So much of what I do every day and what I work with clients learning is how to communicate effectively at home, work, and in social situations as well.  I’ve recently put together a new report and special Bonus gift (both at no charge to whomever is interested) that brings together what I’ve found to be the keys to communicating clearly, calmly, and professionally, even under difficult circumstances. Whether you are talking to your spouse, boss, co-worker, or your child, you need to get your message across to them. The key here is that you need to be heard, but just as important, you need to hear.

How you communicate has a direct impact on your career, your family life and your relationships. In fact there is nothing in human relations that you do more than communicate.

It’s about connection. We have a need to feel understood by others. We have a need to communicate our hopes, dreams, ideas, desires and needs when necessary. We have a need to be heard, and so does the person you are talking with. Once you understand this, you will start to connect with that person.

People who know how to connect are known as powerful communicators. They are successful.

If you want to learn how to communicate successfully and really connect with others, sign up for my new special report:  How to Communicate With Power and Influence.

This article explains in detail:

• What is 5 times more effective in getting your message across than the words you are speaking.
• What will make the hearer disbelieve you, even if you are telling the truth!
• What makes up 55% of the message your listener receives, and it has nothing to do with the words you choose.
• What role your voice plays in communicating.
• How to control your voice to become a powerful communicator.

That is the first half. The second half goes into what makes people seem charming, polite and unforgettable.

In it you will learn:

• Why you will be more effective in your communication if you talk less.
• Techniques to avoid misunderstanding and make the other person feel that you really understand them.
• Clues to look for while you are listening to see how they really feel.
• How to actively listen and still get your message across!

Once you learn the techniques and the knowledge of communication in this article, you will have a clear understanding of what you can do to become a champion communicator!

No matter what your background, your educational experience or what you do in life, if you learn to communicate with power and influence, you will be on the way to greater success.

Anyone can learn these skills, and you can learn them at no charge!

Click here if you’d like to get this report for free, and also get a free bonus.

I hope the material offered in the report and the bonus gift are as useful for you as they are for me and my clients.

Remember, when you’re an effective communicator, you are a more effective professional, partner, and parent.

This morning I’m sitting in the airport preparing for a Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) Personnel Development workshop for Deans. I’ve been really looking forward to this chance to get together with old and new colleagues to discuss, struggle with, and hopefully find some possible strategies foe dealing with several increasingly thorny faculty development, retention, and engagement issues. The folks running the workshop asked us to put forward a couple of case studies we wanted used as discussion points for the 2 day meeting, with the goal of increasing the likelihood that each of us participating could come away with more than the realization that others are facing similar problems, but rather with some action steps to try to move things forward.

Needless to say, I thought of way more than 2 case studies, but only submitted 2, that are currently near and dear to my heart from both a faculty development standpoint, but also from an organizational management and faculty engagement standpoint, especially for our non-tenure-track faculty. Curious to see what others think about these:

CASE #1: PROFESSOR DEADWOOD WAS AN ACTIVE, ENGAGED SCHOLAR WHEN SHE WAS A JUNIOR FACULTY MEMBER, BUT SINCE RECEIVING TENURE AND BEING PROMOTED TO FULL PROFESSOR SEVERAL YEARS AGO, SHE SIMPLY SAYS “NO” WHEN ASKED TO STEP UP AND SERVE HER DEPARTMENT, COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSITY. DISCUSSIONS WITH HER DEPARTMENT CHAIR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR GOODFRIEND, ABOUT DINGING PROFESSOR DEADWOOD IN HER MERIT REVIEWS HAVE BEEN FRUITLESS, AS CHAIR GOODFRIEND DOES “NOT WANT TO MAKE WAVES” IN THE DEPARTMENT, AND SO SHE CONTINUES TO GIVE PROFESSOR DEADWOOD VERY HIGH ANNUAL REVIEWS DESPITE HER COMPLETE DISENGAGEMENT. THE DEAN’S OFFICE IS CONSIDERING INCLUDING THE DEGREE TO WHICH CHAIRS USE THE ANNUAL MERIT PROCESS TO “MOTIVATE” SENIOR FACULTY TO TAKE ON THE SERVICE LOAD THAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM, BUT IS CONCERNED THAT SUCH A POLICY WILL BE SEEN AS MICROMANAGEMENT.

