Below are 4 communication strategies that I wish were in every employee handbook.

1. ACKNOWLEDGE AND VALIDATE

Imagine this scene:

Your Account Manager comes to your desk (or messages you on Slack) at 12:30pm to check on the deck that was due at noon. It’s not done and it’s pretty clear that you’re going to miss the 3pm client deadline.

Account Manager says: “It’s late. This was supposed to be finished at noon.”

You answer: “We didn’t have enough time and we can’t show it because it’s not approved.”

Things go downhill from there.

Sound familiar? I’ve been in this exact situation dozens of times.

Imagine if you instead answered: “It makes sense you’re nervous because clients look to you when things are late.”

2. PREPARE FOR THE TOUGH QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE

If you anticipate that your teammates or your boss are going to ask tough questions, prep for them ahead of time.

Here are few questions that often come up at the end of a presentation:

• How are you going to build that?

• We love it, can we see the next round tomorrow?

• It’s not quite what we’re looking for, can we see 6 more options tomorrow?

• How much will it cost?

Plan out your answers ahead of time.

If the project is going to cost 5 million dollars and the budget is 2 million you might want to have a few speaking points prepared about why it’s worth the extra investment.

3. REFRAME THE SITUATION

If you go into a presentation or a meeting thinking it’s going to be terrible, chances are good that it will be a waste of time.

If you think of those meetings as an opportunity to show off your best skills, get creative, and collectively brainstorm, it will probably be more fun (and make your whole team look good).

Designers, your account or project manager is not asking you how it’s going because they want to drive you nuts. There’s a lot of business on the line and they have clients breathing down their neck. Think about how you can help them do their job better and the information you would want in their shoes.

And project managers, your designers aren’t ignoring you because they are ignoring your project. They’re working on it, along with the 10 other projects on their list. How can you help them prioritize?

4. USE I STATEMENTS

When you feel yourself getting defensive, try to steer clear of accusations like “You’re stressing me out" and use this formula:

I feel ________________(emotion) when you __________________ (do this action).

Going back to the example presented in Tip #1, this might sound like:

"I feel nervous when the deck is only 30% done and it’s due tomorrow."

It removes some of the finger pointing and allows all parties to take responsibility for how they’re feeling.

Want more help navigating the murky waters of difficult conversations? Download 4 Skills to Master Tricky Conversations.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be about gratitude but for many people seeing family can heighten tension and nerves.

It’s easy to fall back into the patterns of your childhood play out the same fights and taking the bait of your most contentious relatives.

Here are 4 tips to respond thoughtfully, ease stress and deescalate arguments.

1. ACKNOWLEDGE AND VALIDATE

When you feel your blood pressure rising and your voice getting louder, try this technique:

Stop the conversation and say:

“I want to take a moment and acknowledge we have different viewpoints. It makes sense you feel that way.”  

Acknowledging other people's reality is the quickest way to end an argument. Note, this isn’t an agreement, it’s a strategic move to deescalate.

It’s a technique I learned from Chris Voss’ book, Never Split the Difference.

It gives the other person permission to feel the way they feel. This can open up space for sharing a different point of view or moving the conversation along.

Mastering this technique can be the difference between a dinner spent gritting your teeth and fake smiling or at least a mildly friend conversation.

2. ADVANCE PREPARE FOR THE DREADED QUESTION

Despite how it may feel, your mother, uncle or grandparent are not asking you those questions to torture you.

They care about you, are interested in your life and aren’t great at asking questions. Unfortunately, it can feel like an interrogation.

How’s your job search?

How’s business?

How’s your love life?

Answer with something simple like “It continues” and pivot by asking them a question.

3. REFRAME THE SITUATION

If you go in planning to have a bad time, chances are you’ll have a bad time.

If you’re feeling uneasy about Thanksgiving dinner, try reframing the situation:

Is it an exercise to practice listening skills?
Is it a chance to put that mindfulness class to use?
Is it an opportunity for a multiple course dinner you didn’t have to cook?

4. USE I STATEMENTS:

When you feel yourself getting defensive, try to steer clear of “You’re stressing me out" or  "You always do this” and use this template instead:

I feel ________________(emotion) when you __________________ (do this action).

It removes some of the finger pointing and shows people the impact of their behavior.

You can follow this with:

• a request (what you’d like them to do instead)

• a boundary (if you keep doing this, I’m going to leave the room).

Want more tips to stop arguing with your family? Get The Difficult Conversation System.

Public speaking is scary and even the most experienced speakers get nervous. The good news is public speaking is not a god-given talent.

It’s a skill that can be learned, just like softball or knitting.

The good news is you don't have to be a natural performer BUT you do have to practice.

The best way to get comfortable speaking in front of a group is to practice in front of a group. If that's more terrifying than you can imagine, here are a few easy tips to practice at home.

 

1. PRACTICE YOUR PRESENTATION IN THE MIRROR.

This is a great way to get immediate feedback and get used to seeing yourself speak. That might feel awkward but that's the point because once you get comfortable watching yourself, it will feel less scary when you stand up in front of other people.

 

2. PRACTICE YOUR PRESENTATION FOR A DOG.

Dogs make very understanding audiences. Check out this New York Times article: How to Give a Better Speech: Talk to a Dog

 

3. PRACTICE STANDING AND SPEAKING IN OPEN, POWERFUL POSTURES.

Watch Amy Cuddy's TED talk on presence Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are and try out power poses.

Want more tips? Download 7 Practice Strategies to Rock Your Presentation. They’re free!

My parents divorced when I was young and my sister and I spent our summers and school vacations in West Virginia at what I affectionately call Camp Dad, compulsory cooking and sports camp.

In the evenings, we walked to the public tennis courts a few clocks away. After tennis, we came home and played Boggle.

Boggle with Bob Schwarz was no ordinary game of Boggle.

We were allowed to use words we couldn’t define with one caveat – we had to look them up in the big blue Webster dictionary (yes, there were once printed dictionaries in a land far, far away).

My dad would take notes and quiz us at the next day’s Boggle game, not my favorite part of the game but it built character as he would say. And he credits our high SAT verbal scores to years of playing Boggle.

Starting at age 8, as part of the custody agreement, my sister and I had to write weekly letters to my dad and send school assignments from our classes.

We would send graded papers and he would send them back, with comments.

More than once, an A+ paper from a teacher returned from dad with a mess of red ink.

My dad was a journalist at the Charleston Gazette for 25 years and I credit him with my writing skills, love of language, and zealous proofreading tendencies.

I recently read Brené Brown's books Daring Greatly and The Gifts of Imperfection and was struck by her writing on perfectionism. She defines perfectionism as:

“A self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: “If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

That hit me like a ton of bricks. While I identified as being a perfectionist, I never identified perfectionism as being so debilitating.

Stepping back from perfectionist tendencies after a lifetime of practicing them is hard.

Sharing my imperfect self in a very public way is scary. So as I hit publish on this blog post with some trepidation, I am reminding myself (and Dad if you’re reading), there are worse things than typos.