By learning how to skillfully solicit, receive, and offer feedback, we equip ourselves with important tools for creating a balanced and effective workplace.

Regularly asking for advice fosters a socially and emotionally intelligent work atmosphere. And respectfully offering suggestions to others can build trust and collegiality.

The Win-Win Approach involves working together towards finding a solution that result in mutual satisfaction.

Negotiation is about finding an agreeable solution to a problem, not an excuse to undermine others, therefore, to avoid negotiation breaking down into argument, it is helpful to consciously separate the issues under dispute from the people involved.

The following are examples of statements that might be used by a good negotiator:

• “You’ve expressed your points very clearly and I can now appreciate your position. However...”

• “It’s clear that you are very concerned about this issue, as I am myself. Yet from my viewpoint...”

« A little effort of preparation avoids a great effort of repair. »

Michaël Aguilar

Be careful in how you communicate your expertise; you don't want others to see you as arrogant or as a know-it-all. Stay humble about your accomplishments, and develop your emotional intelligence, so that you can communicate in a sensitive way and be truly appreciated (and not only needed) by your team members.

We may be getting the job done but too often we go home feeling demoralized and frustrated.

In order to reduce work-related stress we need to promote accomplishments and emotional well-being at work. Not one or the other.

When human hearts are aligned with work, success becomes a challenge and a joy … and the best place to start is to work with the conflicts that arise in your own relationships at work.

Choosing in the face of complexity and uncertainty requires mental acuity. Having the simple ability to confidently choose one course of action while abandoning others is a great predictor of success.

Sometimes sticking with something is a recipe for failure, while quitting is winning!

« For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,

For the want of a horse the rider was lost,

For the want of a rider the battle was lost,

For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,

And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail ».

-Benjamin Franklin

A broad array of psychologists, educators, and neuroscientists would like us to start recognizing creativity (defined as the production of something novel and appropriate) as basic to human development and crucial to psychological health.

Mark Runco, PhD has found that for many people the ability to imagine potential obstacles to a goal and generate a range of solutions (hallmarks of creative intelligence) predicts both overall well-being and more satisfying relationships. Inflexible thinking, on the other hand, is associated with depression.

One of the classic personal motivation techniques consists in waiting to the last minute, on the last day, and to create a dramatic situation. When we work under pressure, adrenaline is triggered and we successfully come out of the situation as winners.

This approach, even if efficient in the short-term, ends up being corrosive since at a certain point, you will find yourself in an environment where everything is urgent – you are constantly putting out fires and managing crises. You’re creating your own emergency room, where the drama is self-fulfilling. You’re crying wolf with yourself.

Try this five steps approach:

1. Examine your attitude - Start with the assumption that your coworker actually does care about doing a good job but that he’s as busy as you are.  It is possible that he actually doesn’t care, but that assumption serves no purpose other than to frustrate you.

2. Make sure that your coworker understands why it is important - “We have a sensitive situation to deal with on Friday with customer ABC, and one of the critical pieces is XYZ.  Could you please send me the information on it?”

3. Acknowledging how busy he is - “I know how busy you are…”  Empathy is a relationship builder.

4. Help him help you - “This information is critical to the resolution of the situation.  If there’s anything I can do to help you get me the information by Wednesday, please let me know.”

5. Express appreciation and make it personal - “Thanks in advance Michael, I really appreciate your help on this!”

« Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. »

Zig Ziglar

It is estimated that an adult makes approximately 35,000 decisions a day. That doesn’t leave much headspace for the rest of our day-to-day existence.

Cut out all the decisions that create white noise in your head and you might be struck by how free, clear-headed and determined you feel.

Sometimes we confuse self-confidence with:

● Loudness

● Brusqueness

● A resistance to change

● An unwillingness to compromise

● Stubbornness

● Fast talking

● Manipulating

● ... and Arrogance

None of these characteristics are actually signs of self-confidence. In fact, they are symptoms of an excess or a lack of self-confidence.

Individuals and organizations all have a chance to choose between a wholesome self-confidence, arrogance or insecurity. Because it is a choice, isn't it?

Work can be messy, unruly and chaotic. Negative emotions can transform simple problems into threats; challenges into ordeals. But most situations do not require panic, crisis or unneeded resistance. 

What may appear to be a difficult situation at work may be an invitation to people’s creativity to reshape challenges, redefine goals, rethink roadblocks, and generally place problems in constructive frames.

