Submit Articles - Search & Find Free Content

Search:

Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D.'s Articles

Display Category\|Title\|Newest\|Oldest
You Need an Answer To: Why Am I Doing This? Friends and sports heroes remind me that to achieve your goal, you need the inner strength to keep plugging away in spite of discouragement and fatigue. Why We Dream People are often disturbed by their dreams. They worry about what they might mean. To understand dreams, I think it helps to know why we dream in the first place. Why People Give Honest Feedback...In Spite of the Potential Downsides Feedback doesn't have much value if people don't "tell it like it is." But in any given organization, employees may be circumspect about giving realistic feedback. Why Most Training Doesn't Transfer to Changed Behavior in the Workplace Most leadership and team training doesn't change behavior at all. So is the investment in leader development worth it? Once you know why most training doesn't "stick," you understand what it takes to ingrain improved workplace behavior. Why I Exercise When your health fails, you die. I was never an athlete. But now, as a senior citizen, I exercise to make my body stronger, to protect myself against injury and disease. Who's Accountable for Learning - Trainers, Learners or the Learners' Bosses? Traditionally, trainers are held accountable for the results of training. In truth, the learners themselves, as well as the learners' direct managers, have a major impact on whether training ultimately transfers to improved workplace performance - and they should be held accountable, too. When You Come to a Fork In the Road... Being decisive means acting on your best option at the most opportune time. When Personalities Clash, Stretch for Rapport A revealing story about my encounter with someone who is very different from me. When Feedback Fails, Try Appropriate Consequences Feedback is a powerful relationship tool, but people don’t always respond well to it. A friend recently told me a funny story about how she managed a relationship with a neighbor by applying the principle of “appropriate consequences.” What It Takes to Make Permanent Improvements in Leader Performance While it's crucial that organizations improve the way line leaders lead, the vast majority of leadership development programs result in little or no behavior change. This is because of a lack of understanding of how skills are formed in the brain and what it takes to establish this kind of learning. A new approach to professional development called Train-to-Ingrain is designed to make permanent changes in workplace performance. What it Takes to Eliminate a Counter-productive Behavior Pattern If there’s no delete button for a behavior pattern, how can we replace a bad habit with a good one, if the bad habit has been reinforced over a lifetime? What Is Your Song? In my experience, most people are singing someone else’s song. I respect their need and choice to do so, but to be your own person you have to go your own way. We Can Serve Even if you have only a small amount of time to give, that’s all it takes to positively influence someone else’s life. Watch Your Back: Why I Left the Big City I learned to follow my wife's many rules for urban survival. I have to admit that doing so made me feel safer, just as following my own rules in Viet Nam made me feel safer. But I didn't like it. Using 360-Degree Feedback to Assess Whether Performance Is Improving Instead of evaluating whether there’s a causal link between assessment and the bottom line, it makes more sense to evaluate whether developmental programs are actually improving performance. Up Against the Wall When it comes to hard health choices, most people won't face the facts and decide to do the right thing until they're faced with dire consequences. Unfortunately, in many cases it will be too late. Uncertainty...Risk...You'll Need Courage to Succeed Venturing into unknown territory can be scary. What if it doesn’t work out? Who knows what could happen? To Capture Each Precious Moment You Have to Pay Attention Is life passing you by too quickly? Do you long for rich life experiences in which minutes seem like hours, or days? The key is awareness. Tiger Woods and Annika Sorenstam: The Dues They Pay Tiger Woods is one of the all-time great professional golfers, and he hits hundreds of golf balls in practice every day. But even Tiger had to stick with his new swing for the better part of a year before the new patterns became ingrained and he achieved noticeable improvements in his game. Think Good of Yourself You may be imperfect, but you have significant strengths and huge reserves of goodness within you. You deserve the love of your friends, as well as success from your best efforts. There's a Time to Stop Thinking and Start Taking Action Being decisive means acting on your best option at the most opportune time. The Ultimate Use for 360-degree Feedback: Validating Individual Improvement in Performance Considering the billions of dollars invested annually in leadership development, organizations need a way to demonstrate whether these programs are actually changing behavior. The Ultimate Training and Development Challenge: Improving Soft Skills Typically, about half of what an employee is required to do involves “soft skills” (also called “people skills”). These are typically hard to observe, quantify and measure. What's worse, people come to work with these interpersonal behavior patterns already ingrained. The Truth: You're Neither an Extrovert