When people complain about email, I get it. You’re working from home and the barrage of pinging, flashing icons and messages piling up never seems to stop. We hear all kinds of moaning about the volume, lack of clarity, and just plain rudeness in people’s inboxes. Those are all legitimate complaints. But I am old

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Do you find yourself using emojis, GIFs and other electronic symbols in your writing more than you used to? Do you love them or hate them? Have you ever sent an emoji or GIF and it didn’t mean what you thought it meant? (Eggplants mean what?) Like it or not, the way we communicate is

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Today we’re talking about the leaders role in conflict. In last week’s episode, we talked about conflict and when it’s bad and when it’s good. Yep, that’s right. Not all conflict is bad. You can watch the full episode here. In this episode, we are talking about the leader’s role in conflict – the kind of conflict that

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Pick a topic, hobby, or avocation and there is probably a podcast for it. According to Jay Baer and Edison Research, by 2022, 57% of Americans have listened to a podcast. And more than 75% of those who know what a podcast is have listened to one. These numbers are growing every month. In fact,

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By Guy Harris One fairly common question I get from Bud to Boss workshop participants is: How do you deal with a persistently or aggressively negative team member?” While the full answer in a given situation depends on many situation-specific details, there is a thread of common themes that applies to almost all of my

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In this episode, we’re talking about making room for conversation and I’m using a cup metaphor to illustrate some important points. As humans, we all have a mental and emotional cup. And like a cup of tea or a cup of coffee, if it’s completely full, there is no room for anything else. Literally. This cup metaphor

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By Guy Harris About half-way through the second day of a two-day workshop, a frustrated new leader blurted out: “All this talk about how to work with my team is great, but that’s not my problem. My problem is that my boss won’t listen to me. How do I get my boss to listen to

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A few weeks back, we wrote about how showing your pets on Zoom meetings, or at least not hiding them like guilty secrets, can help the team bond and get to know each other. But can it go too far? Here’s the other side of that conversation. Apparently, some people make their pets too central

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Have you been on a Zoom meeting with Bob in Accounting, and it looks like he’s sitting in a luxurious office with a view of Manhattan? He’s not, of course. He’s using a virtual background to hide the fact he’s actually working from the north end of his dining room table. Someone recently asked a question

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