by Susan Johnston | Sep 26, 2007 | Uncategorized |
Once upon a time, I was an over-committed community volunteer headed for burnout. Things were bad. I felt angry and resentful. Any joy I had ever found in giving my time to charitable organizations I admired was long gone.
I dropped all activities but one (my professional association) and learned how to put boundaries around my giving. And I wrote about my learning in an article called Yes, It’s OK To Say “No!” I regularly get requests from publishers and other coaches and consultants for permission to use it in their work.
Today, I had a reason to revisit the article. I received an e-mail from someone we’ll call “Lori,” who finds that the newsletter she’s producing for a volunteer organization is taking twice as long to do as she was led to expect. She was looking for advice. She wrote: “I’m inclined to keep my word and trudge on, but this last month’s issue took away from my family and job responsibilities. If I say no and stop doing the
newsletter, does this set a bad example for my kids, telling them it’s OK to quit after I’ve committed to something? ” It was this concern about what sort of lessons we teach through our behaviours that touched me the most.
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by Susan Johnston | Aug 17, 2007 | Uncategorized |
For the past few weeks, I’ve been dancing around with an idea presented by my friend Donna Karlin, the Shadow Coach and founder of A Better Perspective. The idea sits in front of my nose in 36-point type.
“People become who they might be when they let go of who they are.”
In my own struggle to let go, my heart leaps and pirouettes with vivid energy, excited by the possibility of discovering and becoming who I might be. My head takes steps rehearsed and perfected through decades of practice
designed to keep me as I am. I promise you, this dance is not a sexy tango; it’s more like a barroom brawl.
Brain scientists suggest the desire to change, however sincere or necessary, collides with the human brain’s natural aversion to change. That ancient “fight or flight” mechanism takes over when events, feelings or thoughts don’t match the old patterns. That primitive part of our brain interprets this as “danger” and renders us temporarily incapable of rational thought. It fills our head with worry, anxiety and other nonsense and our bodies with cortisol, adrenaline and who knows what other forms of crap and corruption. So we don’t change.
Two years ago, I thought I had changed forever and for good, for once and for all. I was invited to contribute a chapter to a book about women and power. In writing it, I determined that I had found my real self and was, henceforth, going to be that. My chapter, posted here, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, describes the emergence of Susanna, my bolder, greater, less inhibited alter ego. She is the creature I was meant to be. It’s a good story. It aims to help others discover their own inner Susanna, and I occasionally hear from people who’ve been touched by it or inspired to find their own true selves.
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by Susan Johnston | Aug 15, 2007 | Uncategorized |
How do you capture the essence of a real person on paper? That was a client’s question, this week. He’d been asked to write a testimonial letter for someone he likes and respects and wanted to know if there’s a format for such things.
I’d never seen a formula, though I’ve written scads of these things for employees and colleagues applying for jobs, school admission or nonprofit board positions. Since some sort of structure helps almost anyone write almost anything, I documented a process for my young client – and for you – in the following eight steps.
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by Susan Johnston | May 22, 2007 | Rants, Ramblings and Riddles |
Here’s Part 2 of the condensed version of the arguments supporting giving face-to-face communication more attention. They are extracted from Real Conversation – the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use, my presentation at the recent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference.
Brain scientists speak: “Humans have to talk!”
Developments in neuroscience are showing us that conversation has tangible physical effects on us as human
beings.
In an era where people are paid to think, it’s probably no coincidence that there’s a lot of research examining how our brains work. Using new tools, graduate students everywhere are hooking folks up to functional MRIs to see which parts of their brains light up when they do or think
about various things.
There’s evidence that we’re genetically “hardwired” to communicate face-to-face. Moreover, we actually need the company of other humans. It keeps us
human.
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by Susan Johnston | May 22, 2007 | Get people talking, Get teams moving |
Earlier this month, I spoke at the excellent Ragan Corporate Communications Conference, in Chicago. My topic? Real Conversation – the most powerful business tool your organization will ever use.
One of the topics I tackled was how to convince leaders and managers to pay closer attention to conversation in the workplace. People found it useful, so I thought I’d share it with my regular readers. So here – in two installments – is the Reader’s Digest version of that section of my talk.
Making the Case for Face-To-Face
OK. Here we are, face-to-face, because that’s the way human beings were meant to communicate. We’re here to have a conversation about conversation. More precisely, we’ll discuss ways to get authentic, productive, valuable, human conversations going on in our organizations, instead of the same old bla bla bla – or worse – silence. It’s a quest organizations have been on for a long time.
I recently read a story from the 1950s. Before he founded WL Gore & Associates and started making GoreTex, Bill Gore, worked for chemical giant DuPont. He observed that there were only two places at work he ever heard a meaningful conversation. One was on task forces, where people have a clear and important short term purpose. The other was the car pool. In the car, everyone was equal, everyone was smart and the conversations were brilliant. Unfortunately, when they reached the parking lot, everyone straightened their ties, put on their work faces, stepped into the hierarchy and – conversation over.
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by Susan Johnston | Feb 21, 2007 | Rants, Ramblings and Riddles |
It’s hard to be a Help Desk person. We customers only call when we’re angry or confused or both. If only we could just learn to enjoy:
- waiting (Kenny G is Top Of The Pops on “Hold” this week)
- listening to long multilingual messages that don’t make sense in any language
- bouncing between service people (I suspect they have a [Random] button to send us to other departments where we will hear, “That’s not my job,” immediately before they ask the obligatory question, “Is there anything more I help you with today?”)
- getting nowhere and taking forever to get there
In a bid to be the “ideal customer,” I have started to use my problems as entertainment, for both myself and Help Desk employees. I had a great chat, this morning, with someone at Bell Canada. He was wonderful and had the customer service spirit so often missing in call centres.
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