This time of year, I love to watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” where I affirm my admiration for Lucy van Pelt. She’s clever and direct as she operates her children’s psychiatric booth, offering psychoanalysis for a nickel to her anxious friends. This makes her the only friend in Peanuts that other kids open up to.
It’s not easy to get others to want to work with you. In fact, it’s harder than you might think. Plenty of people have to work with you for a variety of reasons — you’re on the same team, they need your support, you’re selling what they need. So they’re going to be cordial, tolerant,
My adolescence thoroughly trained me in the art of hurtful humor. The boys at my school, like everywhere, often reverted to slapstick or funny jabs at the expense of others. Most of us weren’t clever enough to do anything else. You learned to dish it and you learned to take it. Hey John! What do
Think of a recent example of interpersonal conflict in your life that did not go well. If you’re like most people, conflict can often lead to resentment and frustration. After all, it’s only natural to power up or shut down when conflict arises. We see it all the time in society. And, it’s in our
If you ever thought your job would be a whole lot easier if you didn’t have to deal with people, imagine what it’s like to be the principal of a middle school. Talk about having to deal with people: First you have the teachers — young and old, science and band, engaged and checked out.
At various times this week, I felt dismissed, ignored, unappreciated, and criticized. None were dramatic events, just hurtful. And it was like any week: the normal reality of living, working, and relating with other human beings. Get too close, and we hurt each other. This week, though, something was different: I was more aware of
Over the holiday weekend, I got to connect with my dad, who spent his entire career speaking and coaching adults to develop more effective relationships using the Dale Carnegie concepts and methods. We talked about my dad’s belief that we all have levels of relationship “capital” in invisible bank accounts that exist between people. Our
My friend and I were out for a run. Our conversation along the way began as an information exchange, talking to each other about what we’d done that week. And then it pivoted to his marriage. “It’s not going well,” he told me. “We’ve been fighting a lot.” At that point, my listening changed. I
You can treat everyone well. But you can’t invest equal time in every relationship. The reality is that time and energy are limited. And that can lead you to have surface relationships with everyone. But your limits can also become the impetus for you to get really clear about who and what you’ll focus on.
I’ll never forget feeling like an utter failure in my second real job. Since I had excelled in technology and process in my first real job, I thought this new role — which involved managing the development of a customer-facing website — would play to my strengths. But the job turned out to be much
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE