Just ask …

There are countless stories in the workplace of successful products, innovations and business practices. I am certain there are many in your organization right now. Did you ever wonder how that happened? Where they came from? Who caem up with the idea? How did they do it? If you have been around long enough, think back, and if not, ask someone who has been around a while. You might be surprised to learn that most, not all, of the things that make your work life easy or comfortable did not come out of some major think tank or require a massive amount of capital. They came from people who saw barriers to their work life, had ideas and somehow found a way to institutionalize them.

Virtual Behavior

For the past few years I have been following several workplace studies all showing a troubling trend – workplace conflict is on the rise. Many are blaming use of technology, more virtual interactions, more diversity of participants in those interactions in a more connected world, and the shear stress of doing more with less. We have seen the research on how 90% of traditional face-to-face communication is non verbal. Our behavior while communicating has always been just as important as what we are actually saying.