Skip to main content
Effective communication: Topic and comment Workplace Well-being

Effective communication: Topic and comment

Communication goes awry quite regularly, which is not surprising when you think about how much of it we do in any given day. One common way in which communication breaks down is when what is said (or written) does not cover both topic and comment. The topic is what we are talking about and the comment is what we are saying about it. They can be articulated separately (‘You know that book on stress I lent you? I will need it back if that’s OK ’) or together (‘Can you please let me have back that book on stress I lent you?’). Either is fine when both topic and comment are covered, but often, there is a topic identified, but…
Dr Neil Thompson
November 7, 2023
Bullying is not strong leadership Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Bullying is not strong leadership

Many times I have heard some people try to justify bullying behaviours by describing oppressive practices as ‘strong leadership’. In reality, using bullying tactics is a sign of a lack of leadership. A leader is someone who shapes a culture and creates an atmosphere where people want to do well, where they want to be part of a team that works well – they do not need to be coerced or intimidated into doing what is required of them. They feel they belong to an important endeavour and are pleased to be part of it. Bullying is a sign that leadership skills are lacking or that the person in a leadership role has failed to grasp what leadership is all…
Dr Neil Thompson
October 18, 2023
Value your time Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Value your time

There are relatively few people in today’s world of work who are not under time pressures. This is all the more reason that we need to make sure that our time is used wisely. This is not about petty ways of saving 30 seconds here or a minute and a half there, but rather about having the assertiveness skills to protect our valuable time by not allowing others to seduce us into putting time and effort into activities that are not a priority for us. Demands on our time are potentially infinite, but however skilful we are at time management, the time available will always be finite. Don’t let it be spent too cheaply.
Dr Neil Thompson
October 3, 2023
Smile! Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Smile!

Yes, it’s a cliché, but the fact remains that, in working with people and their problems, we are likely to get better results if we smile. Smiling gives a clear message to the effect of ‘I am pleased to be in your company’ while not smiling can give the message that we are not pleased to be in that person’s company. Of course, we don’t want to go overboard and come across as insincere, but smiling really can make a big difference. Sounds obvious? Not worth saying? Just watch people around you and see how often people interact with one another without smiling. You’ll see that lots of opportunities to make a positive connection are being missed.
Dr Neil Thompson
September 19, 2023
Take account of trauma Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Take account of trauma

The term ‘trauma’ is often used in a very loose and ‘watered down’ way to refer to any difficult or distressing situation. However, in its technical sense, trauma refers to a wound (physical or psychological) that has lasting effects. We are now realizing more fully that so many of the mental health problems that people encounter are linked to earlier experiences of one or more traumas. Indeed, difficulties in life more broadly will often have their roots in trauma. So, if we are working with people in any sort of supportive or supervisory way, we would do well to ask ourselves whether trauma is playing any part in the situation – particularly those situations that are proving problematic or challenging…
Dr Neil Thompson
September 5, 2023
Don’t drop hints Workplace Well-being

Don’t drop hints

Speaking openly and honestly is more likely to be effective than dropping hints. This is because: (i) people often don’t tune in to the hint; it goes over their head; and (ii) if they do get it, they may resent it – they may feel that you are trying to manipulate them, rather than communicate with them in a genuine way. Despite these problems with hinting, it is a very common occurrence for people to risk alienating others in this way. Learning and practising the skills involved in sensitive and tactful direct communication without ruffling anyone’s feathers are much wiser steps to take.
Dr Neil Thompson
August 22, 2023
Don’t rely on common sense Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Don’t rely on common sense

So-called ‘common sense’ is often not common (different people have different ideas about what is common sense) and not always sense (it is often contradictory). What counts as common sense can be important advice and wisdom built up over many years of experience. However, it can also, at times, be based on unquestioned prejudices and taken-for-granted assumptions. But, whether what counts as common sense is sound or not, what resorting to common sense amounts to is relying on preformed ideas instead of using reflective practice to think, plan, analyse and make sense of the situations we are dealing with. Someone saying: ‘It’s common sense’ is often inviting us to accept their perspective uncritically, rather than work out our own view…
Dr Neil Thompson
August 1, 2023
Think before you write Workplace Well-being

Think before you write

Jobs that involve working with people generally have a written work component to them (report writing and record keeping, for example). This can become a routine part of the job, and so there is a danger that we write without first thinking about what we are writing, why we are writing it and who we are writing it for. The result can be very poor-quality written work, communication breakdowns and misleading records and reports that have the potential to wreak havoc. What we write may continue to be used for many years to come by other people involved in the future, so committing stuff to writing for posterity without giving it any thought is a risky business. So, the idea…
Dr Neil Thompson
July 18, 2023
Invest time to save time (sharpen your axe) Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Invest time to save time (sharpen your axe)

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that the Avenue Successful Time and Workload Management e-learning course is based on four principles of time and workload management. One of those principles is ‘Invest time to save time’. Unfortunately, busy people often fail to do this. There may be useful ways in which they could save time and energy, be more effective and/or achieve better results with the same resources, but many people will not explore these because they see themselves as being too busy to do so. That is, they don’t invest time to save time. An investment is not the same as a cost – the idea is that you should get that time back, with interest. Abraham Lincoln…
Dr Neil Thompson
July 4, 2023
Give yourself thinking time Individual Well-beingWorkplace Well-being

Give yourself thinking time

As we have noted, the modern workplace tends to be a pressurized one. There is therefore a temptation to just press on, to adopt an attitude of ‘Head down, get on with it’. This can be highly dangerous as it means that people are making decisions, interacting with other people and generally going about their business without giving enough thought to what is involved or how it might go wrong. Part of the problem is that some workplace cultures can encourage this sort of behaviour and create the impression that stopping to think is a luxury you can’t afford if you work here (rather than a necessity if you are to practise safely). So, whether the impetus to just ‘Get…
Dr Neil Thompson
June 20, 2023