Dear Crucial Skills, My mother-in-law lives in another state. She is rather close to her other grandchildren and I perceive that she treats my child differently. My daughter, who is eight years old, is overweight. My mother-in-law constantly reminds us of this under the guise of being helpful. For instance, sending me information on books …

Dear Crucial Skills, Before partnering with my brother in a small business, I knew that it would be difficult to get along. I insisted on defining responsibilities, and tried at the beginning to manage huge differences. We ended up disagreeing and clashing; the business went down, we lost our savings, and I decided not to …

My mother and I have always had a solid relationship and have been very open with one another—except on one point. My mother is a smoker. Although I don’t have strong objections to her smoking habits, I do have serious concerns about her smoking in my home and around my family. I am not the …

Dear Crucial Skills, I love my job but would like to transfer out of the department due to my manager, “Bob.” He used to be an ok coworker until our then-manager retired and as the most senior of our team, he got promoted. I was on maternity leave at the time, and when I returned, …

Dear Crucial Skills, I work in a religious organization. In the organization’s culture, the rank and file employee has very little ability to raise questions about policies or directives without being seen as not only challenging the authority/expertise of the applicable supervisor, but sometimes as being “out of line” ecclesiastically. What compounds this problem is …

Dear Crucial Skills, I’m a partner in a small law firm in a small town. I’m about to have a Crucial Conversation with a fairly new secretary who is doing a lot of personal stuff on ‘company’ time. Two problems: 1) the secretary who shared her concerns with me about this new secretary doesn’t want …

Lately it seems the evolution of corporate leadership has come full circle: feared tyrants to spineless pushovers and back again to oppressive leaders. This cyclical trend sparks a timeless debate: which management style is better for business? The “nasty boss” or the “nice boss”? For more than two decades, we have spent more than 10,000 …

Dear Crucial Skills, My ten-year-old daughter has shared with me that her teacher is using words like “damn,” “stupid,” and “shut up” in the classroom. These aren’t words we use in our home and they are making her uncomfortable. She said the teacher made one boy who was misbehaving stand up in front of the …

Summer vacation time is on its way out and the doldrums of winter are settling in. Have you taken your much-needed vacation yet? If not, you’re not alone. It seems corporate America is experiencing a vanishing vacation pandemic. In an effort to get ahead and secure finance and job security in a volatile economy, managers …