“Eat your peas” and Conflict Resolution
<436 words> I was recently asked about my background in conflict management/resolution, and specifically, how many years’ experience I have in the field. I help people with all sorts of conflict – The inner conflict you have when you should have stood your ground but didn’t, which you still regret after all these years; […]
Get Beyond the Bad of Stress. But you Must Want To.
<654 words and 2 links> Stress is a natural part of life. In limited doses it is good for you – for your brain and for your body. When your brain grabs hold of some old unresolved quarrel, though, and it simply won’t let go, you can end up in a chronic state of stress which […]
What does resilience really look like, anyway?
<1457 words – yes, this is a long one but it contains an interesting story and some pictures :-)> And, I’ve added a link at the bottom of this blog to a very informative article on resilience that appeared in the New Yorker in Feb 2016. More on the science of…. Do any of these words […]
The Ongoing Debate about whether The Glass is Half-full or Half-empty
In preparation for my previous blog (YOU DO NOT HAVE TO FIRE NEGATIVE FRIENDS) I looked around on the Internet for quotes. I landed on one of my favourite sites www.businessballs.com where they listed an entertaining elaboration on the theme of whether a glass is half full or half empty. I enjoyed them so much that […]
You Do Not Have to Fire Negative Friends
868 words When you Google ‘negative friends’ it virtually immediately offers up the highest performing results of the 340,000,000 out there. Of the ones I examined, most offered survival advice – how to cope with or avoid the negative person, and if all else fails, how to dump them and find a new friend. In my […]
Syrian Refugees: Who Helps the Helpers?
<1160 words> The harsh truth about helping Canada’s Syrian refugees is with us now. The state of their kids’ teeth, our inability to communicate in Arabic, and all that. I’m sure there are many misunderstandings that have the potential to gnaw at the goodwill cloud that swept the Canadian nation when first our new PM […]
Response to Fear: Fascism or Openness?
<932 words> I read Kathy Jourdain’s new blog this morning on her blog page and ended up writing such a long response that it turned into the blog below. She starts out with: “Be afraid. Be very afraid. But not for the reasons you might think. We are living in precipitous times. We are in danger […]
The Elephant in the Room
<520 words> I was at a meeting a while back, in a room with a low ceiling, comfortably seating about 8 people around a board room table; plastic water bottles and everything. During the conversation someone mentioned that there was an elephant in the room – with reference to something we all knew and thought […]
What if I were predisposed to being grateful?
There are those who have a predisposition to entitlement. They feel that everything they have is theirs because it is their right to have those things. They typically also feel they’re entitled to things they don’t yet have and will set about causing others to hand over those things, or at least to feel guilty […]
The adversarial nature of dispute resolution procedures
We can monkey around with rearranging words without changing meaning or intent, or we can be serious and reframe our conflict resolution procedures to truly restore trust, respect and engagement. <783 words and a sound clip of 30.26 minutes> Sometimes I have clients who request coaching with me to revisit experiences they’ve had at work. They feel […]