Work911 Ezine - June 6, 2007 - Contents - Want To Write, and Be Read? Leadership and Communication Resources, Non-Verbal Communication, and Bacal Book Hits Bestseller List
Robert Bacal
Communication Resources, Non-Verbal Communication, and Bacal Book Hits
Bestseller List
In This Issue:
1) Communication and Leadership Resource Centers
2) Bacal Book On Performance Appraisals Hits Bestseller List
3) Reminder - Do You Write? A Venue To Publish Your Work
4) Two Short Articles on Non-Verbal Communication
5) Our Sites
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1) Communication and Leadership Resource Centers
One of the reasons I find issues about both communication and
leadership so interesting, is that the benefits of learning more about
these topics are not restricted to the workplace. Obviously
communication affects our abilities to succeed in our jobs and
careers, but it's also the bedrock of better personal and family
relationships. Leadership is a topic that, at first glance, seems less
relevant to everyday life but it is. When you start thinking about
leadership as a process of inspiring those around you to be "better",
rather than using power to make them do something, it becomes clearer
that leading is part of any group activity, whether in the workplace,
at home, or in community organizations. When you also understand that
leadership roles can be taken on by anyone (either informally or
informally) their importance in everyday life is enhanced.
That's why we are spending a good deal of time to create resource
centers on both leadership and communication.
Our Leadership Development Center is located at:
http://www.work911.com/leadership-development/index.html
and contains both longer articles, and shorter answers to frequently
asked questions about leadership, and also includes a large library of
links to the best material on leadership we can find on the net.
Our Communication Resource Center is at http://www.work911.com/communication/index.htm
, and contains both shorter help on improving your communication and
longer articles. There are excerpts from my book, Conflict Prevention
In The Workplace -- Using Cooperative Communication, sections on
listening, public speaking and much more.
2) Perfect Phrases For Performance Appraisals Hits Business Week Best
Seller List
We were both surprised and pleased to find that Perfect Phrases For
Performance Appraisals, written by Robert Bacal, and published by
McGraw-Hill hit Business Week's best seller list for the month of
January, 2007. Ok. It only barely made the list at number 15, but
heck, it's still an accomplishment particularly for a book that's not
new and isn't about a sexy topic. If you are interested in more
information about this book, you can go to:
http://performance-appraisals.org/mybooks/phrasesreviews.htm .
You can also get a lot of free information about performance
management and appraisals at our Performance Management Resource
Center at:
http://performance-appraisals.org
3) Reminder: Do You Write? Want To Be Read by Hundreds? Want To Earn?
There are a lot of budding writers who create for business reasons, or
just for fun. Writing is a lot more fun if people have the opportunity
to read what you have written, and comment. Recently we've come across
a new website/community that is looking for contributors and authors,
and may allow you to earn some cash from your articles and thoughts
through a revenue sharing process. I've been impressed by the site,
and my research on the company indicates they are a reputable and
serious new player in the online content field. It's a great
opportunity for exposure and public relations, and one of the more
interesting aspects is that there's provision for your articles to be
"picked up" by print publicatoins on a paid basis.
There's no charge, obligation, or anything like that. All you need to
do is register, and you're good to go. There's a huge range of
categories to which you can contribute. We're planning to join
ourselves and contribute.
Interested: Participating is simple. Here's the link:
http://www.kqzyfj.com/email-386745-10469054
4) Feature Shorts On Non-Verbal Communication by Robert Bacal
Many of us are fascinated by non-verbal communications, but
unfortunately, pop psychology provides some poor or inaccurate
information about how it all works, and its complexity. Here are two
short articles on the subject, taken from our Communication Resource
Center at http://www.work911.com/communication/index.htm
Most of us know just enough about non-verbal communication to be
dangerous, and end up over-simplifying it. There's a lot more to it
than most lay people understand. There are actually six different
kinds or categories of non-verbal communication. Some are most
valuable for professional public speakers, while some are not valuable
for "regular people". Here's the categories in brief. For more detail
about each one, click here to go back to the non-verbal main page.
Paralanguage:
Paralanguage refers to what most of us would call "tone of voice" but
it also includes
* Vocal Quality
* Vocal Modifiers
* Vocal Identifiers
* Voice Quality
Sign Language:
Sign language includes forms of oral speech where numbers, punctuation
and words have been supplanted by gestures.
Gestures and Body Action:
Action Language includes all gestures, posture, facial expressions and
movements that are NOT used exclusively as substitutes for words.
Object Language:
Object language refers to the display of material things -- art
objects, clothes, decoration of a room, physical appearance like hair
styles and so on.
Tactile Communication:
Tactile communication is communication that occurs via touch.
Space and Time Communication:
This has to do with how space and time are used to communicate. The
most common example here is the use of interpersonal space.
Common Myth About Reading and Interpreting Non-Verbal Communication
Is it really possible to "read" non-verbal communication behavior to
get a jump or advantage in understanding an individual? The answer is
mostly no. That's a myth developed by marketers and sales people who
try to convince gullible lay people that buying a product to "teach"
how to read people like a book will result in an advantage.
The main reason is that there are no universals when it comes to the
meaning of non-verbals. There are simply too many factors that
influence how any individual uses non-verbals and their meaning.
Culture is a huge factor, but so are habits developed through life
experience and in childhood. The latter is exceedingly
individualistic. As a very simple example, is a person who has his
arms crossed really "closed" as the books would have us believe? Or is
he simply cold? Or have learned and become comfortable with this
position? Or is he hiding a stain on his shirt? We don't know.
So, by and large, reading non-verbals is very hit and miss.
However, where non-verbals CAN help is in situations where you know
how a person habitually behaves non-verbally. When you have a baseline
about a specific person, you can compare his current actions to his
usual reactions, and that can be helpful. Married couples, for
example, can interpret each other's body language and non-verbals
because they know each other well.
Non-verbals can be interpreted when you already know a lot about a
person.
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5) Our Sites:
Just a quick summary of our sites that have information on the
following topics:
Leadership Resource Center: http://work911.com/leadership-development/index.html
Communication Resource Center: http://www.work911.com/communication/index.htm
Conflict (both workplace and family) http://conflict911.com
Business, Strategic and Personal Planning: http://www.work911.com/planningmaster/index.html
Performance Management & Appraisal: http://performance-appraisals.org
Customer Service: http://customerservicezone.com
Our Main Site: http://www.work911.com
Multi-Purpose Articles Database: http://www.articles911.com
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