As I have previously mentioned, I am in a book club which reads and discusses books about conflict resolution. The latest is Holding the Calm: The Secret to Resolving Conflict and Defusing Tension by Hesha Abrams (Berrett-Kochler Publishers, Inc., Oakland, Ca. 2022.) The first question one asks is what is [Read More]
The Sound of Silence is a song written by Disturbed and released in 2015 but made famous by Simon and Garfunkel in the movie, The Graduate. Its lyrics include the phrases: “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening.” It is the last phrase I want to dwell on: People [Read More]
A few weeks ago, my husband and I attended a family social gathering seeing extended family we had not seen in quite a long time. As one typically does, I went around to say “hello” to everyone, usually greeting them with a smile and a hug. However, when I went [Read More]
In a recent post, I discussed a book I just finished reading, The Power of Ethics by Susan Liautaud (Simon and Schuster, New York, NY 2021). While Professor Liautaud made many interesting points, her definition of "ethics" caught my attention: "For centuries, we have shared common expectations of how we [Read More]
The end of the semester is drawing near in my online employment mediation dispute class. The theme of the last discussion board is reflective: what three things has each student learned from or skills developed or improved upon in this course. There is a saying to the effect that as [Read More]
No doubt, you have encountered the situation where you are addressing a group of people and ask a question and are met with silence… absolute quiet! It feels awkward… no one is answering your question.(Indeed, Anglophones can not tolerate more than four seconds of silence while the Japanese can tolerate [Read More]
Recently, a friend of mine challenged me to write a blog about how to survive Thanksgiving dinner considering our recent election. Some will be happy while others will be distraught at the results; yet we will all be sitting around the same table (virtually?) breaking bread together. She then told [Read More]
Several weeks ago, The New York Times published an article about one of my favorite topics: Active Listening. Entitled “Practice Better Listening” by Kate Murphy,(Sunday, May 17, 2020, At Home section) the author notes that with life moving at a much slower pace these days, we have the opportunity and [Read More]
