Did you pay your taxes?

Is it expected?

On a visit to a small town about an hour north of Sacramento California, I saw the following road construction sign........

Now providing that no one stoled the other sign that said "Forni", I think we have a road construction worker from YHS......just sayin'! Small town USA, should we expect this presentation?

Communication and Leadership - Part V, Nonverbal Behaviors of Communication

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they
 misunderstood others. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver (U.S. Army, 1983).  Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate and/or processes, which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail (Mistry, Jaggers, Lodge, Alton, Mericle, Frush, Meliones, 2008).
Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel,
evaluate, and supervise throughout this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side.

Nonverbal Behaviors of Communication

To deliver the full impact of a message, use nonverbal behaviors to raise the channel of interpersonal communication:
• Eye contact: This helps to regulate the flow of communication. It signals interest in others and increases the speaker's credibility. People who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth, and credibility.
• Facial Expressions: Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits happiness, friendliness, warmth, and liking. So, if you smile frequently you will be perceived as more likable, friendly, warm and approachable. Smiling is often contagious and people will react favorably. They will be more comfortable around you and will want to listen more.
• Gestures: If you fail to gesture while speaking you may be perceived as boring and stiff. A lively speaking style captures the listener's attention, makes the conversation more interesting, and facilitates understanding.
• Posture and body orientation: You communicate numerous messages by the way you talk and move. Standing erect and leaning forward communicates to listeners that you are approachable, receptive and friendly. Interpersonal closeness results when you and the listener face each other. Speaking with your back turned or looking at the floor or ceiling should be avoided as it communicates disinterest.
• Proximity: Cultural norms dictate a comfortable distance for interaction with others. You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading the other person's space. Some of these are: rocking, leg swinging, tapping, and gaze aversion.
• Vocal: Speaking can signal nonverbal communication when you include such vocal elements as: tone, pitch, rhythm, timbre, loudness, and inflection. For maximum teaching effectiveness, learn to vary these six elements of your voice. One of the major criticisms of many speakers is that they speak in a monotone voice. Listeners perceive this type of speaker as boring and dull.

Speaking Hints

Speak comfortable words! — William Shakespeare
• When speaking or trying to explain something, ask the listeners if they are following you.
• Ensure the receiver has a chance to comment or ask questions.
• Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes — consider the feelings of the receiver.
• Be clear about what you say.
• Look at the receiver.
• Make sure your words match your tone and body language (nonverbal behaviors).
• Vary your tone and pace.
• Do not be vague, but on the other hand, do not complicate what you are saying with too much detail.
• Do not ignore signs of confusion.

Communication and Leadership - Part IV, Feedback

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they
 misunderstood others. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver (U.S. Army, 1983).  Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate and/or processes, which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail (Mistry, Jaggers, Lodge, Alton, Mericle, Frush, Meliones, 2008).
Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel,
evaluate, and supervise throughout this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side.

Feedback

When you know something, say what you know. When you don't know something, say that you don't know. That is knowledge. — Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius)
The purpose of feedback is to alter messages so the intention of the original communicator is understood by the second communicator. It includes verbal and nonverbal responses to another person's message.
Providing feedback is accomplished by paraphrasing the words of the sender. Restate the sender's feelings or ideas in your own words, rather than repeating their words. Your words should be saying, “This is what I understand your feelings to be, am I correct?” It not only includes verbal responses, but also nonverbal ones. Nodding your head or squeezing their hand to show agreement, dipping your eyebrows shows you don't quite understand the meaning of their last phrase, or sucking air in deeply and blowing it hard shows that you are also exasperated with the situation.
Carl Rogers listed five main categories of feedback. They are listed in the order in which they occur most frequently in daily conversations. Notice that we make judgments more often than we try to understand:
Evaluative: Making a judgment about the worth, goodness, or appropriateness of the other person's statement.
Interpretive: Paraphrasing — attempting to explain what the other person's statement means.
Supportive: Attempting to assist or bolster the other communicator.
Probing: Attempting to gain additional information, continue the discussion, or clarify a point.
Understanding: Attempting to discover completely what the other communicator means by her statements.
Imagine how much better daily communications would be if listeners tried to understand first, before they tried to evaluate what someone is saying

Communication and Leadership - Part III, Active Listening

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they
 misunderstood others. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Communication is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another; it involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver (U.S. Army, 1983).  Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to transmit. Many of the problems that occur in an organization are the either the direct result of people failing to communicate and/or processes, which leads to confusion and can cause good plans to fail (Mistry, Jaggers, Lodge, Alton, Mericle, Frush, Meliones, 2008).
Studying the communication process is important because you coach, coordinate, counsel,
evaluate, and supervise throughout this process. It is the chain of understanding that integrates the members of an organization from top to bottom, bottom to top, and side to side.

