Jeff Havens is a speaker, author, and professional development expert who tackles leadership, generational, and professional development issues with an exceptional blend of content and entertainment. He is a contributing writer to Fast Company, Entrepreneur, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal; and has been featured on CNBC and Fox Business. For more information, or to bring Jeff to your next meeting, contact Donna Buttice at Platinum Speakers Agency at 630.330.7533.
Since the title of this article is slightly ambiguous, let me elaborate. If your question is, “What’s the best way to win an argument – loud angry shouting, or calm reasoned discourse?” then I can answer that right now. Do the latter. Problem solved. But what we’re talking about here is the method by which…
So, the people you work with and employ could stand to improve in various ways. That fair, since it’s true about all of us. But talking to people about the mistakes they make or the ways they might improve is a delicate and often difficult task. So here we’re going to discuss how to provide…
Impostor syndrome is one of the most insidious challenges to our mental well-being. In case you aren’t familiar with the phrase (although I’m guessing you are), impostor syndrome is a fairly common phenomenon in which individuals doubt their abilities and/or feel like they don’t deserve their accomplishments. Put another way, you think you’re in over…
This year, you probably asked Santa for a pony. Or a laser cannon, or socks – I don’t really know, but you probably didn’t ask for better work-life balance, even though it’s something you probably want. Most of us do. So, operating under the assumption that Santa didn’t put that one under the tree, I’m…
The issue of loyalty is one of the bigger generations tensions in the workplace, and no matter what industry you work in, it tends to follow the same basic pattern, and endless cycle of older, more experienced people bemoaning the lack of loyalty they see in their younger and less-experienced colleagues. This tension is as…
The holidays are coming, which means you are probably about to argue with some of your relatives. I say that with confidence, because all of us are always only about two or three sentences away from a possible argument with somebody – family, friends, colleagues, the slow person in front of you at the stoplight,…
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘emotional intelligence’ before. (It’s also sometimes called ‘emotional quotient,’ which we’re not going to use, because it makes it sound like you’ll need to divide your emotions by your hat size or something.) But that doesn’t mean you know what emotional intelligence actually is. As you undoubtedly know, our emotions…
In this article we’re going to talk about how to craft strong, insightful questions to ask during your next interview with job candidates – not what those specific questions should be, since that will depend on your particular industry and circumstances, but rather what your questions should be trying to do. The right questions have…
Making important decisions, acting like a leader, being a person your colleagues can count on to get the job done – all of these are qualities associated with “taking initiative.” So if there’s a lot of extra initiative lying around, odds are you’d like to take some of it for yourself. Doing so, however, can…
There are a lot of ways to handle conflict. A popular one is to escalate them by avoiding the contentious subject, shouting at people who disagree with you, and other fun things like that. But if you’d like to, I don’t know, reduce the pain and agony of your next conflict, then active listening is…