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The Art of the Apology

Dr. Rick Brinkman teaches you how to apologize with the help of his two cats. Watch as he coaches Neelix to apologize to Leela. Learn the one thing you absolutely must NOT do when you apologize or it will not work and in fact will backfire and make things worse.

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Dealing with Relatives Tip of the Day

  Over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting my favorite stories and strategies I've heard for dealing successfully with relatives. Here's the first:

Have a Mantra. There's a couple I know, who before leaving the house for an event, will look each other in the eyes and simultaneously say, “Just visiting.”

When they arrive, but before they ring the bell they look at each other and say, “ Just visiting.“

During the event if things start getting stressful they just give each other the look and silently say to themselves, “Just visiting.”

A pair of adult sisters use with their mother, “She's just making conversation.”  That prevents them from getting caught up or taking too seriously their mother’s wild tangents or illogic. Instead they remind themselves, “She’s just making conversation,”  and that gives them permission to not engage, but just simply change the subject.

What's your mantra?

 

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Email, Will You Go with the Devil or the Angel?

Athena Online, a division of IMS (Institute for Management Studies) has a tremendous library of learning videos by some of the great business experts of our time, including me ;-) I definitely recommend them as a resource. Below is a sample of the quality work they do. It's an introduction to multiple other videos of me explaining when to use email and when to bail and tips for avoiding misunderstandings.

[hana-flv-player video="http://rickbrinkman.com/blog_videos/Devil_Angel.flv" width="480" height="320" description="Athena Online - Dr. Brinkman Devil/Angel of Email" player="2" autoload="true" autoplay="false" loop="false" autorewind="false" /]

In addition IMS which sponsors seminars in 26 cities around the globe is launching "Leveraged Learning", where after the live seminar you have access to multiple resources to solidify your learnings and turn them into action. Definitely check out the Leveraged Learning video here.

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They're Everywhere!!! Generalizations

Mannequins
Mannequins

Human beings have something that I call "The Generalization Point". It seems it only takes two or three experiences before people generalize. If we meet two or three people in a bad mood we say, "Everyone is in a bad mood today." This is what I call the generalization point. You can use the Generalization Point on purpose. Whenever you hear yourself say, “I understand.” Follow it with two to three specific statements of what you actually understand. Anyone can say they “understand” without actually understanding anything.

Let’s say a team member says they are overworked. There’s a big difference between just saying, “I understand.”

Verses saying, “I understand you are overworked because it doesn’t seem the workload was downsized along with the workforce. And the demands from our Customers are increasing. Not to mention the seemingly endless stream of meetings.”

In the second example, because of the three statements you made, you hit the other person’s generalization point and he or she will feel completely understood by you.

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