Active Listening

Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Hearing is the act of perceiving sound. It is involuntary and simply refers to the reception of aural stimuli. Listening is a selective activity which involves the reception and the interpretation of aural stimuli. It involves decoding the sound into meaning.
Listening is divided into two main categories: passive and active. Passive listening is little more that hearing. It occurs when the receiver of the message has little motivation to listen carefully, such as when listening to music, story telling, television, or when being polite.
People speak at 100 to 175 words per minute (WPM), but they can listen intelligently at 600 to 800 WPM. Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift — thinking about other things while listening to someone. The cure for this is active listening — which involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc. It requires that the listener attends to the words and the feelings of the sender for understanding. It takes the same amount or more energy than speaking. It requires the receiver to hear the various messages, understand the meaning, and then verify the meaning by offering feedback. The following are a few traits of active listeners:
• Spend more time listening than talking.
• Do not finish the sentences of others.
• Do not answer questions with questions.
• Are aware of biases. We all have them. We need to control them.
• Never daydreams or become preoccupied with their own thoughts when others talk.
• Let the other speakers talk. Do not dominate the conversations.
• Plan responses after the others have finished speaking, NOT while they are speaking.
• Provide feedback, but do not interrupt incessantly.
• Analyze by looking at all the relevant factors and asking open-ended questions. Walk others through by summarizing.
• Keep conversations on what others say, NOT on what interests them.
• Take brief notes. This forces them to concentrate on what is being said.

Women have the love life they choose….."The Guilty One"

Now when I say this I don’t mean to imply that what they choose is what they want.  Whether she is career oriented or family oriented, or somewhere in between she is choosing to be there.  Sometimes, what she chooses is exactly what she wants.  Sometimes, she even knows it. The problem seems to be when she doesn’t realize how her choices are either not getting her what she wants or even worse keeping her in a bad situation for all the wrong reasons.
Sure, sometimes the perfect love smacks you in the face and it’s undeniable.  More often when you find couples that have been together for years, they will tell you a story about their life together that hasn’t always been rose petals.  More often it is a story that has lead one or both of them to the edge of quitting.  Through good communication, realistic expectations, understanding, compassion and the love and passion that brought them together with a splash of tenacity they have held it not only together but have grown together and increased that love for one another that is unbreakable.  It’s like they have more love for each other out of the appreciation that he or she stayed to work together to become one.  Hopefully without losing either individual, but most definitely operating together as one unit.
“The Guilty One”-  This young lady has impacted her present and future with guilt from her past.  While sounding very simple to understand, it’s not.  Most commonly, something has happened that she has blamed herself for or has been wrongfully blamed for and she accepted that blame.  Then feeling guilt for it subconsciously and packing it around until she realizes it.  While men aren’t immune to this very problem, we are discussing women.  I find that women that have had a poor relationship with a male role model as a child may have problems with trying too hard to make a bad relationship work with what they see (subconsciously) as a similar personality to that childhood role model.  Typically, because they think they are responsible for the shortcomings of the earlier relationship, so they stay. Thinking that she deserves the abuse that can go on during a bad relationship.  All the while, she is trying harder to make things work and dismissing the partner’s abuse(exhausting).  Abuse can be in many forms from verbal to very physical. It usually escalates.   
Realizing the guilt that they have put on themselves or allowed to be put on them is the first step in healing themselves.  This healing is a wonderful thing.  Usually it’s the first step in learning more things about yourself that are overshadowing your choices.

Andersen Consulting Efficiencies-Joke

Last week, we took some friends out to a new restaurant and noticed that
the waiter who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed
a little strange. When another waiter brought our water, I noticed he also
had a spoon in his shirt pocket. Then I looked around and saw that all the
staff had spoons in their pockets. When the waiter came back to serve our soup I
asked, "Why the spoon?"

"Well, he explained, "the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting
to revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they
concluded that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a drop
frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our personnel
are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to the kitchen and save
15 man- hours per shift."

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it
with his spare. "I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen,
instead of making an extra trip to get it right now."

I was impressed. I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of
the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the
same string hanging from their flies. So before he walked off, I asked the waiter
"Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?"

"Oh, certainly!" Then he lowered his voice. "Not everyone is so
observant. That consulting firm I mentioned also found out that we can save time in
the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of you know what, we can pull
it out without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening
the time spent in the restroom by 76.39 percent."

I asked "After you get it out, how do you put it back?"

"Well," he whispered, "I don't know about the others, but I use the
spoon."

-Unknown