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Pressing the pause button on your mouth can work wonders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our mouths can get us into trouble and cause conflict if we open them without thinking. Sometimes we could do with a pause button on them.

Here’s a question to think about: how many times have you put your foot in it, or created conflict with somebody in your organisation, because you’ve said something before thinking about it?

If you’ve answered truthfully, it’s probably happened a good few times. We can all have a tendency to pick up on points we don’t like or agree with in meetings and make a comment without a second thought, or act defensively under pressure or we think we’re being attacked.

The trouble with our mouths is that words can tumble out of them before the rational bit of the brain kicks in leaving us at the mercy of the emotional, reactionary bit that can get us into trouble. At times like these, it pays to hit the pause button on your mouth.

What we mean by this is stopping for a second or two to consider what’s been said and how to answer it. It’s a technique used by lots of people in the public eye, particularly MPs, most of whom are skilled at sidestepping difficult questions. Instead of an awkward silence, many expert mouth-pausers use a few ‘erms’ and ‘ahs’ or have a stock phrase they throw out before actually talking.

They also think about their body language, tone of voice and inflection when they start speaking again too. All good tips.

Not engaging the pause button can lead to many things. There’s regret when you wish you’d said – or hadn’t said – something. You might also feel that you […]

By |November 15th, 2017|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Pressing the pause button on your mouth can work wonders

The impact of technology on people – good or bad?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just like the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian era, the more-recent digital revolution has had a huge effect on people’s lives, both at home and work. And it’s fair to say that the effects have been positive and negative.

The Industrial Revolution led to mass-production for the first time with huge factories blighting the landscape and improved transport links across the country. Standards of living went up for some, while others experienced terrible poverty, as workers flocked to work at the factories and often ended up living in horrible cramped conditions. The work was dangerous and it took a long while for workers’ right to come into force.

Many workers also saw their jobs replaced by machines for the first time too, leading to more poverty and hardship.

Today’s parallels are obvious. People are still replaced by machines, although not to the same extent.  And it’s not the huge, steam-powered machines in factories and fields doing the replacing anymore, it’s tiny microchips and hard drives in business parks and city centre offices that are doing work previously done by humans now.

In most organisations, the effect of technology on people is to make their lives easier. Thanks to computers, smartphones and tablets we can communicate faster than ever. Want to talk to a colleague? Compose a quick email and they’ll get it in seconds anywhere in the world no matter what the time is. Nor more relying on a telegram or the electric telegraph of the Industrial Revolution. And don’t forget the snail mail or fax we all used not that long ago– they’re so last decade.

Now, almost […]

By |May 31st, 2017|change management, Uncategorized|Comments Off on The impact of technology on people – good or bad?