This year has been a momentous one for me. I’ve become a mother and learned a whole lot from it. Motherhood has been incredibly beautiful and enriching , not least because of the immense support and love I have learned to give and receive. But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. It has been the hardest, most beautiful time in
Finding good managers is hard. By and large, my managers have all been technically brilliant. They know the business inside out but when it comes to showing empathy, they have mostly fallen short. Take a former manager who sat silently whilst I cried hysterically after receiving a call that my beloved grandmother had died and as soon as I came
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Living with someone is not easy at the best of times but especially when you can’t escape them. At university, I mainly lived with people who I’m still good friends with. But then there was Martha. Martha was loud. Every single thing she did made noise, whether it was creeping around at 3a.m. or bringing home overnight guests who would
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I remember being a student and spending the day in Richmond with my two best friends, all three of us of Italian origin. We walked into a pub at the end of a long day and whilst we were chatting away in Italian, we didn’t notice the frosty atmosphere or the slightly aggressive antics of the people drinking there. In
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The skills that I write about enable you to put your emotions aside and to realise that conflict ebbs and flows. It’s a cycle of ups and downs. At the start, you might be convinced that you will continue to fight until the bitter end. Soon, you start to be impacted by the hostilities and you realise that this is
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We’ve all had arguments and disagreements with people that leave us angry, upset and in search of revenge. I saw this recently whilst trying to negotiate an agreement for a client with somebody who had not only done a job badly for him but had caused a huge amount of stress and anxiety at a very difficult time in his
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All businesses receive complaints from customers for the simple reason that you cannot please everyone. It’s disappointing and upsetting when you have an unhappy customer but that’s not the way to approach a complaint. I’ve lost count of the times that businesses have failed to respond to my complaints in a constructive manner. On the other hand, I’m often touched
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Emotional Options – why they help resolve conflict When you are in the thick of all consuming emotions such as anger or fear, it’s hard to remember that you have a choice about how you respond to the person with whom you are in conflict. This isn’t surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work and bravery to explore your
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