by Steve Adubato, PhD

It’s Labor Day weekend. While summer is not officially over until later this month, for many of us, on Tuesday we get down to real business again. For weeks, or in some cases months, it has been hard to connect with clients and customers. Vacations, shortened work weeks, flex hours—simply put, summer can sometimes be a hard time to conduct serious business.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

We received dozens of e-mails in response to last week’s column on the leadership and crisis communication failures of Penn State in connection with the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Here is a sampling of what readers had to say:

by Steve Adubato, PhD

You would think that at age 66, baseball great Reggie Jackson—who has had over 40 years of experience dealing with the media and communicating in a variety of high-pressured situations—would know better. But think again. Back in 1977, at 31, it was understandable that Reggie came to the New York Yankees as a brash home run hitter looking to make a name for himself and loudly pronounced that he was the “straw that stirred the drink” on the Yankees.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Can you agree to disagree? That is the question. All of us have been guilty of needing to be “right” to the point where we communicate in negative, counterproductive and divisive ways that hurt our relationships with those closest to us.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

“Enough about you, let’s talk about me…” That’s the longstanding cliché that we use in poking fun at people who immediately upon asking, “How are you doing”, turn the conversation back to them and tell you everything going on in their lives whether you are interested or not.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Recently, I went to my local health club for a cycling class. Some people call it spinning, but I like to call it cycling. (It’s a branding thing.) As I entered the class and hopped on a bike next to my longtime friend Paul—a successful businessman and entrepreneur and usually the only other guy in the class—we quickly realized that we had a substitute instructor named Bob.

by Steve Adubato, PhD

Recently, I visited my son Nick’s third grade class to talk about the importance of confidence when communicating in public situations. His teacher has been working with the students on a variety of communication skills including presentation, listening, and the importance of being able to converse with each other as part of their morning activities.