Dianna Booher's Blog, page 23

4 Positive Responses to Negative Feedback—Even When You Disagree

From time to time, most of us will receive some negative feedback either at work or home. You may agree or disagree with it. But often your positive response in the situation will matter far more and for far longer than the feedback itself.

For example, the boss says, “Your monthly status report is late again.”

You respond: “You’re right. I always try to make a few more appointments on Friday than I can realistically handle and then wind up with insufficient time to do the report at the en...

12 Tips on Small Talk for the Holidays

Many professionals dread holiday parties on the horizon. It’s not that they don’t enjoy seeing old friends and family members; it’s the uncomfortable pressure of small talk with people they don’t know well. These tips will help you feel more at ease in those situations.

 

Talking Turkey About Small Talk During the Holidays: 12 Tips

 

1. Ask easy questions at first to relax people.

People have a fear of being sucked into conversations that are over their heads and then left to drown. Toss...

The Best Kept Secret in Handling Emotional Conversations Well

Have you ever awakened at 3:00 a.m., rehashing a conversation from earlier in the day? Why didn’t I think to say X? Or if I had just commented that Bryan’s actions were “unusual” instead of calling them “irrational,” maybe he wouldn’t have exploded and walked out. What if . . . . On and on, the conversation replays with different dialogue and different endings.

If you want to bypass the pitfalls of turning people off to your message—or having them tune out altogether—filter out any phrasin...

The Secret Sauce in Appealing to Someone’s Best Self

My husband will be the first to tell you that he’s not a fixer-up kind of guy. He can change a lightbulb, but if anything else goes wrong around the house, we have to call Denny, our handyman. If Denny can’t do the job, then it’s a plumber, electrician, carpenter, exterminator, roofer, or cable guy to the rescue. (If you’ve heard me write about our beloved handyman Roger before, Roger has retired. Denny is his son.)

But we always get excellent service and good prices—and more after-the-ser...

Do Your Eyes Build Rapport or Destroy Credibility?

The “ayes” have it in meetings. The “eyes” have it in most all other encounters. Eye contact is so powerful in our culture that we summon waitresses or taxi drivers by “catching their eye.” We reprimand a child with a glance. We show love by gazing into our lover’s eyes. We lose sales for lack of eye contact with a prospect.

 

Diverse Messages: The Eyes Either Build Rapport or Destroy Credibility

Locking eyes with another individual can say to the other person that you’re interested in the...

How to Settle a Conflict When You’re Wrong

In a past organization, I routinely interacted with an employee who just couldn’t bring himself to admit being wrong about anything. No matter if we were dealing with misjudgment about how well a new hire might work out, about the likelihood of a potential contract closing, or about accuracy in data entry, his reaction typically fell along these lines:

—It’s not wrong.

—But if it IS wrong, I didn’t do it.

—And if I DID do it, it’s not my fault.

—And if it IS my fault, someone else caused m...

How to Listen Analytically to Persuasive Appeals—And NOT Be Tricked!

Often these days, while listening to pundits and politicians, I feel the urge to flash a warning label across the TV screen:

—Opinion, Not Fact
—Dodging the Question
—Propaganda
—Sweeping Generalization
—Emotional Appeal
—Card-Stacking
—Hidden Agenda

Unfortunately, my remote control doesn’t have that option. So blogging about the importance of listening analytically is my next best thing.

When someone dumps her feelings about a broken love affair, you’ll want to listen reflectively to empa...

11 Ways to Communicate Change Positively

Change usually involves a period of chaos until people struggle through it to success. Even the world’s most powerful software requires a learning curve. Influencing people to take action or to change their mind often includes minimizing the risk of potential pain in a negative outcome.

To minimize that risk, take a few tips from the sales industry. Consider how pricing experts take the “ouch” out of high prices. See which strategies might apply to reducing anxiety when you have to communi...

How Simplicity Helps You Sell Your Ideas, Products, and Services

Have you ever become frustrated searching a company’s website, trying to find an answer to a simple question or a phone number to call for help? Ever spent fifteen minutes sorting through automated phone menus, trying to get to a live person to get a simple problem corrected? You may have become convinced that these organizations were hiding from their customers!

All the while, organizations are actually spending more and more dollars to attract customers.

 

The Link Between Persuading You...

What to Do When Hit With a Negotiation Surprise

Experienced negotiators refer to this surprise tactic as the “bomb scare.” Such surprises happen in sales, salary negotiations, customer projects, and political situations. Consider the two “bomb scares” (one for each side) with the two James Comey announcements before the 2016 elections about re-opening the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and then weeks later the announcement that Clinton was cleared. In dropping these two bomb scares, Comey managed to alienate the leaders of bo...