CrucialSkills, the official VitalSmarts blog
Helping you change behavior by answering your questions about soft skills.
Structure. As a relatively organized human that thrives on predictability, structure is something to which I am deeply attached—and it’s not something that’s been abundant the last 16 months. As I taught an Influencer course in January 2021, my class and I discussed the structural lens of Influence: what it […]
My colleague Emily and I have taken on an exciting project recently that has pushed me to look at accountability in a new way. If you’re not familiar, our Crucial Accountability content teaches skills for addressing gaps between expectations and actual performance. The accountability model for managing performance is a […]
Fifteen years ago I went to Canada and had one of the most profound insights of my professional life. I was a newly minted VitalSmarts Master Trainer leading both a Crucial Conversations course and trainer certification course in London, Ontario, Canada. The facilitators in the course were and are among […]
It’s not news to anyone that we all feel extra burned out right now. We have too much to do. We don’t have enough time. We’re not getting it all done, and so we miss things and then feel bad about ourselves. I want to help and I’m going to […]
I am in the process of putting together the pieces of my 2020 training vision for 2021. With so many fractured and competing needs and a drastically different landscape, how do I reset my vision and bring healing and hope to my organization?
Q. My 2020 goals were disrupted by Covid-19 and beyond. As I go into 2021, what habits can I leverage to reframe and achieve the goals I want to in the classroom and beyond? A. I remember staring 2020 in the face with new hopes, desires, and resolves. I couldn’t […]
When most L&D professionals think about social learning, it is with an emphasis on learning. We know people learn through social modeling, discussion, coaching, mentoring and connection. For many L&D professionals, social strategies have been a means to an end—they help us accomplish or further our learning objectives. But what […]
Q. As a school administrator, I am preparing for the emotional post-election conversations that our staff and students are expecting in the days ahead. As opportunities arise to discuss the outcomes, teachers are looking for guidance on the best ways to model mature and responsible behavior for one another and […]
