Category Archives: Authors A-H

Authors listed by last name A-H

When Eye Rolls are Appropriate – by Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D.

The Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times,” seems to be active today, activating our anxiety. Globally. The news sounds more and more like the most alarming drum roll. In the past few weeks, the world has been gripped by reports of terrorist plots and attacks in the US, in France, in Bangladesh, in Istanbul, in Baghdad, in Munich. Refugees from Syria are drowning by the hundreds as they desperately seek a safe foothold. Everywhere the number of the dead mounts.

Continue reading When Eye Rolls are Appropriate – by Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D.

The Privilege of Failure – by Patti Hague

Even after forty years, I still remember the most important lecture I heard at college. It was delivered to me by a friend, standing in the dormitory hallway. I had once again done something thoughtless and self-centered. She had had it with me. She delivered a lecture on all of my failings, all of the ways I had let people down and acted in selfish self-interest. Defensively, I pushed back. But I also absorbed what she said.

Continue reading The Privilege of Failure – by Patti Hague

They protested, did they not? Just asking. – by Terry Howard

When it comes to courageous writing, it doesn’t get much better than James Ragland. He constantly serves up a menu of thought-provoking lines that allow for wannabee writers like yours truly to do some free cherry-picking.

“And when did civil protest — of any form, really — become the object of scorn in America, even when it’s not hurting anyone except the guy whose butt is on the line? You may not like what Colin Kaepernick is doing, but fighting for what he believes in is about as American as it gets.”
–James Ragland, Dallas Morning news

Continue reading They protested, did they not? Just asking. – by Terry Howard

Hey, speak English! (part 2) – by Terry Howard

Empathy can go a long way towards understanding how sensitive language diversity can be. For me it was years ago when I spoke to an audience of 190 German executives in Dusseldorf – in English, of course, but had nothing to say during dinner when everyone spoke German except me – or when I sat around the table in Amsterdam with 25 folks who adroitly moved from one language to another. Woefully deficient – not excluded – the proverbial “bump on the log,” is how I felt in those uncomfortable situations.

Hold my experience (and think through yours) as we turn now to today’s column.

Continue reading Hey, speak English! (part 2) – by Terry Howard

Humanity Defined During Crisis – Poem by Lauren Brenner

humanity is lost
so do not tell me that
peace still exists
you are wrong
the truth is
the world is at war
you will never be treated with equal rights if you are a minority, and
do not dare say that
the good of humanity will prevail
because I know
evil is all around us
you would be lying to say
there is time for healing and
there is still hope,
this country is not divided,
we can take pride in our country
America is still the land of freedom,
I can say unequivocally that
that is just not true
the fact is
our country will never be the same
we will never be the same
humanity is lost
Now read from the bottom to the top

The Perils of Paybacks! – by Terry Howard

There I was pecking away on my keyboard. Part Two of “Hey, Speak English,” was coming along nicely when last week, “the racial week that was,” kicked the legs out from beneath my comfort zone. In a dreadful span of 72 hours, seven lives were senselessly snuffed out in Baton Rouge, Minneapolis and Dallas. Of course, many more lives ended that week, but thanks to the combustible mix of race, firearms and mobile devices, these are the ones that owned the headlines.

I insert here my worry, folks!

Although a bit of a stretch, a force fit, some may view the killing of those five white police officers in Dallas as payback in the same way that some jurors in the O. J. Simpson criminal trial delivered a not guilty verdict as payback for the beating of Rodney King and the atrocities heaped upon African Americans over the years. They may not have said it publicly, but the bet here is that the thought probably raced through some minds and showed up in private conversations. “The chickens have come home to roost,” as the saying goes and as some likely thought.

Although I can understand the sentiments, the simmering frustrations resulting from black lives constantly being snuffed out, payback utterings make me uncomfortable, very uncomfortable.

Turning now to why we need to careful.

You see, the problem with “paybacks” is paybacks begat a paybacks in turn. So before we realize it, the circular cycle spirals totally out of control. (Think about the revenge killings by gangs). And along the way widows and orphans are made, careers, relationships and reputations – and sometimes, bodies – are left in the wake. And at the end of the day, who really wins? None of us.

So what do we do? Or maybe the better question is what do we not do?

Well, if the thought of payback crosses the mind, Dr. King’s advice should put that idea firmly to rest:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
-begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
     ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

So here we are – you, me, all of us – sitting back in the comforts of our living rooms, eyes glued to TV sets, or in our places of worship trying to figure out what all this means, where on Earth are we going and what can we do personally to make a difference. A conundrum that’s indeed a daunting one.

But here’s hoping that any thought of engaging in payback is one option that’s kept off the table.

Speak English! (part 1) – by Terry Howard

Out of exasperation, some will bellow the words, “Speak English!” Others? Well, my hunch is that most will roll their eyes and think but, wisely, not utter those words. And if you add to the angst the difficulty it can be when someone switches to another language, one you don’t know, the tension only escalates.

But wait, wait, wait!

Continue reading Speak English! (part 1) – by Terry Howard

How Cultural Intelligence Affects Your Bottom Line – by Kyle Hegarty

An American company quietly shuts down their APAC office in Singapore. They conclude that the business model “doesn’t work in Asia.” The local team wouldn’t innovate and respond to local market needs. The American Managing Director thought having a ‘flat hierarchy’ was the answer. He was wrong. His company writes off a few million dollars.

Continue reading How Cultural Intelligence Affects Your Bottom Line – by Kyle Hegarty

Hey fellas, let’s listen up & communicate! – by Terry Howard

One of the many benefits I enjoy from writing this column is that I get to communicate from up here on my, shall we say, “perch.” From up here, I get to rant and rave, sprinkle dashes of uncomfortableness into conventional wisdom, tweak comfort zones, take folks dangerously close to the end, leave them suspended Wile E. Coyote-like midair, then lasso them in before they plunge over the cliff into the “diversity dangers” that lurk below.From here, I get to do some vigorous backpedaling, or source attribution when I need to pass the buck if things get a tad too hot or have the potential to backfire on me.

Case in point; watch me right now as I hand off the thorny issue of sweeping stereotypes to Dr. Claire Brown, facilitator of a seminar titled “Conquering communications collisions between men and women.” In fact, it was Brown whom I “blame” for the attention-getting title of my column, “When women chit chat, men go nuts!” (By the way, the Aug. 2012 issue of “The Wall Street Journal” ran an article pointing out that although some may dismiss chit chatting as an unnecessary and annoying waste of time, the practice is essential social grease.)

Continue reading Hey fellas, let’s listen up & communicate! – by Terry Howard