The First Minute: How to Start Conversations That Get Results (Business Communication Skills Books)

Product Information

Once the meeting has adjourned, use your notes to write and edit your minutes, and then share them. It helps to write out your meeting minutes as soon as the meeting concludes so you don’t miss anything. 1

For me, it goes like this. Once the earbuds or whatever are finally working—or if they’re not and I’ve given up—I find myself citing the event as a condition of contemporary existence. “Incredible,” I might begin. “I can never get my phone to work anymore.” And then my phone companion usually responds with some version of “Don’t I know it. These things are garbage.” A final interjection and then a segue: “Gah. Anyway …” Then we move on with the purpose of the phone call (such as, say, workshopping an approach to a piece like this one, which, true story). That’s the bad news, but it has an upside. A new ritual for telephonic greeting has emerged: discoursing about the collapsing infrastructure of telephonic intercourse. If you are reading this and thinking it’s too late for you—you’ve already made a bad first impression, and there’s no point trying to fix it—don’t despair! You may have had some less than ideal conversations at work, but you can turn it around and become a role model for clear communication. By following these steps, you can start any work conversation feeling confident that you are communicating clearly. This is all possible in less than a minute, no matter how complex the topic. Visually notify staff, students, and even first responders with building and classroom statuses. The light has two independently controlled

However, other than then showing lots of different situations and examples in which to use this framework, I didn’t feel there was too much else to this book. If I’d paid full price, I might have thought it wasn’t great value for such a light take-out. Small Message BoardTypically found in classrooms and offices to visually notify staff and students that How would you rate your communication skills? Do you leave a good impression, or is there room for improvement?

And so we improvise. Hang on, my earbuds are not connecting, and so forth. The performance of technological error does two things. First, it tames the error. Rather than allowing it to frustrate or undermine the speaker or listener, calling it out helps corral it. You might not be able to get your phone to work the way you’d hoped, but at least you can avoid letting that failure poison the entire conversation. And second, in so doing, the performance opens the door to a new kind of phatic greeting. It is possible to make a great first impression with a colleague, only to ruin that impression when the conversation shifts to work. It doesn’t matter how much people like you; if you cannot deliver information in an organized way, they won’t respect you professionally. This is why the first minute of a conversation is so important.

But all of that sits underneath the current phone-failure malaise. Before a call can even begin, you are now forced to fight with the apparatus that makes the call in the hopes that it will successfully connect you. Before First Responders arriveEmpower occupants to notify an entire building or campus with a single action via Telecenter U,