Unfortunately, to put it bluntly, most of these self-serving and heavily promotional e-publications fail to deliver the goods.

One of the relatively few  exceptions is  written by trainer Shaun Belding.   Shaun’s  regular Winning at Work mailings – as brief as they are – do deliver the goods. His publication offers “techniques and tools for dealing Coworkers, Bosses, Callers, Customers and Clients” and excels in showing us how to handle difficult people in each of these categories.

Disagreements  among colleagues in the workplace are the subject of the latest  issue.  Differences of  opinion among people working towards a common goal are not only inevitable but healthy.  After all,  sharing and examining different ideas and contrasting viewpoints leads to progress and growth. What is certainly not desirable is the unnecessary acrimony and conflict that is often an offshoot of such debates.

As Shaun Belding points out, what creates the conflict has less to do with the idea and more with the way it is presented.  He presents us with two  useful techniques for minimizing the potential for conflict when offering a different opinion:

I think in this case…

This technique involves first validating the premise behind the other person’s assertion, then offering a new or different perspective that leads to a different conclusion.  For example:

Sally: I think we need to have a full team meeting for an hour every Monday and Wednesday morning.

Bob: (validating) That makes sense. The more frequently we communicate, the less likely we’ll have issues like  the ones that cropped up in the last  project. (new perspective) I think in this case we have a challenge with availability.  Not everyone is in the office every Monday and Wednesday.  Perhaps we should just say we’ll meet twice a week, and on the Friday before set mutually convenient meeting times.

Yes, and…

When Dr Carol Kinsey Goman, author of the THE NONVERBAL ADVANTAGE-Secret and Science of  Body Language at Work (and various training programs on this topic) hears someone mention “empathy”, she thinks of mirror neurons and body language? And monkeys. A strange combination, so what’s the connection?

Dr Goman writes about a research laboratory in Italy where neuroscientists were studying the brain cells of macaque monkeys. When the monkeys performed a single highly specific hand action, sophisticated monitoring equipment detected that neurons in the motor cortex of the animals’ brains become very active. For example, every time a monkey reached for a peanut, certain brain cells immediately “fired”.

Then one day, by chance, the reseachers discovered something particularly interesting. A monkey connected to the monitoring device happened to see a human grab a peanut. The same neurons fired in the same way! In terms of motor cell activity, the monkey’s brain could not tell the difference between actually doing something and seeing it done by someone else.

In other words, these brain cells reflected the actions that the monkey observed in others,  which is why the researchers dubbed them “mirror neurons”.

What is fascinating is not only that later experiments confirmed that these same neurons  exist in humans, but in addition to mirroring actions, the human brain cells also reflected sensations and feelings!

In one study , subjects watched a hand move forward to caress  someone else and then saw another hand push it away rudely. The brains of the subjects registered the pain of social rejection as if it were happening to them. Why? Because empathizing with someone, whether in grief or joy, apparently activates the very same circuits in your own brain as your companion who experienced the original emotion! Mirror neurons are well named indeed.

In her training programs on nonverbal literacy,  Goman  describes  “empathy ” as “the human ability to internalize the emotional state of others by  simply observing their body language.  The moment you become aware of a strong emotion felt by someone in your immediate environment – whether you can see it on the face or read it in the person’s gestures or bodily posture –   you begin,  however subconsciously, to place yourself in that person’s mental shoes, to get under their skin,  so to speak.

Before you know it, you are experiencing  the identical emotion, feeling your companion’s happiness,  excitement, confusion or  disappointment  as if it were your own.

And that, after all, is what empathy – genuine empathy, in the heart, not on the sleeve – is all about.

Management Communication: Three Basic Rules

Many leaders in the workplace choose to ignore these simple points. Fine. That’s their business and good luck to them. But then why do they seem so surprised when the productivity of their workers takes a nosedive?