Nor an Introvert - You're Both The old terms "Extravert" and "Introvert" oversimplify and wrongly categorize people. Current science has demonstrated that the average person has the potential to behave in both ways practically every day. The Third Pillar of Reinforcement: Coaching A new skill must be reinforced for quite a while before it starts to feel natural, and only then will you use it habitually. A vital component of reinforcing the new skill is coaching. The Second Pillar of Reinforcement: Ongoing Feedback Most organizations arrange for formal feedback only once, expecting that this will result in the desired behavior change. The brain doesn't work that way. To change a work habit, motivated learners will need to work at it for months, and they'll need lots of feedback along the way to let them know know how they're doing. The Scientific Explanation for the Power of Hope Your body needs a strong immune system to heal itself. Hope is something that happens in the brain, and it triggers the distribution of hormones that are needed for regeneration. The Reinforcement Imperative Learning a professional skill is like learning a sport skill. If you want it to feel comfortable and natural and if you want to do it well as a matter of habit, it will take lots of practice. The Payoffs for Self-Awareness You can't manage what you don't understand. Self-awareness gives you the ability to make the most of your strengths, work around the less emphasized areas and interact with others more effectively. The Key to Improving Soft Skills: Assessment, Training and Reinforcement Senior managers mistakenly believe that people skills training programs by themselves can change how employees relate to each other. Organizations can gain a far better return on their investment in people skills training if they would do three things. The Journey to Accepting Loss What in your life is hard to accept? How does the reluctance to accept it hold you back? The Growing Child's Brain and the Crucial Windows of Development In a child, each area of the cortex develops at different times, but each area grows during a limited period of time, during which the magnitude and quality of the basic functioning network and the child's potential are defined once and for all. The Fourth Pillar of Reinforcement: Accountability Why would an organization invest in training if they didn't expect people to improve their workplace performance? That return on investment isn't likely without an extended program of follow-through reinforcement. There are ways to tell whether learners have actually changed their behavior, and holding people accountable helps to motivate them to do the hard work of establishing new patterns. The First Pillar of Reinforcement: Ongoing Learning The trainer was outstanding and everyone raved about the course? But will anything change? A year from now, will anyone actually be doing what was taught in the course? It turns out that whether people apply their new skills depends more on what happens after the course... The Failure of Basic Education in America A recent study showed that most college students can't perform simple math and literacy skills. These are skills they should have learned in high school. The Brain is Where Your Personality Comes From If you understand the basic organization of the brain, you can see how personality is formed and why people have so much in common but in the end are so different. The Best Encouragement: Listening with Empathy In a world full of challenges and frustration, we what we need most of all is someone who will listen to us and understand what we're going through. But doing this well isn't so easy... The Amazing Power of Believing in Yourself If you think you can’t do something, you probably won’t try. Even if you do make an attempt, you’re likely to give up when difficulties seem to prove your doubts. But if you believe you can do it, you’ll eventually prove what was always true—that you can work through most difficult tasks. Taking Responsibility Will Maker You Stronger, Better A lot depends on whether people do things that need to be done. How often do you accept the role to take action? Survey Items Need to Be Well Constructed How well are people doing their jobs? A major part of the answer may be found using multi-source feedback. But everything depends on whether the survey items are well-constructed. Statements of Affirmation and Hope...from My Friends I once asked my friends for affirmations that serve as rays of light for the hard times. Some are original thoughts, and some are quotes. Hopefully, you'll relate to some of what has been shared here, reflect on it and use it to cope with your situation. Skill Building: What Happens in the Brain Learning a new leadership skill, or any new behavior pattern for that matter, is something that happens in the brain. When you learn what that something is, you appreciate why it takes so much practice and repetition to ingrain a new skill. Should You Spank Your Child?...A Story Some say there is a time and a place and a right way to hit a child to instill discipline. Maybe this is true. Here's a story to consider in the debate... Senior Managers Are Accountable for Training Results, Too The conventional wisdom: Trainers should be held accountable for training results. The reality: Many people - including senior managers - play key roles to influence whether training translates to workplace performance and has an impact on business results. Recipe: Shrimp Boil Fast, easy, delicious, and good for you...this