Communication
Apologising properly
Most apologies fail on identifiable components, and the research on what makes one effective is unusually practical.
Communication
Listening, difficult conversations, writing and being understood.
Communication
Small talk, and what it is for
Widely dismissed as empty, and it performs a function that nothing else performs.
Communication
Conversations with people you disagree with
Persuasion by argument works less often than it should, and the approaches with better evidence are mostly about asking rather than telling.
Communication
Email, messages and the response time problem
The expectation of near-immediate response is an unstated norm rather than a requirement, and it is doing considerable damage.
Communication
Explaining something complicated to someone who is not an expert
The main obstacle is that you no longer remember what it was like not to know, and there is a name for that.
Communication
Disagreeing productively
Most workplace disagreements are unproductive because the parties are arguing about different things without noticing.
Communication
Presenting to people who do not want to be there
Most presentations fail because they are structured as information transfer to an audience that is deciding whether to keep listening.
Communication
Saying no without damaging the relationship
Most people agree to things they do not want to do because refusing feels like a larger act than it is.
Communication
Meetings that are worth having
Most meeting advice is about running them better. The larger gain is in having fewer of them, deliberately.
Communication
Giving feedback that changes something
A large proportion of feedback produces no change at all, and the research suggests fairly specific reasons why.
Communication
Writing that gets read
Most workplace writing fails at the first two sentences, and the fix is structural rather than stylistic.
Communication
Difficult conversations: the structure that helps
The hard part is almost never the words. It is having the conversation at all, and starting it in a way the other person can hear.
Communication
Listening properly, which is harder than it sounds
Most people listening are composing their reply, and the difference is detectable by everyone except the person doing it.