Learn to be graciously curious about workplace conflict rather than offended by it and set the tone for future collaborations.

« Nothing is completely wrong, even a broken clock is right twice a day. »

Paulo Coelho

Only people can have ethics. Ethics, as in, doing the right thing even though it might not benefit you or your organization financially.

When we use the terms «business ethics» and «corporate social responsibility» we discharge ourselves of responsibility.

Organizations are made up of people, and when those people take personal responsibility for their behavior, they behave more ethically.

The only way that they can support you is if you speak up. But do not only communicate about problem or challenges … bring them suggestions to solutions.

It’s easy to blame the customer, the colleague or the boss for your behavior. Not only it is easy, but often it is also justifiable. They or the way they treat you are the reason for your mood or your actions.

But justifying your actions is simply handing over your control and reacting to the outside world.

The goal isn’t to justify your behavior; the goal is to be effective, to get the result expected, to meet your objectives.

Is your behavior helping or hindering results?

You get to choose how you act, and choosing what works is far more useful than any justification.

It’s never good to do things at the last minute. You are powered by urgency and adrenaline.  It's loaded with risk and extra expense. 

It is much more proactive to do things the first minute instead. You are powered by logic and insight. A completely different kind of fuel.

« The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. »

John Foster Dulles, Former US Secretary of State

According to Professor Bernard Roth at Stanford, swapping one word for another could make all the difference in how you approach your goals.

The next time you say "I have to" in your mind, change "have" to "want". It’s a very effective exercise in getting people to realize that what they do in their lives — even the things they find unpleasant — are in fact what they have chosen. It allows you to realize that you might really want to do the unwanted chore because the benefit of doing it outweighs the discomfort of doing it.

According to Professor Bernard Roth at Stanford, swapping one word for another could make all the difference in how you approach your goals.

When you use the word "but", you create a conflict (and sometimes a reason) for yourself that does not really exist. In other words, when you use the word "and", your brain gets to consider how it can deal with both parts of the sentence. It's possible to do both — you just need to find a solution.

Your language not only affects how others perceive you; it also has the potential to shape your behavior.

According to Professor Bernard Roth at Stanford swapping one word for another could make all the difference in how you approach your goals.

Here are two of his suggestions:

1. Swap 'but' for 'and'
2. Swap 'have to' for 'want to'

Both of these tweaks are based on a key component of a problem-solving strategy called "design thinking." When you employ this strategy, you try to challenge your automatic thinking and see things as they really are.

And when you experiment with different language, you may realize that a problem isn't as unsolvable as it seems, and that you have more control over your life than you previously believed.

Emotions routinely swirl within us, and they aren’t easily named. It may be useful to stop, examine them,

and try to put them into words. When we label an emotion, it makes it more manageable.

It might not change the emotion, but it does allow us the possibility of choosing our response.

Times New Roman may be your default font, but onscreen its curvy design with tiny tails on the ends of letters, called serifs, may slow word recognition and force you to stare harder and longer, contributing to eye fatigue.

Fonts like Arial and Verdana, which have more space between letters and no serifs, can make words appear crisper and easier to read from farther away, taxing your vision less.

-James Sheedy, PhD,

director of the Vision Performance Institute

Pacific University College of Optometry 

One important advice about earning the respect of the people around you:  

Be patient and be careful. Like a great tree, it can take many years for respect to grow, yet only moments for it to be lost forever.

Whatever our role or function, being the one who, despite having too much work, does everything, worries about all the details, pitches in and therefore doesn’t delegate, unwillingly communicates inability, insecurity and mistrust towards his colleagues.

 Sometimes, we could avoid bending over backwards if only we could delegate some of our tasks and ask for help.

Next time you are faced with a difficult person and have not succeeded in dealing with it effectively – step back and do a post-mortem.

Imagine you are the experienced, successful and wise future version of yourself. From that perspective, examine the situation and write down some words of advice for yourself today:

Next time I am dealing with a similar customer…

* The first steps I you need to take are ….

* The words and the attitudes I need to express are …

* The benefits of doing it differently are …

“I have never learned anything from a man who agreed with me.”

Dudley Field Malone

During a negotiation, it is always preferable to think in advance about our BATNA - or Best Alternative to a Negotiated Argument.

The BATNA becomes our reference guide; it will preserve your peace of mind and will allow you to start the negotiation with ease. This solution will constitute a sort of “alarm signal” by allowing you to avoid agreeing to concessions and to conclude an agreement that you will later regret.