They Don’t Get It, Do They? Free on Kindle for subscribers

Posted on July 3, 2015 by admin

I was reading an article yesterday about the overuse by women of the word “just” and how this weakens their credibility and perceptions about their leadership ability.  The article by former Google executive, Ellen Leanse, calls for a heightening of awareness by women of their reliance on “just” and the tendency to do so significantly more than men.

While the word “just” can also be used to emphasize or insist — as in “Just do it!”– it is more typically used by women as a word to avoid sounding too assertive.  We learn to do this with many words.  Even adding “I think” to the beginning of a sentence rather than simply stating what we think can reduce the impact of and conviction about important ideas.

I’ve written about disclaimers and aligning actions that women use when speaking in They Don’t Get It, Do They? which was recently rereleased on Kindle.  It’s now available for free to Amazon subscribers and only $2.99 otherwise.  If you or someone you know could benefit from noticing how language lowers women’s chances of gaining respect and obtaining deserved promotions, the link is here.

“Just saying!”

Actually, “Just kidding!”

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Are You a Seeker of Wisdom?

Posted on June 4, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

The blog I posted today at Big Think emerged from my own thinking about the difference between information and wisdom. Perhaps it’s because I have a birthday on the horizon. Birthdays are a good time to assess what’s been learned.  — or not learned.   Also, I’ve offered advice lately to my young adult children to find those efforts accepted with enthusiasm at some points in time and rejected as lacking relevance to their modern lives at other times.  My husband and I have discussed how much “wisdom” to share with our children, as there is a time and place for everything.  These and other events had me thinking about how some of us are seekers of wisdom while others are avoiders and these two different paths lead to very different outcomes.

Are you a seeker of wisdom?  Are you interested in stories of struggles people face and how they deal with them?  Do you observe how some people are able to take what they learn and transform this knowledge into guidelines for life?  Are you fascinated by the perceptiveness people show when they essentially “read between the lines,” seeing what is really going on rather than taking what is said or done at face value? Have you tried to develop this skill?

Another way to assess our inclination to seek or avoid wisdom is to think of those people who have significantly influenced our lives.  Quite often wisdom is passed from one person to another in the form of stories.  Some cultures are more inclined than others to share stories.  Given all the technological forms of information input we have now, with young people especially prone to use these forms, it’s hard not to wonder whether wisdom, especially in story form, is being given short shrift.  If so, there will be a lot more learning the hard way — as without wisdom that’s the only way.

 

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Lining Up The Ducks in Persuasion

Posted on May 17, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

As the candidates for the next U.S. presidential election continue to enter the race, the challenge before them is similar one that most of us face everyday at work, persuading children, volunteering, and dealing with family issues.  When we’re trying to “put our best foot forward,” we need to know what that means in terms of persuasion.

Each year that I’ve taught persuasion and negotiation classes and ones on politics as well, early on we’ve discussed what constitutes a powerful claim, as opposed to peripheral ones. Often people approach persuading others by dumping their best or favorite arguments.  The-more-the-merrier approach to persuasion is usually ineffective.  It’s important to assess which claims are likely to get and hold the attention of others.  Too many claims result in what I’ve written about in my books as “claim clutter.” The most influential people are skilled at selecting effective primary claims from among the claims and data they have to support their arguments.

In a blog posted this week, I explain one way to do this.  It’s not all that’s required to set up persuasive arguments, but it’s a strong start.  You’ve probably heard the phrase “lining up the ducks.”  With persuasion, the ducks are claims used to support  a position.  To the extent that you’re proficient at this, you substantially increase the likelihood of being influential.

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Meanness — Weeds in the Gardens of our Minds

Posted on May 9, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

Seems strangely coincidental but for me meanness is a subject that has come up in conversations this past week.  Maybe I was more alert to it.  Or maybe a lot of us are getting tired of it — sick of it.

It would be ridiculous to think that people could suddenly become more conscious of the pain they cause others, more determined to alter that — to take responsibility for spreading a little light instead of flailing about angrily in the dark, hitting the innocent as well as the guilty.  None of us is perfect, after all.  If we could remember that, it might move us all a bit closer to a less mean environment.  When there is no need for defensiveness, for getting back at another person, meanness diminishes.

