Blogs

The “devil is in the details” is a centuries-old saying that refers to how something might seem simple at a first glance but ends up taking more time and effort to complete than first expected. Now, I may be going out on a limb here (what else would you expect from a monkey), but I have to…

I admit it. Occasionally, I’ll opt for a quick text message or email rather than talk to someone by phone. It’s easy and I run little chance of getting caught up in a “too-long” conversation when I’m pressed for time. It might even help me avoid a difficult or awkward situation. When I do this,…

When you talk to others, do you fully engage? Do they? I was watching a discussion panel the other night on TV. It became readily apparent that the talking heads really weren’t listening to one another. Each was simply waiting for a moment of quiet as the cue for when it was his or her…

I was reading an online article this week about scientists studying how chimpanzees communicate. For this particular study, researchers spent 750 hours observing chimps and analyzing their vocalizations. What they found is that chimps indeed do “talk” to one another using a “variety of vocalizations, but also facial expressions and gestures.” Unsurprisingly, most of their…

One of the things I’ve learned in my career as a Marketing and Product Development Executive and Entrepreneur is that difficult conversations are often necessary and productive. I don’t know about you, but when I hear the phrase “difficult conversations” the first things that spring to mind are images of people arguing and going away…

Communication, by its very nature, is a two way street. Someone speaks and someone listens—well, hopefully someone listens—and then someone speaks again; or someone writes and someone responds, and so on. People also communicate non-verbally. A gesture here and a wink there can have the same effect as words. People communicate in-person, face-to-face; by telephone;…