Make-or-Break Career Skills: How to Manage Conflict Successfully

There are a number of ways to effectively manage conflict. The approach someone recently used with me (“There are issues; you’re the problem“) is not amongst any of them.

Here’s one conflict resolution approach that in my experience works 90+% of the time.

As a step back, it’s helpful to remember that much, perhaps most, conflict stems from people having different perceptions about what has happened or is happening.… Read the rest

Bright Lights, Dark Days: Joys of the Winter Solstice

While the science of genetics proves we all (yes, we all) originated in and around the Great Lakes region of Sub-Saharan Africa, time and migration have scattered humankind around the globe and somewhat given us a northern hemisphere outlook.

Along with the evolution of a common darker skin to a broader spectrum from jet black to pale opaque, our human migration patterns gave us a north of the equator, Northern Hemisphere bias.… Read the rest

[Land O’Spin] Cheat Your Way to the Top

Cheating – a less polite way to say exaggerating facts and misstating the truth – is rampant.

While the name of the Dreamgirls song was Fake Your Way to the Top , it might as well be Cheat Your Way to the Top. As Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr. – author of a weekly column and the book “ Forward From This Moment –  said in a recent NPR interview ,” This whole idea that you can cheat your way to the top and it doesn’t matter – and it’s the same as if you’ve worked your way to the there is one of my pet peeves.”Read the rest