How to Tell If Someone is a True Friend

It’s a lament one hears often:

“I’m so frustrated about the friends that I have. I trusted someone who I thought was a good friend of mine and I ended up getting used. I really can’t tell who is really a friend and who is just fake and trying to use me. I used to trust my own judgment, but now…I’m not so sure…”

Here are five simple rules that serve as a litmus test.

Working With Difficult People: Turning Tormentors into Teachers

When a confrontational employee or fellow worker with a chip on the shoulder begins to drive you up the wall, a simple switch in tactics could put a smile back on his face. And yours.

How to Leave Professional Phone Messages

Trying to reach a person who isn’t immediately available can be pretty frustrating at times, but take heart! A well planned message could be a fine opportunity to enhance your reputation and even help build relationships.

Voice to High? How to Safely Lower Your Pitch

Some common speaking problems:

“Even though I’m a mature female and a stockbroker, I am often mistaken for a child when I answer the phone or leave messages. I’m not sure what to do. Is my voice too high? Too hesitant? How can start to sound my age?”

“I am a small man and my voice is higher than I prefer. Are there any ways to lower my voice? I once heard that one movie star used to go into the mountains and scream for hours.”

Read what voice production expert Susan Berkley advises.

What to Do About Office Gossip

How an organization deals with habitual gossipers can be mean the difference between growing and thriving, or disintegrating from within

Please use the Comments area to let me know what you think of these articles, or to suggest topics you’d like to see covered in the future. If you prefer, you can also contact me privately at azriel AT hodu.com.

In all probability, they  are picking up a very big portion of your message (and all of the emotional nuance behind the words) from your nonverbal signals. Do the way you are standing or sitting,  your facial expressions, gestures, touch and use of space express enthusiasm, confidence and warmth, or arrogance, indifference and displeasure?

One thing is clear. Understanding body language is critical whether you are a chief executive officer, a first-line supervisor, or a candidate for president of the United States.

But unlike political candidates, most business and other people are oblivious to the impact of the nonverbal signals they send.

The first step to gaining a nonverbal advantage is awareness – and one way to increase awareness is to learn from experience. The good news is that it doesn’t always have to be your own experience!

In this regard, the recent TV debates in the USA between the candidates for president were, like most such encounters, especially enlightening. Learn here some powerful lessons – positive and negative – from the way Obama and McCain presented themselves, and how you can apply the lessons in your own professional or personal life.

Fine. But what exactly is emotional intelligence?  Perhaps the clearest and simplest  definition I have seen is that of Maurice Schweitzer, a Management professor at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania:

“Emotional Intelligence is the ability to recognize emotions and understand how they operate and also the ability to manipulate and change them. If I have emotional intelligence, I know what the right time to talk to my boss is. I know that my new partners had a terrible flight and lost their luggage and and aren’t going to be receptive to what I’m saying, so I shouldn’t make my pitch right now. Or I know that, if I take them to this particular restaurant or I buy tickets to this Indy car race, I can shift their emotional state to feeling more gratitude toward me and listening to me.”

Professor Schweitzer adds that skilled negotiators  tend to have high levels of this kind of aptitude, and they apply it in small subtle ways when they are doing their work. They might for example, during a particularly tense moment,  call for a break, go get a soda and also bring something back for the people on the other side of the table.

Schweitzer’s words appears in a Wharton report of research he conducted together with Francesca Gino of Carnegie Mellon University.

The study confirms what we probably already know: that one’s emotions at a particular point in time influence people’s receptiveness to advice. This applies even when the emotions have no link to the advice or the adviser.

And our moods and feelings may systematically distort not only our receptiveness to the information we are receiving, but also the  rationality of our reactions. For example, an investor may be angry about losing a bet on a ballgame and thus may underestimate the value of a stock recommended by an analyst. Another may be elated about the birth of a child and overestimate it.

See here for how I was once the “victim” of rather poor emotional intelligence, according to Schweitzer’s definition, on the part of a boss of mine – who was otherwise a very nice guy.  (I changed some details in the story, but the “Mr.Thompson” referred to was really me!)