What’s Your Rock-Climbing Wall?

  Don’t worry, this isn’t a parable about overcoming obstacles along the air-conditioned, controlled environment of an indoor rock-climbing wall. I’m not going to wax in a philosophical direction about lessons we can learn about adversity and determination while feeling for the next handhold. I wouldn’t do that to you. No, I’m going to talk […]

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informed informality

You Know You Aren’t Being Heard, But How Unheard Are You?

In my work as an organizational ombuds, I talk with people who are frustrated for a number of reasons. Most people who come to see me are not happy about something, but the most distressed tend to be those who feel that they are not being heard. I would like to break down five stages

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Learning from Alternate History: Asking ‘What If?’ Before ‘What Now?’

Even though I am a full-time ombuds, I still teach one seminar a semester. I’d like to share a few thoughts about how my current course subject, alternate history, might apply to interpersonal communication and conflict resolution. Alternate history is a genre of fiction that simply asks, “What if?” What if Antony won the battle

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informed informality

The Workplace Stress You Didn’t See Coming

As an ombuds, I talk every day with people who are stressed by work. I am also aware that there are numerous self-care resources, and numerous official exhortations to use said resources. And yet I continue to talk with people who are stressed out about work. Some comments I’ve heard have got me thinking that

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informed informality

How I Closed the Loop Forty Years Too Late

I recently had a disquieting revelation, the kind that flips your perceptions. Like many people my age, I was transfixed by A-ha’s song (more accurately, the accompanying video) “Take on Me.” If you were watching MTV in 1985/86, this video was on constantly. With the flipping from live action to monochrome rotoscoping, with a real

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informed informality

Why My New Book Is Something for Your Money

As promised, my latest book, Something for Your Money: A History of Las Vegas Casinos, was published earlier this month. II would like to take a minute to explain the title. I am open to anything when it comes to book titles. It’s been so long I forget why I settled on Suburban Xanadu for

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book, informed informality

Why I Have a New Book On the Way (And Why I Wrote the Other Ones)

I have been writing about casino history for a long time—my entire professional career. In recent years, my pace has slowed down a bit as I have been focusing on my ombuds work, which is why I haven’t published anything since my last book, At the Sands. That is going to change in January, when

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book, informed informality

To PIP or Not to PIP? A Two-Step Alternative That Might Make Everyone Happy

A recent Wall Street Journal article explored several downsides of the Performance Improvement Plan (PIP), a common management tool that can be a guide for better work or a prelude to termination. The headline makes it clear that the PIP is something to be feared and avoided: “The Most Hated Way of Firing Someone Is

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informed informality

React or Respond? The Answer That Changes the Story

I was cruising along on my Peloton to Sam Yo’s Autumn Recovery Ride when he said something that made me think: “Respond, don’t react.” Sam is a great instructor who not only provides a good guide to the workout, but also some food for thought which, combined with the leisurely pace, gave me the luxury

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informed informality

When You Don’t Know What Your Elbow Is Doing, But You Know Exactly Why

Let me share something that recently happened to me.  I was demonstrating a variant of a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu position known as side control. It is a fundamental posture that I have been doing, at this point, for years; I have also been on the receiving end more than I would care to remember. I

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informed informality

When Everything Looks Strange

Have you ever been lost? You know the feeling—not sure which way is up, which is down, whether you are moving closer or farther from your destination. Maybe it doesn’t happen as often these days thanks to GPS and turn-by-turn navigation, but if you’ve ever gotten lost, you understand how demoralizing, how confusing it is.

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Why I Have Negative Knowledge (A Casino Security Reminiscence)

I feel compelled to share some thoughts about an experience I had when I worked casino security. This isn’t a tale of a foiled robbery or other heroics. It’s not a story about seeing people at their worst or making a difference in someone’s life. No, it’s something a little more mundane, and hopefully relatable.

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informed informality

Who Do We Appreciate?

What do we need from others to feel appreciated? And can being appreciated be better than being understood? In the past I have written about the importance of Mary Rowe’s concept of “microaffirmations,” small acts that, when practiced regularly, can promote belonging and improve a culture. Last week, I led nine workshops for Rebel Ready

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informed informality

The Orpheus Syndrome, or When Asking Makes It Worse

I have had the story of Orpheus and Eurydice on my mind, and not just because I recently saw Hadestown. A quick summary: Orpheus’s wife, Eurydice, died of a snakebite. The grieving Orpheus journeyed to the underworld, where he moved everyone with his singing, including the big bosses Hades and Persephone. They permitted him to

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informed informality

Chance, Ignorance, and Human Behavior

Reading Jared Poley’s Luck, Leisure, and the Casino in Nineteenth-Century Europe: A Cultural History of Gambling (a fine book on the subject), a 125-year old observation struck me as relevant to those of us who have questions about the future, which I guess we all do, since future events will affect us in the future.

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informed informality