All the more reason, as I wrote about in a blog this week, for learning ways to deal with it when it comes your way — tactics to disarm the angry and allow us to go on with our days lighter, not burdened by the heaviness of viciousness and gratuitous gossip.  The blog has gotten some traction, over four hundred shares and nearly 500 ‘likes’ since yesterday. Perhaps there are hundreds of thousands of us ready for meanness to vacate the premises.

Gossip, mean or not,  is normal, according to anthropologist Margaret Mead.  It happens in all societies.  Some of it is simply informative.  Other forms help us feel better about ourselves by comparison to the person being maligned.  Then there is  the intentionally mean kind.  Clearly, just because something is prevalent doesn’t make it a good thing.  It likely means, however, that eradicating it entirely is too much to ask.  Even so, it can be monitored, whether as a group, a village, a society or simply in our own day-to-day conversations.

Often people of a certain age conclude, “I’m too old for that crap.”  And there is much to be said for getting to the point where meanness, and even unintended slights, roll off more than they did in our youth.  But if you dig a bit deeper, often the pain of past insults, dismissals, and exclusions is still there.

In the blog, there are some ways to respond to meanness when it can’t be avoided.  The beauty of learning how to manage meanness is twofold (at least):  (1) You can stop the pain because you recognize that meanness often tells you more about the source than the target, and (2) meanness is, like other modes of communication, in the eye of the beholder and thus within your power to reject.

There are a host of phrases that help to keep meanness out of your own mind and heart.  “That’s interesting,” “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” “You don’t say,” “My goodness,” “Ah, we’ve all been there,” “Not sure what I’d do with that information,” and “Our turn comes around, though, doesn’t it?” are just a few.

All forms of communication are manageable.  They don’t have to happen to us.  In fact, they often happen with us  — with our permission.  We are at least 75% responsible for how people treat us.  If you let someone treat you like a rug, he and others will.

This doesn’t mean we should go around looking for insults, as often what seems like one is accidental offense — something said too quickly or at a bad time.  It does mean that we’re part of the good and bad in conversation that comes our way.  When we don’t abdicate our responsibility to protect ourselves and others from meanness, life is better.  None of us is immune.  But we’re all able to minimize what makes us miserable by learning what to say when it comes our way and to prevent the professional gossipers from using us as conduits of the venom that eventually robs us of joy.

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What Happened to Fairness?

Posted on April 30, 2015 by admin

That’s the topic of my blog at Big Think today.  I’ve been studying persuasion since before my career began.  I can say with confidence that the effectiveness of persuasion strategies depends upon timing and context.  The focus today is on fairness.

I wrote this blog because I’ve seen so many people, particularly women, support positions taken at work with an appeal to fairness.  While I’m a big believer in the principle, it carries little weight in so many businesses.  Fairness is one of those things that is considered nice to have, but business, we’ve been convinced, is about profits.  Unfair events are bound to happen.  They are, supposedly, nothing personal.

So, do we give up on fairness?  That’s what this blog is about.  There is a way to argue for fairness without using the term — ways to substitute characteristics and principles more appreciated at this moment in time.

The next time you think of arguing for fairness, consider whether the people to whom you’re speaking consider it a priority.  If not, it’s time for another approach.  Fortunately, that doesn’t mean abandoning fairness, only, as described in the blog, introducing it in a more desirable light.  If you do this well, they won’t even see you coming!

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“Shadow Campus” Book Club Dinner in Schull, West Cork Ireland — Great Craic!

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

What a wonderful experience last night sharing the origins and future of Shadow Campus characters at a book club in Schull, Ireland – my very first in Ireland! I didn’t really know what to expect. All I can say is that it was far more than my fondest hopes. What fun!

Annemarie, who has been a friend for many years, invited me to the book club. She read Shadow Campus recently and shared it with the club.

I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much, learned so much about my own characters and been so encouraged to finish the sequel. One of the things I love about West Cork is the inevitability of events inspired by extraordinarily talented people. The music, drama, festivals, art and comedy events, to name a few, seemingly emerge from nowhere, transport you, and stay in your heart and mind forever.

The book club meeting with Annemarie, Aileen, Amanda, Collette, Fionnuala, and Leah was one such event. The book came alive, as Collette said. We talked of Shamus, Meg, Dr. Michaels, Denise and other characters as if we know them – and indeed we do. Interesting, though, we all saw Shamus somewhat differently. I think it’s not a stretch to say that we all rather love the guy. He is definitely a diamond-in-the-rough who matures and grows. He loves to the best of his ability; he cares beyond his realization. There is a tenderness and toughness about him and, while male readers like and identify with him, especially as an emerging detective, female readers often love him. He was treated very well again last night.

