Recognizing and Dealing with Defensiveness

Recognizing and Dealing with Defensiveness

It’s not easy to give critical feedback. Especially when the person on the receiving end gets defensive. Here are five common types of defensive responses. How many have you encountered (or perhaps even caught yourself engaging in)? Deny or Argue Intent: Cause...
Dancing With Surprises

Dancing With Surprises

Several years back I had the opportunity to work with a co-op founded by a group of artists who had all formerly experienced homelessness. I was invited to facilitate a strategic planning meeting involving the entire co-op membership. We met in their rented warehouse...
Making the Case for Change

Making the Case for Change

When it comes to organizational change, sometimes it’s hard to know how to begin. How do you assess if people are ready? How do you identify potential resistance? How can you motivate people to commit to a new direction? How might you engage them in shaping the...
ON MY MIND: Ask Open Questions

ON MY MIND: Ask Open Questions

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” — Rainer Maria Rilke...