How to Act and Not React
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read David Maxfield’s answer to this question: How can I learn to be proactive instead of reactive?
Posts by David Maxfield
Crucial Conversations for Mastering Dialogue
corporate culture
Dealing with Resentment at Work
Dear Crucial Skills, In our hospital, we have a person who made a grave mistake during surgery. As the manager’s pet, she was not disciplined or reprimanded, but anyone else would have been fired on the spot. The rest of the staff noticed the special treatment given to this individual and are extremely resentful. How …
Influencing Litter Control
Dear Crucial Skills, I run a city initiative to clean up garbage in the spring. Do you have any advice for influencing residents to stop littering in the first place? Fighting Litter Dear Fighting, Thank you for your community service. We each need to do our part. After all, we are the community, and the …
Motivating a Teenager
Dear Crucial Skills, My sixteen-year-old daughter excels academically and plans to pursue a university education to become a physiotherapist. She is a very intelligent and sensible teenager and is admired by family, teachers, and friends. However, her teacher called me with concerns about her recent behavior, attitude, and work habits. Lately, she procrastinates homework assignments, …
Approaching a Hard-to-Please Boss
Dear Crucial Skills, I have a problem at work involving a boss who is never satisfied. Our branch has the highest ratings possible and yet our annual letter from the boss always says, “I know we have the potential to be good.” This wording sounds as if we are not good now, despite having the …
How to Develop Leadership Skills
ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, Influencer: The Power to Change Anything. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, After working as chair of a small committee in my department for more than a year, my boss told me I must step down because the committee finds my …
Crucial Conversations amidst Controversy
Dear Readers, I created a firestorm with my response to last week’s question about the crucial conversations world leaders are having about climate change. Like most people, I obviously have my own views on global warming. However, I didn’t intend to write a political column and I am sorry it came out that way. I …
Crucial Conversations about Climate Change
Dear Crucial Skills, I followed the climate change summit in Copenhagen last December and found it very frustrating to watch world leaders unable to agree on actions they must take to protect the ecological health of our planet. The meetings quickly disintegrated into a discussion about the individual wealth of their own nations. What crucial …
Changing Racist Behavior
Dear Crucial Skills, Do you have any resources related to the Influencer model for dealing with racism in the workplace? Dealing with Racism Dear Dealing, This year alone, employees from four organizations approached me about handling racist incidents including nooses hanging over lockers, swastikas painted on doors, hate language written on bathroom mirrors, and racist …
How to Find Vital Behaviors
Dear Crucial Skills, I am currently attempting to put the principles of Influencer to work, but I am struggling to find those vital behaviors that are more than hunches. I am looking for the vital behaviors that will lead to telemarketing sales and I’m wondering where I can go to find statistically supported, tried-and-tested vital …