dish has been my favorite since I was a little boy. Recipe: Salmon Soup If you're trying to lose weight, you can help yourself to a huge, delicious portion. It's fast - total time to serving is only 20-30 min. And it's good for you, Recipe: Rich Home-Made Stock Keeping the pounds off means eating right. One trick to switching to a lifestyle that includes really healthy food that tastes better than “regular” food is homemade stock - using ingredients that otherwise would be thrown away. Recipe: Pizza Lite Now you can satisfy your craving for pizza with a hot treat that not only tastes great, it's good for you. Recipe: Herbed Veggie Turkey Frittata Here's an amazing breakfast treat that's low in calories and high in taste. Recipe: Friendship Pasta Salad Picnic? Tailgate? Potluck? Gotta bring the good stuff! With this recipe you can enjoy yourself without doing damage to your weight loss program. Recipe: Curry Chicken Salad Very low cal...very high taste...a great lunch! Recipe: Baked Salmon and Onions with Beans This recipe is a great example of how to combine nutrition-rich "power foods" while kicking the taste up a couple notches. Recipe: Anasazi Chili Beans My wife and I eat for both health and flavor, and she believes that we should eat a half-cup of beans every day because of the protein, fiber (people need 30 grams per day) and trace minerals. This recipe delivers lots of both. Pumpkin Soup You'll impress your guests with this one. It only takes 20 minutes to make and has a wonderful blend of flavors. And it's good for you. Poison in the Silver Spoon Parents may want to give their children the things they couldn't have when they were young, to protect them from a difficult childhood. But if kids are to grow up to be mature, self-reliant adults, they need to build strengths of character. Personality Self-Awareness - A Doorway to Self-Improvement An essential first step to becoming a better, stronger person is being aware of your unique personality - what's emphasized in your thought and behavior patterns, and what's not. Personality Compatibility Test for Couples in Romantic Relationships Based on a scientifically grounded personality test, "Compatibility Forecast" is designed to help couples in romantic relationships understand areas of personality compatibility and difference to help them choose what their next step should be, if any. People Will Like You for Who You Are Relationships are based on trust. If you put up a false front, eventually that trust will be lost, along with the relationship. People Skills Are Hard Skills People skills are much harder to improve than any other kind of skill. Here's why. Patience Is Making Me Stronger Being patient has never been my strong suit, but I'm working on it and I've experienced some wonderful benefits. Others Will Help You Achieve Your Goals If you help others, they’ll be willing to help you. Orange Carrots If raw carrots don't appeal to you, try carrots prepared this way... Optimism Makes You Strong for Life When bad things happen, I need to be strong enough to recognize the possibilities, to work with the resources available to me. Oprah on Loyalty If you want to know who's loyal to you, notice who sticks by you during the tough times. Open Your Mind to the Whole Picture...Both the Possibilities and the Limitations It’s okay to “get real,” but possibilities are real, too. Open your mind to the positives as well as the negatives. Nurturing Character Strength Nurturing strengths of character in their kids is a big part of what it means to be a parent. Kids aren’t suddenly ready to handle responsibility just because they’ve come of age. They have to learn this from experience. Nothing Is Ordinary A grackle is just a black bird, so common you don't even notice them, even when they arrive by the hundreds. Maybe you should notice them. No Regrets...And the Choices We Make In relationships, we make choices - some trivial, some painful and life-changing. It is how you build a life. If you do what you believe is best and right, and continue to do so, you should never regret your choice. Never Give Up! Sometimes the journey is hard, like being in the ring with a brutal foe. More often than not, the secret is simply to keep on fighting. My Guilty Pleasure: A Steak Sandwich I'm blessed to be married to a woman who thinks cooking is a form of creativity and fun. But every now and then, I've got to have my steak sandwich. More for Less I’d rather eat a homemade sandwich on sitting on the beach than have lunch in any restaurant in town. Michael Jordan's Realistic View of Success Success isn’t a project. It’s not a goal with a plan and a deadline. It’s not something you work towards until you achieve it, and then enjoy the rewards. Success is a way of life,. Mental Toughness...When It Counts During tough times, will your emotions get the better of you, or will you be able to clear your mind and deal with the situation? Mass Extinction Most biologists believe the Earth is undergoing the sixth mass extinction to occur since the beginning of the planet. Even if you're concerned, the problem is so huge that it's hard to think about it. Make a Deposit in the Bank Account of Self-Confidence People of great wisdom have spoken about the value of confidence for thousands of years. Self-confidence is earned through achievements, small or large. But you have to give yourself credit; you have to make a deposit in your account of self-confidence. Love, Emotion and Your Brain How the brain and body interact to produce emotions is a fascinating story. Learning