Monday, December 14, 2009

Holiday Communications

 I am humbled and grateful to all of you for your consistent praise, support, interest, and requests for more. Even so, I have my own Holiday list things to do, so the next newsletter will be in the New Year. Pathfinder had a terriffic year and we are starting off January 2010 with a class starting on the 22nd (info here) and will be conducting corporate classes throughout 2010. Seems to grow faster than I can keep up. I will likely have a set of one-day workshops formulated that will be open to the public in the late spring. More on that next year. For now, I just want to express my gratitude. I am delighted that I can help so many achieve fantastic results by using these methods.

I have had the privelege of meeting many of you face-to-face over the years and am wishing ALL of you Happy Holidays. Be safe, enjoy your families, and think about a few things you'd are eager to improve in next year.


The holidays bring a number of face-to-face communication challenges for a lot of reasons. I think they are probably a little different for each of us, but still most of the people I know find them a little challenging. I’d like to think that those of you that take the time to read my articles, whether newspaper or online, have a leg up on others when it comes to better holiday communications.

I want you to think of just 2 elements of THE SCORE (our model for better relationships):

Empathy – Remember that when you are speaking to others during the holidays, that their side of the story is important. Remember that if you are going to share an understanding, YOU should start the sharing and you should start by listening to their story and taking the time and effort to understand it. Avoid jumping to conclusions, assuming facts that you really don’t know. Instead….listen and ask questions. Open questions that allow the other person to answer, not questions that lead them. Remember your purpose in this communication is to just to hear their side – that is all.

Respect – Be respectful of them. Remember that your judgments are yours whether or not you share them. It isn’t often constructive for you to try to change someone’s central belief system over a football game or dinner, no matter how well-intentioned you are.

As you show respect and empathy, you will find yourself learning things you didn’t know. Then you will know that the communication was successful.


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