Education 2.0 & 3.0

You’re sitting in a conference room with all the big bosses. They’re meeting to discuss the annual budget, and it’s your job to pitch them your case for more money for your team.

The problem?

While you’re quite confident everyone has a vague idea what your department does, you’re not nearly as confident that everyone sees the importance of what you do or the way you do it.

Why? Well, what you do is pretty specific. Maybe so much so that your own friends don’t quite get it.

But even if that’s the case, you’re going to have to learn how to get people on board with your work when you’re looking for a cut of the company’s budget, meeting with someone from a completely different field, or pitching an idea to a client.

Here’s how to do that:

Though your coworkers and manager might not understand tiny shifts in your behavior instantly, you’re giving away many invites into your psyche, simply via your body language.

According to professional corporate trainer, business consultant, and entrepreneur Denise M. Dudley, PhD, all people communicate using seven channels: facial expressions, eye contact, posture, hand gestures, voice tone, voice loudness, and verbal content. While she explains that many professionals are picky with their word choices, very few practice or give a second thought to the other six venues.

This is a big loss, considering many studies indicate difficulty pairing sentences with sentiments. “Our bodies are actually revealing more about our messages than our voices ever do,” Dudley told Ladders. “When we’re delivering a message–any message, good or bad, large or small, how we look as we’re delivering the message is . . . probably more important than our words, if we intend to be understood.”

What comes to mind when you hear the term “facilitator”? A task manager hogging airspace up at the front of the room? Or thoughts like, “Ugh–okay, how do I get out of attending this workshop?”

But done right, facilitation isn’t about boring presentations. It’s a process for getting groups of people together to solve any problem. Good facilitators know how to jump right in, establish an objective, create a format packed with interactive opportunities for discussion, and lead groups of all sizes toward constructive solutions. And you don’t need a specific job title or a certain amount of experience to become an effective facilitator–you just have to develop a set of skills that gives structure and purpose to the otherwise unruly art of collaboration.

As workplaces become less hierarchical and more reliant on interpersonal problem-solving, rather than just tactical execution, facilitation is becoming a job skill you’ll need to rely on more and more. Here’s what you need to know to get started developing it.

You’ve probably been taught that giving compliments build relationships. In the self-help classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie stressed the importance of “giving sincere and honest appreciation” to others in life and work. He’s not wrong, but the thing is that showing real appreciation is difficult to do.

How many times has someone given you a “compliment” and you just know they’re trying to get something from you? Compliments can easily veer into flattery and feel insincere, leaving the recipient wondering about the giver’s hidden agenda.

Here’s what it takes to avoid all that–it’s easier than you think.

If you’re constantly frazzled on the job, logging super-long hours with little to show for it at the end of the day, chances are good that you’re mismanaging your time. But the good news is it’s easy (enough) to reorganize your schedule and get back on a successful track, stat!

“There’s a lot coming at us: mail–and [all kinds of] paper in general–emails, texts, phone calls, bosses calling for help, deadlines, projects–it doesn’t stop,” points out Felice Cohen, organizer and author of 90 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (or More). No wonder so many of us get so behind and feel so exasperated. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.

The answer isn’t to do more. “Not everyone can multitask, and most of us who do probably shouldn’t,” says Cohen. Rather, the answer is to do what you do smarter. And here’s how.