Below are some of the questions that arose and my best recollection of how we answered them. That’s one of the most enjoyable aspects of being an author. Your characters are accessible. They can be who the readers want them to be. You get to learn so much more about them. By the end of the evening, Shamus, Meg, Dr. Michaels, Denise, Rashid, and the other characters could have walked into the room and we would have recognized them instantly. They would have gotten a marvelous reception. We might have asked Meg why she got pregnant? Who is the father – really? Shamus would have received some very probing questions and a few dinner invitations. Dr. Michaels wouldn’t have been lonely.

In fact, Dr Michaels emerged in our discussions last night as handsome, romantic and even husband material! That’s a first. He’s complex and sometimes arrogant, but he received higher attraction ratings than Shamus from some around the table. No names mentioned here, ladies. You know who you are!

It was great craic, as we say in Ireland. Without giving too much away to those who haven’t yet read Shadow Campus, here are some of our discussions and discoveries:

Was Shadow Campus written in the U.S. or Ireland? The answer is both. It was started in Palos Verdes, California where I was teaching at the University of Southern California and was developed and completed in Ireland. That is one of the beauties of West Cork. Creativity is everywhere and it’s contagious.

How long did it take to write Shadow Campus?  Now, that’s a tough question because between being a professor, writing articles and books about communication and politics at work, like The Secret Handshake and It’s All Politics, raising three children, the manuscript for SC rarely came out of my desk over the past years except during the summers.  I’ve also dealt with some medical issues. It was, however, often on my mind.

The “bones” of the entire story was written in a very intense one-week semester break. I just had to get up around 5 a.m. and begin to write this story.  It flowed.  I’d awaken, get the kids off to school, and write, write, write.  That was the beginning of Shadow Campus.  Then it took about 5 summers to finish the book and a final push. Chris, my husband and editor, was always encouraging and his skills invaluable.

How did you feel when you finished and knew it would be published?  Usually with nonfiction books, and I’ve published many of those, you’re so busy getting them ready and accurate that you initially just want to drop when the work is done. But, for a first novel, especially, publication was immediately exciting.  I remember one night before going to sleep I was alone thinking, “It’s really going to be published now.”  Shamus, Meg, Rashid, and the others who had lived in my brain would now belong to everyone who reads Shadow Campus.  I wondered for a brief moment if they and I were ready.  But fortunately that passed quickly.  It’s a little like having children; you’re never truly ready.

How did your children respond to the publication of Shadow Campus? Fionnuala asked this. She knows my three children, as most of the book club members do. I was pleased to be able to report that when it was published each of the “kids” was joyful – really happy for mom. They were kind of proud too. I’ll remember those three conversations. They meant a lot.

Did you purposely not include a lot of detail about how your characters look? Amanda, also a professor and aware of the challenges women face in academia, explored this. I’d never been asked this question. It’s a good one. Recalling that I’m a first-time novelist, I made some choices about pace as well as detail. Pulitzer prize winning writer, Laura Sessions Stepp, said of Shadow Campus, “I was hooked from the beginning.” I wanted to retain that page-turning element. Irish author, Deirdre Purcell, also read early chapters and loved the pace and intensity of the plot.

Some authors describe their characters in detail – often quite beautifully. My field of study is communication. I wanted Shamus, in particular, but also Meg and others, to be sufficiently described to enable the reader creative license.

There are sprinklings of description throughout the book, but mostly what the characters say and do allows the reader to see them through their own eyes. It leads to some wonderful discussions about how they look. There are many versions of Shamus out there!

What did Roddy Doyle say to you at the Bantry Writer’s Festival?

In the acknowledgments of Shadow Campus, I mentioned renowned Irish author, Roddy Doyle. Some years ago, I attended a session he taught in Bantry, West Cork. Toward the end, people shared ideas for stories. I followed suit. When I finished, he said to me, “You have to write that book.” I told him my nonfiction agent was not convinced. Doyle said, “He’s wrong!” He told me to never give up on the story – and I didn’t.

Last night I promised to mail a copy to Roddy Doyle.  Since Collette and her husband, Tom, run the post office here, I’ll have to make good on that one!