Is Physical What happens in in the development of any behavior pattern is the physical connecting of a neural pathway in the brain. And what stimulates this growth is repeated behavior. These are the dues you pay for learning any skill. Keeping Weight Off: The Personality Connection You may lose weight, but will you keep it off? If that's your goal, you'll have to change some things. What will be easy for you? What will be hard? That depends on your personality... Joy to the Fishes? The Indian River Lagoon in Florida has more diverse sea life than any other body of water in America. But it is being slowly polluted and the sea life is dying. Can the facts presented by a world-renowned expert do any good? It's Important to Be Generous...Even When You're Needy The more you struggle, the more you hope that people will appreciate your situation. If you hope for compassion from others, you have to be willing to give it yourself. It Helps to Know How Learning Happens You can't manage what you don't understand. Learning happens in the brain. Here's how it happens. Is Your Organization Ready for 360-degree Feedback? The initial introduction of 360-degree feedback can cause concerns and questions. Does it help if your organization already has an established program of performance appraisal? Intimacy Sexual intercourse is only physical intimacy. The problem is that sex is often so physically exciting that it produces powerful emotions that can be mistaken for the love and affection of relationship intimacy. In the Zone: What's Really Happening in the Brain The study of how the brain functions gives an elegant explanation of peak "in-the-zone" performance. If You Value the Relationship, Let Go of the Hurt In any kind of relationship, it’s possible somebody will get hurt, even if the parties mean well. The question is, how long will you stay hurt? How Training Transfers to Business Results...Or Not The authors of "High Impact Learning" have some outside-the-box things to say about whether training transfers to changes in behavior and desired business outcomes. How Can You Get Feedback at Work? To do a better job, you need to improve your performance. But how can you do that if you aren't sure how you're doing right now. It always helps to have feedback. How Can You Build Support for 360-Degree Feedback? Any organization can benefit from a well-administered program of multi-source feedback, if it has prepared the way for this new technology. However, implementing 360-degree feedback is not as simple as installing a software program and leading a few workshops. Give and Serve...for the Right Reasons You can serve your neighbors and community. The idea is to give what you can to something you really care about. Getting Real about Feedback in the Workplace Most people don't see themselves as others see them. For this reason, they often don't understand the impact their actions have on others. They have "blind spots." So if they want to improve how well they do their jobs, they'll need others to tell them about these problem areas. They'll need "feedback." Future Hall of Fame Pitcher Randy Johnson At age 42, will "The Big Unit" pitch another season? Do you remember what he did only two years ago, something that no one believed was possible. ... Four Reasons Why Employees Take Performance Feedback Seriously If 360-degree feedback isn’t linked to compensation or personnel action, what would motivate a person towards self-improvement? Four Factors That Contribute to Effective Workplace Performance A supervisor can have a positive impact on all four factors, thereby helping a team member improve performance. Extraordinary Success: Are You Willing to Pay the Price? Highly successful people know that there’s really no secret to success. That "overnight success story" is usually the result of years of hard work. Empowerment: The Real Meaning of a Misunderstood Concept How can employees perform if they aren't empowered? Unfortunately, the concept of "empowerment" has been generally misunderstood by managers. If you don't know what empowerment means, how can you do it effectively? Don't Take Best Friends for Granted It takes a lot of time, effort and commitment to cultivate a close, long-lasting relationship with another person. Does Training Change Behavior?...What the Experts Say For decades corporate executives have invested billions of dollars annually into training and development, and the result has been little or no change in behavior. This shocking waste of resources has been documented by experts during the past 29 years. Do People Choose to Be Homosexuals - Or Are They Born That Way? As everybody knows, gay marriage is a huge issue in our country right now. Whenever I read or hear opinions about gays and gay marriage, I remember my one and only sexual encounter with a homosexual. Do It with Energy and Enthusiasm! Some people are willing to put an amazing amount of personal energy into something. Diversity Rules: No One on Earth Is Exactly Like You In truth, there's no one on earth exactly like you. You have to tolerate the differences if you want friends. This diversity is one of the great richnesses of life.
[1] [2]

Home
Member Login
Sign Up
learn more.

How to Submit Articles
to Articledestination.com and drive users to your site

Search This Site

Top Authors Most Popular Articles Submission Guidelines Ezine Notifications Article RSS Feeds About Us Contact Us Privacy Policy Terms of Service

Copyright © 2005-2012 ArticleDestination.com All Rights Reserved.

Powered by Article Dashboard