negative communication

Life Skills – How To Roast A Friend

June 3, 2009

June has arrived. It’s a season for weddings and bachelor parties and summer gatherings of friends. And in the spirit of summer fun, I’ve decided to explore the topic of how to roast a friend. I’ve been contemplating doing this for awhile. Roasting comes naturally to some people, but for others it’s a difficult stretch. Having good resources is essential.

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Persuasive Communication and The Drive To Discredit

May 15, 2009

You’ve seen it before. No doubt, you will see it again. I’m talking how a persuasion campaign begins to undermine and discredit an individual, a group, an idea, or a set of choices that is gaining in popularity, or whose existence and success threatens another individual, idea or group.

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Habit and Cynicism, Obstacles to Progress?

March 24, 2009

When it comes to progress, cynicism is perfectly understandable. When you think about all the change you’ve witnessed or been promised in your lifetime, most things didn’t happen the way they were predicted to happen, most didn’t happen at all, and most of what did happen didn’t wind up where anyone said it would. When positive change is the promise, but everything actually remains the same or gets worse, well, it’s easy to become cynical.

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Why did McCain’s Negative Campaign Backfire On Him?

November 2, 2008

If there’s one lesson to be learned from the McCain campaign against Barack Obama, it’s this: When you put someone else down, you make yourself look awful.

McCain failed to notice the feedback he was getting from the electorate, and persisted in this pattern of attack until the bitter end. As I said in numerous interviews during the political season, one guy was running for president, one guy was running against the guy running for president. The voters preferred giving the job to the guy who wanted it.

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