about Bob, I get angry, and a little scared. The sheer rage with which he yelled at me was frightening, and, from my point of view, completely unjustified. Together we entered that place of complete incomprehension, that state where a person becomes the Other, something not quite human, impossible to understand, and definitely not on our side.

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• September 22, 2020
  22Sep2020

  Batter Up!

  

  I'm delighted to share a new post from my friend and fellow blogger and coach, Carrol Suzuki. As Carrol says:

  Listening is an endangered skill in today's quick-bytes, hurry-up world. Although listening is one of the most neglected business skills, it's possibly the most vital. The good news is listening intention and capacity can be learned.

  And that's what Carrol does--helps us become attentive and authentic listeners. She's also a great blogger. Enjoy!  ....

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• September 8, 2020
  8Sep2020

  Looking Through Their Window

  

  In Turn Enemies Into Allies, I share multiple stories about seeing events through another’s eyes. I sometimes find that easy to do, and other times not easy at all. I think wearing masks in this Covid environment when we’re in close proximity to one another is a good idea, for example, and I’m not trying too hard to see the other side of that argument. And… I know there is one....

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• August 25, 2020
  25Aug2020

  Awase in the Time of Covid

  

  by Aaron Cass

  The word Aikido (合気道) is made up of three kanji. The first character, 合(ai), may be translated as ‘harmony,’ ‘confluence,’ or ‘agreement.’ This kanji can also be used on its own as the verb 合わせる(awaseru) meaning to ‘match,’ ‘fit,’ or ‘join together.’ If I wanted to set my watch to someone else’s we would 時計を合わせる, tokei wo awaseru, ‘set our watches to the same time.’

  In the context of training, much of our practice is 合わせ稽古 (awasegeiko), or what might be called cooperative practice. We refer to the person who applies the technique as 投げ (nage, ‘person who throws’) or 取り (tori, ‘person who executes the technique’). The attacker, who later finds himself on the receiving end of the technique, is called 受け (uke, literally, ‘person who receives’). These are prescribed roles, and in class we alternate between them with our partners as we practice.

  One of the greatest criticisms of Aikido on the Internet--for those who pay attention to these sorts of things--stems from this approach to training. When uke attacks, he knows he’s going to be thrown or pinned. As nage, we know we’re going to ‘win’ and successfully apply our technique to the other person because that’s our role. The criticism then becomes that Aikido is merely an elaborate performance in which people take turns falling down for one another like some sort of martial dance....

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• July 28, 2020
  28Jul2020

  Beyond words

  

  My friend and colleague Amanda Ridings recently wrote a new book, Weekly Leadership Contemplations. I'm really enjoying it and wanted to share one of her pieces with you called "Beyond words".

  As the book title suggests, Weekly Leadership Contemplations offers 52 short pieces, each one ending with questions for contemplation. The book is designed for leaders, and I find it can work its wonders on anyone. I appreciate that Amanda understands the tight schedule most leaders have, and so gives us short pieces with thoughtful questions to reflect on each week.

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• July 14, 2020
  14Jul2020

  That Is Their Story. This Is Mine.

  

  Perhaps others who shared these events with me, whose lives crossed mine, would recount the events differently, But that is their story. This is mine, my life as I recall having lived it, my life as I recall having loved it. --Michael C. Metskas

  My grandfather, Mike Metskas, was a brave young man when he left his native Macedonia as a 16-year-old to come to America and find his way in the world. In short order “Gramps” found work, founded a business and in time returned to Greece to marry my grandmother and bring her back to raise a family of five in Oak Park, Illinois.

  With a third grade education, Gramps eventually wrote and published his autobiography, Journey to Eternity, an amazing story, and a treasure for our family. I began reading it again recently, knowing it is my story, too....

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• June 30, 2020
  30Jun2020

  Making Assumptions: Why Should You Catch Yourself?

  

  In my last post, I posed a question about whether you can catch yourself when you're about to make an assumption about another person's thoughts or actions, and whether you can choose to move toward curiosity instead of judgment--a crucial awareness if you want to have more skilled conversations.

  I think now a more important question than "whether" you can catch yourself is "why you might want to".

  As I read and re-read the post, I came to see it as naive. Those of us who want to catch ourselves making assumptions will do it and get better at it. And there are some who don't want to get better and maybe don't care. If you just want to be right--or know someone who does--read on....

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