CASE #2: THE NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY ON OUR CAMPUS ARE SEEKING A SERIES OF TITLES THAT WILL BETTER REFLECT THEIR ACTIVITIES AND WILL HAVE RANK ASSOCIATED WITH THEM. FOR EXAMPLE, CURRENTLY OUR COLLEGE HAS INSTRUCTORS AND SENIOR INSTRUCTORS (ALL ONE-YEAR CONTRACTS), WHO CONTRACTUALLY DO TEACHING, AND ARE NOT REQUIRED OR ENCOURAGED TO DO RESEARCH OR SERVICE. THE REQUESTED NEW TITLES WOULD INCLUDE “ASSISTANT, ASSOCIATE, AND FULL” RANKS AND REVIEW OF RESEARCH, TEACHING AND SERVICE, BUT STILL WOULD BE ATTACHED TO ONE-YEAR CONTRACTS AND PROMOTION WOULD NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH A PAY RAISE. THE CONCERN IS THAT IN THE PAST, OUR COLLEGE HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY SUED BY NON-TENURE-TRACK FACULTY WHO CLAIMED, THAT ALTHOUGH THEIR CONTRACTS DID NOT REQUIRE THEM TO DO RESEARCH AND SERVICE, THE FACT THAT THEY CHOSE TO DO THAT SHOULD MAKE THEM ELIGIBLE FOR TENURE. ALTHOUGH THE COLLEGE VALUES IT’S NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY A GREAT DEAL, THE LEGAL ISSUES SURROUNDING THE CURRENT DISCUSSION ARE WORRISOME.

These struggles are major ones in academia, where title and rank are not necessarily accompanied by large monetary support, and where there is essentially no accountability for poor behavior or lack of partiticipation once a faculty member is tenured. Moreover, mid-level administration is constrained, largely, by its upper levels (here is a place where business and academia come together), and even innovative ideas that may be useful in engaging faculty and other colleagues that are not tied to money, but rather, have prestige or recognition of seniority associated with them, require extensive vetting, legal consideration, and sometimes, end up being analyzed away through committees, budget analysis, and compliance audits.

Having said all that cynical stuff, I am still excited about this conference, because for me, half the fun of my job is trying to find solutions to problems like these that *will* work and will not get us into hot water (warm water, fine, but not hot water). Flexibility in thinking and possibility-driven discussions have to happen, even if 90% of them don’t result in something workable. I hope to come home with some flesh for the bones of the ideas I have and some insight from others dealing with situations like those I describe above. Sooner or later, we have to find solutions to these problems, even if they are small steps that start to shift seemingly intractable problems.

Hope springs eternal!!

Well, the lab saga has ended. The Love and Logic bit did work, and the subject in question opted for the consequence of poor behavior and poor choice rather than taking responsibility for the conflict that was tearing the project apart. It started out innocently enough; I had a series of conversations with the subject, indicating that for her to continue working in the lab, that she was going to have to have a direct conversation with the person she was having problems with and find a solution to the communication problems she felt were compromising her ability to work. I offered to be there for the conversation as a facilitator, but that I would not “fix” the problem; I hired the subject and her colleague (“nemesis”, for the purposes of this post) with whom she had the conflict as professionals, and expected them to behave that way. The subject was really angry with me, and when we ended our discussion, I anticipated her resignation, with came within hours, and was, in fact, a relief. When you realize you have someone on a team who is not willing to step up and take responsibility for something that is a problem for them or have a tough conversation with someone else, it is best for that individual to leave- managing them and limiting the damage they cause is a huge undertaking.

In any event, she tendered her resignation, and I accepted it. I had told her in our conversations, and reiterated in my response to her, that I wished her luck, and that although her resignation would limit the scope of the things upon which I could reccomend her (i.e. Not much good to say on the “works well with others” questions), I would be glad to support her for other endavors based on her technical skill, which is considerable, and her intellectual capacity. In the bak of my mind, I knew there was another shoe waiting to drop…

So, I informed the rest of the lab and the study staff that the subject had resigned for personal reasons and invited everyone to express their appreciation for her hard work. This email generated a contact from nemesis to the subject, which was actually gracious and professional.