What will happen to Denise and Shamus? Will they get together in the next book? There is considerable pressure on me to get these two together. Aileen insisted last night, with great humor, that Meg and Dr. Michaels do the same. What to do? What to do? I am still deciding. I didn’t take love relationships very far in SC. Nothing was finalized. I guess we’ll all have to see what happens in the sequel.

Amanda, for example, thinks Denise may be too smart or intellectual for Shamus. She’s not convinced it could work. They’re also both unwilling to sacrifice or diminish their careers. They’re separated by 3,000 miles. It’s a tough one.

Dr. Michaels, it was mentioned, may be too old for Meg. Some protest ensued after that was mentioned. He’s in his fifties. She is now in her early thirties. We shall see.

Should a more “professional” cover be used with the sequel? I raised this question. Leah was persuasive here. She really likes the cover that was derived from one of my oil paintings. Chris did the graphics. When you’re close to a book, it’s difficult to be objective about such things. The consensus seemed to be that the cover was right for the novel. I’ve read several articles about the importance of covers that grab attention – ones that compete with the bestsellers out there. And yet, I don’t want to fall for something flashy. The decision will need to be made soon, as the sequel to SC is nearly finished.

There were many other discussions and much laugher. I learned a great deal about the characters and leaked a few details about the upcoming sequel.

Writing is hard work and, at its best, a dialogue with readers. Last night was very special.

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Chemistry: Often More Persuasive Than Logic

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

The blog I posted at Big Think today is about human chemistry.  We’ve all heard about it and mostly associate it with romantic relationships.  But chemistry — that sense of attraction, intrigue or interest felt in the presence of another person — is critical to many types of relationships.  Audrey Hepburn purportedly said that it’s necessary to be “a little bit in love with your leading man and vice versa.”  She added, “If you’re going to portray love, you have to feel it.”

At work, when negotiating or persuading, it’s easy to underestimate the importance of establishing a sense of chemistry or rapport.  But if you’re going to influence people, you need to take an interest in them.  Taking an interest in another person is one of the most effective forms of influence.  The primary reason is that such interest in another person and attention to what they have to say is rare.  When something is rare, it is often valuable.

There’s a difference between romantic chemistry and the kind that makes collaboration possible.  The similarity is that in both cases the people involved feel that what each other has to say is important, intriguing or even fascinating.

How do you establish such chemistry at work?  There is an element of mystery to it.  Otherwise, we’d all be interested in and attracted to the same people.  One thing we can manage that does contribute to chemistry is the level of attention and involvement we show when speaking with others.  Checking our phones constantly cannot be good for chemistry.  I sometimes wonder how people unable to stay away from their phones are able to foster effective relationships at work or home.

Why not conduct a chemistry experiment?  Tomorrow, take just a little more interest in what someone has to say. Turn off your phone.  Find a little more that you have in common.  Share a moment of humor or a few stories.  Take an interest in that person’s interests for even a few more minutes.  Don’t overdo it.  Then see if the gift is reciprocated.  It may seem a bit manipulative at first, but honest interest in others is easy to generate if you truly listen, and especially when you begin to see the positive effects.

I started The Secret Handshake by mentioning in the introduction that people who are truly effective leaders and influential in whatever they do are usually the ones who make other people feel good about being around them.  That’s a form of chemistry and it’s within your grasp — especially since so many people neglect to consider its importance.

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Hillary Clinton’s Campaign and the Issue of Gender

Posted on April 16, 2015 by admin

Today on Big Think, I posted a blog entitled “Hillary Clinton and the ‘Women’s Point of View’ Conundrum.”  As Clinton launches her campaign for the U.S. presidency, she faces a number of challenges related to being a woman.  One of those challenges has a lot to do with how human beings think, particularly about women.  While men are rarely expected to speak for most or all men, women who reach high-level, visible positions in male dominated fields are often expected to represent the “women’s point of view” on issues for which even believing there could be one is ludicrous.  Clinton will confront this issue.  The press will remind us constantly of her gender, even when it is irrelevant to the issue at hand.  Highly effective and successful women I’ve known and interviewed have learned how to feel confident about being women, while also helping people get to know them as individuals.

