Holidays and peer pressure among adults

"You're going to the company party, aren't you? Everyone who is important will be there. You have to come!"  "Come to the bar with us for this holiday fling, just a couple of drinks after work!"  "Have a few of these wonderful cookies! They just have a few calories; you can skip your diet just this once!"  Is this scenario, of peer pressure around the holidays, common at your workplace?

Peer pressure is a form of persuasive communication. If you want to bow out gracefully, thank the person for the invitation, say you won't be able to come,  and immediately steer the topic to a safer subject, such as complimenting the other person on a wonderful outfit or project, and asking a follow-up question or two. The keys with this strategy are to plan ahead to determine an acceptable reason you cannot do what they want, and quickly change the topic.

Setting Priorities: The Holiday Season and You

Are you overwhelmed right now with work, family, home, hobby and holidays?

Many people have difficulty setting priorities; everything seems important.

Is that what you are feeling?

Sit down for a moment and think about what really is important to you- and what else takes lower priorities in terms of urgency.  If you have trouble with this, ask yourself, "If I have only one day left to live, how would I spend it?"

For me, safety comes first, followed by general health and family issues.

Holidays can be a special time, but their celebration can be cranked up, or ramped down. If you are feeling stressed, what aspects of the celebration can be reduced, such as attending fewer parties, giving the same gift to several people, sending holiday cards online or decorating more simply?

Setting priorities applies to work, as well. Many times an employee answers to a variety of supervisors, who all assign work with overlapping deadlines.

If you are that employee, it may be wise to explain to each supervisor that you have several people giving you projects, and ask each to tell you the priority and deadline for it.

Communication skills are essential for today's employees, especially for those who are supervisors. Learn the 18 critical communication skills for managers, whether you are one right now, or aspire to  be one in the future! From appreciation and persuasion to listening and asking critical questions

(and some of these are listed), get the skills you need for your workforce!

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Holiday Events and Hearing Loss: 3 Tips for Coping

Do you dread going to noisy holiday parties because you are having trouble hearing people? Here are some tips to help.

First, if you have a hearing aid, wear it! It has been programmed to your specific hearing pattern, so use it! If you don't use it much, read the manual or online instructions and try it out in a noisy place ahead of time.

At the party, you will hear better with less competing noise. Talk to people in a side room or hall if that's quieter.

If you are really interested in talking to someone, self-advocate! Tell the person you have a hearing loss, and ask if they can repeat a specific word or sentence. If they try to talk louder, ask if they can talk a little slower instead, but not exaggerate their words.

If you are at a holiday dinner or other event, try to face the person to whom you are talking. This will help with lip-reading as well as watching body language.

The e-book What Did You Say? Coping with Hearing Loss in the Workplace, has practical strategies and is a quick-read concise source of help. Get it before your next event!

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Alternative Career Options for Speech-Language Pathologists is a book that discusses the career paths of 18 professionals. It covers each person's (or team's) traditional career, how the person changed to a new field, what the person does now, and the advantages and disadvantages of making such a change.

The book includes a career self-assessment questionnaire to help the reader consider his or her possibilities.

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Make your meetings more effective!

When you lead a meeting, there are several ways to judge its value. Are new ideas generated and discussed? Is important information shared with everyone in attendance? Are people networking?

However, does everyone who attends need to be present? (Are there "chair-warmers" there, whose bodies are in the chair but whose minds are on vacation?)  Could the meeting information  be shared in some other format that might be less costly? The cost includes the other work that is not being done so attendees can be at the meeting. It also can be calculated by multiplying the average hourly pay times the number of attendees times the length of the meeting. There are indeed apps for iPhone (http://rockapproll.com/app/Meeting-Cost-Clock)  and for Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id...meetingcostcalculator...) that can calculate this for you. Of course, transportation, catering and meeting room costs are also additional expenses to holding a meeting. You may be shocked when you find out how expensive meetings are!

To make a meeting more effective, beyond having an agenda and minutes, figure out strategies to reduce multi-tasking by attendees who are using their tablets and other devices to work on other assignments. They may be paying minimal attention to the speaker or meeting leader. Instead, ask that only attendees come who can give full attention to the matter being discussed; there should be a mechanism for those who are meeting immediate deadlines to miss a certain number of sessions per year, with a requirement that they read the minutes of what transpired.

It helps to state the length of time the meeting will last, and to start and stop on time. This builds trust in the leader or facilitator.

Get people up and moving, or discussing ideas, every 20 - 30 minutes. If there will be a change in procedures or a merger, have people come up with implications for all parties involved or develop a time-line so they can accept change more easily. Offer refreshments on a table to the side of the room, so people have to walk at least a little bit.

One technique for getting people more involved in a meeting is to give each person some index cards. Present a topic for discussion, such as a proposed merger or new category of customer. Each person writes one implication, question or related idea per index card, and shares them with a coworker sitting next to him. That person attempts to answer the questions or comment on the ideas. The two then discuss both peoples' cards. This can take 10 minutes and is an efficient way to get people involved. Later, any new ideas can be shared with the entire group, or with the leader if more appropriate.

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Holiday Events and Hearing Loss: 3 Tips for Coping

Do you dread going to noisy holiday parties because you are having trouble hearing people? Here are some tips to help.

First, if you have a hearing aid, wear it! It has been programmed to your specific hearing pattern, so use it! If you don't use it much, read the manual or online instructions and try it out in a noisy place ahead of time.

At the party, you will hear better with less competing noise. Talk to people in a side room or hall if that's quieter.

If you are really interested in talking to someone, self-advocate! Tell the person you have a hearing loss, and ask if they can repeat a specific word or sentence. If they try to talk louder, ask if they can talk a little slower instead, but not exaggerate their words.

If you are at a Thanksgiving dinner or other event, try to face the person whom you are interested in talking to. This will help with lip-reading as well as watching body language.

The e-book What Did You Say? Coping with Hearing Loss in the Workplace, has practical strategies and is a quick-read concise source of help. Get it before your next event!

Can't remember what you were going to say?

Have you ever had a great thought - and then forgot it before you could say it in a meeting or conversation? Have you struggled to recall a particular word?

Here are some tips to help you to recall the thought or the specific word. First, think of the word's antonym (opposite) or synonym. For example, for the word "hot", you could think of either cold or boiling.

What superordinate category was the word in, such as food for "rice"?

Can you be more specific, such as "grain"?

Can you describe the thought or the word in some way, such as "part of the supervisor's action plan", or "soft and white"?

Can you associate the word or thought with some location, such as the conference room or your car? Did you originally think of the word when you were cooking lunch or driving past a specific store?

If you are trying to recall a name, what do you know about this person? When you met him or her, what was your initial impression of the person, his interests or appearance?

In many cases, you will think of the word when you relax, even though it may be later when you are not concentrating on it.

Word-finding problems can be frustrating, but trying these ideas may help those words come back faster.