Sherri Petro, President and Chief Strategy Officer of VPI Strategies, represents VPI Strategies on the Expert Panel for Managing Americans. ManagingAmericans.com is a management blog with more than 300,000 monthly readers. Sherri contributes monthly to the Workplace Communication Skills Blog and is one of the most highly read columnists.

This month’s post explores reacting vs. responding.

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Instructions to create messages that destroy value: Open mouth, insert foot.  Instructions to create positive messages that create value: Open mind, open mouth.

I know the former sounds familiar to you.  Have you ever thought about the latter?  That’s the difference between REACTING and RESPONDING.  Responding takes a little time to plan and process, reacting takes no time at all.  Just feel free to pop off!   I’d be realistic and reduce my expectations about making a connection with the person you are communicating with or achieving the results you want, however.

R AND R

We are, unfortunately, very used to reacting.  We react since time is often not on our side as we bark orders that have come down from above or conduct “dump it delegation” as we run down the hallway to yet another meeting. We get a weird vibe on that email we just read and send off our reaction without thinking. We bring our baggage from our last boss’ communication style and react the way we always have since “everyone communicates like that.”

Read the complete article here.

Sherri Petro, President and Chief Strategy Officer of VPI Strategies, represents VPI Strategies on the Expert Panel for Managing Americans. ManagingAmericans.com is a management blog with more than 3000,000 monthly readers. Sherri contributes monthly to the Workplace Communication Skills Blog and is one of the most highly read columnists.

Here is a preview of September's article:

Much is being bandied about on how to best engage employees. We have employers who want engaged employees and employees who want to be engaged. From the employer side, research shows us engaged employees lead to better results. Kenexa reports that engaged companies have five times higher shareholder returns over five years. From the employee side, one of the many insights in a Towers Perrin 2009 report is that employees want to give more.

Okay, then. We have both sides wanting the same thing - engagement. But Gallup continues to report in their annual survey that we have a problem. In 2012, only 30% of employees were engaged, 52% were disengaged and 18% were actively disengaged. And Gallup estimates that the latter category costs the U.S. $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year. Ouch!

How are we so badly missing the boat? Maybe it’s because we are keeping it docked in the kiddie pool instead of the big ocean. Our communication strategies onboarding people to new ideas and changing conditions need a serious overhaul.

Read the full article here.

Sherri Petro, President and Chief Strategy Officer of VPI Strategies, represents VPI Strategies on the Expert Panel for Managing Americans. ManagingAmericans.com is a management blog with more than 300,000 monthly readers. Sherri contributes monthly to the Workplace Communication Skills Blog and is one of the most highly read columnists.

This month’s post explores communicating in our mobile environment.

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Hey Dick Tracy, Maxwell Smart and Inspector Gadget, I have a beef with you.  I thought all this gadgetry was supposed to help us communicate better and solve problems.  Why are we still having communication issues?  User error, you say?  It’s not the gadget itself, it’s how we use it? 

Here’s the tip of our very large communication iceberg. We leverage technology for a myriad of uses:

• Customer interfacing
• Global connection
• Mass distribution of information
• One-on-one bursts
• Finding locations
• Confirmation of activities
• Remote working

In our highly mobile environment, communication is as important as ever but it is obvious we need some rules for our technology use regardless of what we use it for.  Let’s look at two simple etiquette rules. Benefit of the doubt is given here that you will obey your local laws when it comes to appropriate technology use!

Read the full article here.

Sherri Petro, President and Chief Strategy Officer of VPI Strategies, represents VPI Strategies on the Expert Panel for Managing Americans. ManagingAmericans.com is a management blog with more than 300,000 monthly readers. Sherri contributes monthly to the Workplace Communication Skills Blog and is one of the most highly read columnists.

This month’s post offers communication lessons for the multiple generation workplace.

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We’ve got turbulence brewing. Please take your seat and fasten your seat belts. Make sure your seat back and folding trays are in their full upright position. Generation X (born 1965-80), the first generation of latch-key kids, is taking over the leadership reins. And it’s going to be different kind of ride.  We can navigate well if we understand their expectations of communication and how it impacts teamwork and delegation.

It makes sense. Along with our families of origin, we are influenced by the culture around us as we grow up. We take those influences into the workplace.  Sarcastic, freedom-loving, hybrid-creating Gen X likes to do things their own way. We see friction as Baby Boomers (born 1946-64) want Gen X to conduct business by Boomer’s prescriptions.  In this case, Bart Simpson is a long way from Donna Reed!  Or as a Gen X might say….hmmmm….Donna who?

Read the complete article here.

Sherri Petro, President and Chief Strategy Officer of VPI Strategies, represents VPI Strategies on the Expert Panel for Managing Americans. ManagingAmericans.com is a management blog with more than 300,000 monthly readers. Sherri contributes monthly to the Workplace Communication Skills Blog and is one of the most highly read columnists.

This month’s post offers communication tips.

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Blah, blah, blah.  We speak the same language and yet so many times it’s like we are talking in tongues!  How come?  Admittedly, according to any dictionary, we have multiple meanings for the same words.  But what I am alluding to goes deeper than the dictionary — we assign meaning based upon many different influences.  Why is communication so hard?  Most of the time, our equipment is the same: Two ears and one mouth.  What’s the problem? 

In 1995 at the tender age of 32, the answer hit me. While in conversation with a Director at my employer, I was confused that Mark and I had differing opinions.  I was trying desperately to understand where he was coming from and why he did not see the answer I clearly saw as the best viable option. I was then knocked over by a cosmic 2’ x 4’.  I had a light bulb moment so intense that he stopped mid-conversation asking if everything was okay.  I blurted out, “Oh, geez, I just realized you don’t think the same way I do!”

While this might be a duh moment for some readers, I surmise that the crux of many workplace communication problems is what I learned that day. Somehow in this crazy mixed up world with different work experiences, different genders, different generations, different cultures, different families of origin and different world views, we harbor the impression that others think exactly the same way that we do.  And yet, it is clear, we are DIFFERENT.

Read the full article here.