people

Erik Tyler | October 22, 2015 | 4 Comments

How to Give an Apology (and Mean It)

Today’s COMMUNICATION Post – by Erik Tyler

A Check-up

I want to start by asking you to literally stop right now, reflect, and answer this question honestly:

When is the last time you gave a heartfelt apology?

Don’t count times you gave an apology because you wanted something in return, or because you wanted to avoid negative fallout. Pinpoint in your mind the last time you truly felt you had wronged someone.

You intentionally hurt someone.

You ran roughshod over them to assert yourself when things didn’t go your way.

You were rude or harsh with someone, or you took your frustration out on them when they were not to blame.

You did what was best for you, without considering how someone else felt or how your actions would affect them.

You talked negatively about someone, causing others to ridicule or mistrust them.

And you knew it. You knew you were in the wrong. But at some point afterward, you experienced real remorse. You just felt lousy about it – so much so that you went back and offered a sincere apology without a single excuse.

When was the last time? To whom did you apologize? Was it a family member? A friend? A co-worker or boss? A student? A server at a restaurant? A customer care or tech support person you were on the phone with?

If it was so long ago that the details are foggy – or if you can’t remember a specific time at all – ask yourself, What does that say about me? As far as I can see, there are only two things it could mean:

1. You are an anomaly. You are close to perfect and never blow it with other people, and therefore don’t really ever have the need to apologize.

2. You aren’t apologizing enough.

Erik Tyler | October 15, 2015 | 4 Comments

Words Can Be Sentences

Today’s COMMUNICATION Post – by Erik Tyler

Grammatically speaking, a sentence may consist of a single word:

Stop.

Duck!

Sing!

I separated those into separate lines to avoid the mental image that would come of combining them. Each of these sentences contains a verb, which we see, and an “invisible” (understood) subject — the audience to whom we are talking.

You’re fascinated, I’m sure. But that isn’t what I mean to talk about here. (And aren’t you glad?)

Now consider the following:

liar

pervert

lazy

ignorant

problem

selfish

These words are also sentences. They are not grammatical sentences, but rather sentences handed down in the courtrooms of the heart. They are issued by a judge to a party presumed guilty, scarlet letters with which we intentionally — or unintentionally — brand people. Sometimes for life.

Erik Tyler | August 27, 2015 | 7 Comments

The Uncritical Critique: How to Not Be Mean – Erik Tyler

As a leader or influencer of any kind, it is inevitable that you will be called upon to provide feedback on other people’s performance, work, attitude, etc. This may be part of the formal responsibilities required of your position, such as handling annual reviews or solving HR issues. But whether this is true for you or not, if you are respected and good at what you do, you will eventually be asked for your opinions on the creative or business-related work others have done. And that feedback or opinion will not always be positive.

I myself have been asked countless times to critique or provide feedback to songwriters and musicians, new authors or bloggers, web and graphic designers, novice entrepreneurs and a host of others. And while I’m certainly honored that such people hold my own work in high regard within each of these areas, it can get dicey when what I’m asked to critique is … well, just plain bad.

What do you do in these potentially awkward situations?