This is one of the major challenges facing Clinton.  She’ll need to assist those who usually think in terms of categories (that’s most us) to get beyond that tendency– to come to know her as a woman and also as an extraordinarily capable and experienced leader.  While many women don’t think they should have to do this work, that people should not notice their gender first, knowing it’s a human tendency to rely on categories makes the task easier to accept.  To the extent that Clinton and her campaign clearly define for people when gender is relevant and when it is not, without defensiveness, her chances of becoming the first female President of the United States will be greatly enhanced.

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Hillary Clinton and the Gender Challenge

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Kathleen Kelley Reardon

We are already getting glimpses in the media of how big a role gender will play in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. We are on the doorstep of history again. The battle will be intense. There is no doubt about that. Clinton has come closer than any woman in history to the U.S. presidency.

How she handles the gender challenges inherent in running for president will partially dictate whether she wins.  In that sense, skillful communication and persuasion are critical.  She can’t talk too much about being a woman or too little without hurting her campaign.  Accentuating her gender has its risks.  She may have learned from the last campaign, however, that downplaying a good part of who you are inhibits spontaneity and thereby authenticity. People don’t think they know you. Distrust results.  This time she is likely to be more comfortable with her gender and better able to expertly manage how it’s expressed.

There is no way to escape gender.  Most of us cannot ignore it as a category.  It influences our expectations.  We have never seen a female U.S. president, so imagining how gender might influence one is difficult.  Realizing that it influences how we perceive candidates, what we expect from them, how we expect them to communicate and how we vote is also difficult.  Yet, few of us escape categories our minds have been taught to apply.

Clinton will need to help voters get past categories that keep them from seeing who she really is and what she would bring to the presidency.  The “thin pink line” is how I described the challenge in They Don’t Get It, Do They?  It refers to the sense women have that expectations for them are entwined with their gender.  If they are assertive, they risk labels like “ice queen.”  They’re frequently faced with the Catch-22 that acting like a woman makes them appear less qualified to lead.

There continue to be major challenges faced by women who seek to obtain leadership roles in government and business.  While bias is part of the equation, a lack of familiarity with women at these levels and a widely shared habit of thinking of strong leaders as men enter into it as well.

Also, how a female leader should communicate trips us up.  It’s relatively unfamiliar ground, especially in politics.  Clinton is not only running for president, she is essentially forging important communication latitude groundwork for future female leaders.  She’ll be helping a country and the world learn what a leader, who happens to be a women, sounds like.  We’ll learn how she leads.  This doesn’t mean that women taking on such roles in the future will necessarily act and speak like her, but rather that Clinton will, as a candidate for the presidency and certainly if she wins, make female leadership somewhat more familiar.  She will widen the thin pink line, even more than she did as senator and secretary of state.

Whether you support her candidacy or not, a female candidate with a strong chance to win the presidency shifts the way many of us think.  It helps to interrupt antiquated habits of thought regarding gender that have lasted far past their applicability.  Many people will cling to those habits.  Hopefully her candidacy will make retaining their intractable mindsets more difficult.

(Updated April 13, 2015)

 

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What’s Easier for You: Giving Credit or Criticism?

Posted on April 2, 2015 by admin

“Giving Credit Even When It Isn’t Due” is the title of the blog I posted today on Big Think.  It’s a reminder that giving credit to others for effort, good intentions and accomplishments on the way to a goal not only makes them feel better about you, it motivates them as well.  Few people are motivated for long by fear of punishment or humiliation.  They resist or retaliate, when they don’t just give up.

For those of us more inclined to criticize than to give credit, the reason is likely habit.  As I’ve written about in my books and on this site, we are creatures of habit in our communication.  We get stuck in ruts.  One of them for you or people in your life may be finding fault more readily than seeing promise.

As the blog at Big Think explains, there are ways to give credit that enhance persuasion. In other words, giving credit can be considered a persuasion strategy.  I remember my father used to nudge me to achieve goals.  Rather than express annoyance or anger, he mentioned that what I’d already achieved meant the next step was in reach.  It worked. Indeed, many of those next steps weren’t too far.  What made them especially achievable, however, was his belief in me — his recognition of past successes, even small ones, as indications of future potential.

That’s what motivates many of us.  Who doesn’t like to hear that what they’ve already accomplished is an indication of how much more is within their grasp?  So, next time you’re about to criticize someone, consider whether a little credit for what he or she has done is in order.  It may work wonders and get you out of a rut too.

 

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