The subject, of course, fired of perhaps the most poisonous, immature and unprofessional email I have ever seen at nemesis, spewing all sorts of venom and personal insults. It was not to believed. I know the content because the subject had the incredibly poor judgment to copy me and, in fact, to include me in her rant and blame me for her departure from the lab and for her own problems with communication. The email belied a level of poor judgement and immaturity that was really shocking to me; I know we have all sent things in anger, but I think we’ve all learned the lesson that once you hit “send”, there’s no taking it back.

Needless to say, the letter of recommendation offer has been quietly recinded, and the next day, the subject was releived of her keys, her credentials, and issued her last paycheck. I’ve regrouped with my remaining team, and the lessons learned by all of us are notable.

Science is hard enough to do without letting emotions, pride, and unspoken misunderstandings ruin an otherwise great opportuntiy.  I only hope that the lesson that should have been learned for this mess by the subject, never email when emotional, was taken to heart.

Professional communication is at the core of all effective teams, whether in the boardroom, on the playing field, or in the lab, right?  It’s a nice idea, but as I mentioned in my last post, the “in the lab” part is a challenge for my research team at the moment, and the fun continues! 

Featured this week:  “Emails of Mass Destruction” as a dear colleague of mine calls them.  We’ve all read them.  Perhaps we’ve written them?  Hopefully, we’ve written them and then had the good sense not to send them.  That latter part is harder for more inexperienced lab members, students, and, for that matter, faculty, who have yet to experience the sad but undeniable truth that one NEVER knows where an email will end up.  Sigh.

So.  In my last post I mentioned the ongoing saga of the very bright, hard-working, and somewhat communication-challenged groups of young women in my lab right now.  All seemed to be well to me, the PI (I’m always the last to know) until I received a forwarded email from an unpaid student intern who has been volunteering in the lab for the summer.  The story I got from her was that she was very happy, busy, and enjoying the work my lab director was giving her.  You can probably see where this is going, but please humor me…

The email this student sent to my lad director was absolutely not to be believed in its venom, entitlement, arrogance, and rudeness.  The student took it upon herself in the email to malign virtually every member of our research team and our collaborators, and repeatedly stated how she felt she was being taken advantage of and that she was essentially, far too professional and experienced for our lab, which she had concluded was “ridiculous”.  My lab director forwarded the email to me.

I terminated the student.

I also used the opportunity, given that she is young and inexperienced, to point out the massive damage an email sent in the heat of passion can do, and to mentor her and help her to leave the lab with a lesson under her belt along with the techniques she’s learned.  We had a good exchange about the incredible inappropriateness of her communication and about the risks of email.  I agreed to write her a letter of recommendation for graduate school based on her technical abilities in the lab;  not her ability to work well with others.  She has worked hard, and deserves some reward for all her hard work-  I cannot in good conscience send her away with no recognition for that, but I cannot reinforce her for her incredibly unprofessional behavior.  Hopefully, someday, she will put this experience into practice and will be able to add in the “professional behavior” part-  she is young and bright, and I really think she wiIl eventually get this right.  however…

Although I really hate to can a student, after as many years as I’ve been at this, I’ve learned that when someone treats colleagues in the lab with the contempt and disrespect, apologies do not matter.  The fallout and mass destruction of trust and collegiality that results from an email like this renders the sender a pariah, which, in my experience, has resulted in lack of communication that costs my projects supply money, time, samples, and costs me some of what is left in my admittedly pretty deep well of patience.  Frankly, we have a job to do, and I cannot afford to have me or my lab personnel spend any more time dorking around with communication stuff like this;  I have a renewal coming up and we have a lot of work to do.  The departing student did make some notable contributions to the lab this summer, and I will make sure I recognize her for that, but, as we say in Oklahoma (my home state), “That’s the way the cow eats the cabbage”, and thus, it’s time to belly back up to the bench and crank out some good data.  

I happily lift my canted-neck flask to toast thoughtfully, carefully, flame-less emails-  here’s mud in your eye (or mailbox?)….