October 31, 2007PowerPhrase: is there any reason we shouldn’t go forward with this?
Speaker Brian Jeffrey suggests closing deals by asking:
- Is there any reason we shouldn’t go forward with this?
If they answer no, you move to making arrangements. If they answer yes, you can ask what the reason is, and work with it.
October 31, 2007Ask Meryl: embarrassing remarks
Meryl,
My coworker puts her husband down for small things like spilling a little coffee in front of all of us. It seems like she wants to embarrass him. How do I tell her I want her to stop it in a kind way?
Meryl responds,
Stay away from moralizing, advising or defending him. Tell her how you feel when she does it. Embarrassed? If so, say:
- When you make critical comments about your husband, I feel ___. I would prefer you don’t criticize him in front of me. Will you do that?
Then you need to follow up – which means reminding her and/or leaving whenever she does it.
October 31, 2007Ask Meryl: fiancee finances
Meryl,
My fiancee is working on an advanced degree and money is tight. Yet he won’t let me help out. He tells me I’m enough. What can I say?
Meryl Responds,
Initiate a conversation about expectations: what partnership means to him, what roles he sees each of you playing and how joint decisions are made. Talk about how other couples handle finances, shared responsibilities and how they define their relationships to find out what he sees as the ideal. Find out why he’s unwilling to accept help from you. It might be important to him to make it on his own. It’s hard to know how to speak with him without knowing these things.
Singles define their own roles, but you’re becoming a couple, and that means you’ll need to create role definitions jointly. He sees it as inappropriate for a man to take financial support from his fiancee. You see it as a sign of love and sharing. The challenge is to blend your perspectives into a definition that works for both of you. This conversation is about more than money – it’s about your relationship expectations, philosophies and visions. Start by exploring his, ask him to allow you to share yours, and work together to create a blended one.
October 31, 2007Poison Phrase: I get more calls on my day off
Kevin considers Wednesdays to be a paper day, and he calls it his day off on his answering machine. But he does pick up the phone and does return calls – making an indirect reference to his schedule when he does. He’ll say,
- I get more calls on my day off!
This is an indirect remark that hints at the inappropriateness of calling on Wednesday and suggests blame without overtly assigning it. If Kevin wants people to know about his day off, he would be better off telling them directly.
October 30, 2007This Week in the World: SpeakStrong Wristband
You were amazing with your responses for my new SpeakStrong wristbands. I selected my favorites from the over fifty suggestions. (I smiled when I read the suggestion “What would Meryl say?” but I didn’t include it in my list.)
Vote now. I created a survey to find out which bylines you like best. It’s here: Click here to take survey. Feel free to add new ideas.
You can read all the postings here.
Thanks so much for your suggestions.
October 30, 2007PowerPhrase: It wouldn’t be honest
Nina’s colleague suggested she tell her manager it was the vendor’s fault the project was delayed. She responded,
- That might be the expedient thing to say, but it wouldn’t be the honest thing to say.
October 30, 2007Poison Phrase: You don’t like Hillary, do you?
During a political discussion with a gentleman I met on a shuttle, I asked him who his presidential candidate was. He said it was too early to say, and then said,
- You don’t like Hillary, do you?
There are good ways to ask questions – but this isn’t one of them. His question was coercive and opinion laden. It prejudiced the answer and didn’t give me the impression that this man had any interest in what I thought or knew.
Avoid asking questions that start with “you don’t” and end with “do you?”
October 30, 2007Success Story: Getting the boss to respond
I made an appointment with my supervisor and specifically asked him “You haven’t been responding to my e-mails or phone messages. Is there something I’ve done to offend you?”
He replied that he was not offended, he has just been very busy. I stated that when I ask for his opinion on matters it’s because he is knowledgeable and I respect his input. He replied that he wasn’t ignoring me, he was just overwhelmed.
I recanted that he was indeed ignoring me and I felt my questions were valid and deserved recognition. He agreed and said he would be more responsive in the future. I also asked that if there was something I could do to help ease his work load that I would be happy to assist.
My last e-mail was answered in a timely manner. I can only assume those in the future will be as well.
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October 23, 2007This Week in the World: Need SpeakStrong Wristband Input – contest
I am planning to create SpeakStrong wristbands. I’d like to put my “say what you mean, mean what you say without being mean when you say it” motto on the back, but I only have room for 25 characters.
What do you suggest I put on the back? The first person to post the phrase I select gets five free bands. Post your ideas here. Thanks!
October 23, 2007Reader Success Story: Poetry power opens the heart in conflict
After reading your poem, I wrote a poem for my boyfriend. We had an argument, and I wanted to set a good tone for our conversation.
The discussion went great. Exceptional. Can’t believe how thinking before speaking and using PowerPhrases helped everything go very smooth.
Being apart for a couple of days really did help and talking about how to fix the problem instead of blaming helped us focus on finding solutions to the problems. I read him the poem out loud making sure he heard it the way I felt it. He did. He loved it and kept the copy I had in my hands. He couldn’t believe that I wrote him a poem. Overall, things are working out and from now on I have learned to think what to say without using poison phrases and fixing the problems instead of blaming. Once again, thank you Meryl.
