ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

You have a great idea.  How to you convince others to cooperate in making this idea happen?  Rick Kirschner, writing in Work and Family Life (December 2011), offers these suggestions for "clicking with people"

Put the most important information up front.  Lead with your main point.

Be specific.  Include key details such as names, places, and actions.  But don’t tell them everything.  Give them the bottom line clearly and early on.  If people want more information, they will ask for it.

Focus on goals, not process.  State your desired result, rather than elaborating on the process of getting there.

Forecast.  Tell people what you’re going to tell them and why.

Point the way forward.  After you have presented your idea, tell people what you want them to do and why.

Use rhetorical questions.  Raising a question and providing an answer can make your opinion sound stronger and may help tilt the playing field toward consensus.

This volume of Exchange Essentials includes 11 selected Exchange articles, in pdf format, providing tools and perspectives on communicating with parents:

• I Was Such a Fabulous Teacher, What Happened?
  by Kate Duffy
• Who Made Me Boss? Eight Tips for Supervisors
  by Gigi Taylor Schweikart
• From Surviving to Thriving
  by Margie Carter
• Learning the Ropes
  by Paula Jorde Bloom
• Letters to a Child Care Director
  by James Levine
• And 6 More!

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