Dear David, As a certified trainer, I want to be prepared to answer students’ questions. In talking about separating facts from stories, the question came up: “What if people disagree about what each person said?” For example, I say to my son: “You said you would pick up milk on the way home.” He responds …

The following article was originally published on September 8, 2004. Dear Crucial Skills, My boss has started micromanaging me. She constantly asks me for updates. One morning, by 10 o’clock, I had already received ten e-mail messages from her and it took me an hour and a half just to reply to her requests for …

Dear Emily, I am the victim of a character assassination at work. I have been at my current workplace for ten years. A new colleague seems to be jealous of my successes and has started spreading stories, gossip, and rumors, stating that I am a difficult colleague to work with. At work, I am direct …

The following article was originally published on August 4, 2004. Dear Ron, I lead a faith-based, non-profit organization after fifteen years as a mid-level executive in the wireless industry. Working with board members and volunteers is tough sometimes. My difficulty comes in creating safety and expressing my concerns when people do not deliver on their …

Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read Ron McMillan’s response to this question: How can I confront a problem employee about her rude and disrespectful behavior?

Dear David, How should I handle a very opinionated person who says things to me that are hateful and mean? This particular person is so opinionated that I could try giving my point of view until I’m blue in the face and they won’t hear a word I say. When I’ve tried expressing how their …

Dear Crucial Skills, My brother has a small IT business and usually employs four to five people at a time. He recently employed a twenty-year-old college student we’ll call Mark. Because of his girlfriend’s unexpected pregnancy, Mark had to stop studying and finds himself raising a family. His family situation is complex; he commutes about …

Dear Crucial Skills, My boss likes to leave things open for change until the last moment and this stresses me out completely. A few examples: (1) We were presenting to senior management and had agreed to drop several items from the presentation based on specific logical reasons. Two hours before the presentation, he decided we …

The following article was first published on December 21, 2005. Dear Crucial Skills, I am a divorced father of two young children. The separation occurred two years ago. We are doing a very good job of co-parenting. My ex-wife, “Sue,” and I had agreed from early on that we would NOT be introducing people we …

The following article was first published on November 2, 2004. Dear Crucial Skills, As a manager, I resist micromanaging at all costs; it’s not the way I want to be managed and it’s not the way I want to manage. However, I may well be a manager who can be taken advantage of, and that …