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

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  • 360-Degree Feedback: A Tale of the Technology
    Employees aren't likely to improve their performance if they don't know how they're doing. 360-degree feedback solves this problem handily, and what used to be a rigid, cumbersome expensive service is now quite flexible, easy to use, and affordable.
  • 360-Degree Feedback: Avoiding the Problems and Achieving the Benefits
    360-degree (multi-source) feedback is powerful because it makes it easy to gather and report credible feedback about important issues that are otherwise hard to quantify. Like any powerful tool, it needs to be used with care in order to derive all the benefits. Here are seven recommendations for avoiding problems.
  • A Caring Way to Give Constructive Feedback
    No one likes criticism, and most people don’t know how to give constructive feedback. Because it’s so difficult to bring up these issues, most people don’t bother. They just stew.
  • A Familiar Tale of Woe...and the Practical Solution
    It's amazing how many billions of dollars are wasted annually by corporate training that fails to improve workplace performance. The fault lies in seeing training as an event, which is never enough to alter behavior patterns that have been ingrained for decades.
  • A Few Words about Giving Advice
    A good heart may lead you to want to help someone in need. But giving people advice often causes more problems than it resolves. So what should you do instead?
  • A Lesson about Advice and Encouragement
    When somebody tells you about their problems, usually all they want is someone to listen and understand.
  • A Simpler, More Spiritual Life
    I think it's wonderful that the best things in life (most of them, anyway) really are free.
  • A Warrior's Dream
    This article is unusual because it offers encouragement in the form of poem. And while its form appears to be prose text, it is actually far more poetic than most conventional poems you'll see...
  • About Courage...
    Life is full of risks, small and large. That means to get what you want, you'll need to exercise some form of courage on a regular basis.
  • Advice for People Who Are About to Receive Feedback
    To improve your performance, you have to know what you're doing well now and what you should be working on to improve. This is hard to determine without feedback. But if you don't ask for it, listen to it, show appreciation for it, accept it, and do something about it--you may discover that people are reluctant to give it to you.
  • All Men Are Not from Mars, and All Women Are Not from Venus
    It's much easier to stereotype people than it is to recognize the complexity and diversity of people. Broad generalizations may make for fun reading, but they don't help you relate to others.
  • All You Really Need Is Heart
    When people use the word “heart,” they mean that someone demonstrates inner strength. You have heart, and you can exhibit it any time you choose to do so.
  • And Now Live...Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
    I think of Beethoven as the Shakespeare of classical music. His Ninth is an amazing composition, perhaps the greatest ever written. My favorite part is the fourth movement, “Ode to Joy.”
  • Are You a Life-Long Learner?
    Not everyone is on the journey of becoming a stronger and better person. But most highly successful people are.
  • Are You Really Ready to Lose Weight and Keep It Off?
    Anybody can lose weight, but the key is keeping off. That means making some lifestyle changes, and it's not easy to change habits of eating or exercise. It can be done, though. Lots of people do. Prochaska's model tells you whether you're ready to do all the work that will be needed to replace old patterns with new ones.
  • Are You Risking Your Life With That Cell Phone Call?
    Authorities discourage talking on the cell phone while driving. There is a commonsense neurological explanation for why you may be risking your life when you do so.
  • Before Working on Getting Stronger, Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses
    You can be in control, and you can improve your situation if you begin with self-examination and self-awareness.
  • Books Can Be the Doorway to New Strengths and Opportunities
    There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island.
  • Building the Character of Young Children
    When children grow into adults, they need to be strong enough to live fulling, effective lives on their own. This should be the goal of parenting: to help kids grow stronger and better as people every day.
  • Carlos Castaneda: The Final Lesson in Spirituality
    As I look around at the constructs of humankind, I see the living earth raped and poisoned without remorse. I see incredible cruelty and pain. I see lies and nonsense embraced as truth. I see unhappy people who aren’t true to themselves, wasting their lives. It’s enough to make me want live an authentic life, a journey I have not taken lightly.
  • Carlos Castaneda: The First Natural Enemy
    Don Juan's framework made sense to me: certain aspects of life were hard to confront and it would take a warrior's attitude to cope with them.
  • Carlos Castaneda: The Fourth Natural Enemy
    For me, don Juan's explanation of the four enemies is the most remarkable stretch of writing I've ever read, not because of its artfulness, but because of its simple truth and usefulness. There are other guides to living and spirituality, and this one is particularly challenging. But since I first encountered it in 1973, I see myself on a journey towards knowledge.
  • Carlos Castaneda: The Second Natural Enemy
    From a young age we're told how things are. Do we stop there? If we can defeat fear and clarity, we can continue the journey of learning, we can remain open to yet more enlightenment and understanding.
  • Carlos Castaneda: The Third Natural Enemy
    Power, like clarity, is not only the reward gained by defeating one of the enemies of knowledge, it can also become the instrument of one's undoing.
  • Character Strength
    Character strength is a major success factor, but very few people really understand what it involves.
  • Compassion and Empathy
    The movie "Pay It Forward" inspires thoughts of compassion, a human trait that has been heralded by the great minds for thousands of years.
  • Composure: Being Strong for Life
    Unless you live a protected life, your next crisis is probably already on its way, coming at you from the future. It's reassuring to know that you have the inner strength to stand up to the surprises life hands out and just deal with the situation.
  • Death and Dying: The Journey Towards Acceptance
    The death of a loved one is a hard thing to confront and accept. As a surviving family member, thinking about the journey towards acceptance made my mother's dying easier for me.
  • 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.
  • Do It with Energy and Enthusiasm!
    Some people are willing to put an amazing amount of personal energy into something.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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. ...
  • 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."
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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...
  • 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.
  • Love, Emotion and Your Brain
    How the brain and body interact to produce emotions is a fascinating story.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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,.
  • More for Less
    I’d rather eat a homemade sandwich on sitting on the beach than have lunch in any restaurant in town.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Oprah on Loyalty
    If you want to know who's loyal to you, notice who sticks by you during the tough times.
  • 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.
  • Orange Carrots
    If raw carrots don't appeal to you, try carrots prepared this way...
  • Others Will Help You Achieve Your Goals
    If you help others, they’ll be willing to help you.
  • 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.
  • People Skills Are Hard Skills
    People skills are much harder to improve than any other kind of skill. Here's why.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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: Curry Chicken Salad
    Very low cal...very high taste...a great lunch!
  • 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: Herbed Veggie Turkey Frittata
    Here's an amazing breakfast treat that's low in calories and high in taste.
  • 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: 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: 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: Shrimp Boil
    Fast, easy, delicious, and good for you...this dish has been my favorite since I was a little boy.
  • 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.
  • 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...
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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?
  • 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.
  • 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 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 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 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 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 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 Journey to Accepting Loss
    What in your life is hard to accept? How does the reluctance to accept it hold you back?
  • 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 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.

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