Conversations about controversial topics can be difficult, painful, and emotionally charged. This user-friendly guide will help you engage in effective, compassionate discussions with family, friends, colleagues, and even strangers about race, immigration, gender, marriage equality, sexism, marginalization, and more. We talk every day—and we often do it without thinking. But, as you well know, there are some things that are harder to talk about—especially issues pertaining to politics, culture, lifestyle, and diversity. If you’ve ever struggled in a conversation about a “controversial” topic with a loved one, work colleague, or even a stranger, you know exactly how uncomfortable and heated the discussion can become. And even if you are one of the lucky few that expresses themselves eloquently, how do you move beyond mere “lip service” and turn words into actionable change? This groundbreaking book will show you how to get to that important next level in difficult conversations, to talk in an authentic and straightforward way about culture and diversity, and to speak from the heart with tools from the head. Using a simple eight-step approach, you’ll learn communication strategies that are supported by research and have been practiced in classrooms, work meetings, therapy sessions, and more. We constantly hear about friends and colleagues whose family members are not speaking to each other because of different political opinions, who’ve exchanged words that have mutually offended one another. If silence is one end of the continuum and verbal conflict anchors the other, how do we reach a middle ground? How do we take part in the “in between” spaces where both parties can speak and listen? With this book as your guide, you’ll learn to navigate these difficult conversations, and take what you’ve learned beyond the conversation and out into the world—whether it’s through politics, social justice movements, or simply expanding the minds of those around you.

A customer service expert offers practical strategies for call center managers who want to inspire their employees to be there best. Gwendolyn Oglesby has built her entire career working in customer service, creating environments and experiences that are as positive for employees as they are for customers. Now Oglesby shares the tools and strategies she has developed for improving customer service skills, managing employees, and building a successful team culture. In Call Center, Oglesby teaches managers how to train, motivate, and encourage employees to reach their full potential. Each chapter features insightful personality profiles and thought-provoking questions about call center dynamics. At the end of the day, customer service is not just about serving the customer; it’s about serving your team as well.

"The case studies in this book show that learning mentors are indispensable to supporting school improvement. Thirty five studies of best practice illustrate the day to day experience of learning mentors and how they improve children's learning, participation, personal development and well-being. They are contextualised within theories of child development, learning and notions of educational equality and take account of school management and multi-agency working." "This is the first book on learning mentors to present case studies and offer such detailed guidance for good practice, and it will be indispensable in both primary and secondary schools."--BOOK JACKET.

Singapore's leading tech magazine gives its readers the power to decide with its informative articles and in-depth reviews.

Do women participate in and influence meetings equally with men? Does gender shape how a meeting is run and whose voices are heard? The Silent Sex shows how the gender composition and rules of a deliberative body dramatically affect who speaks, how the group interacts, the kinds of issues the group takes up, whose voices prevail, and what the group ultimately decides. It argues that efforts to improve the representation of women will fall short unless they address institutional rules that impede women's voices. Using groundbreaking experimental research supplemented with analysis of school boards, Christopher Karpowitz and Tali Mendelberg demonstrate how the effects of rules depend on women’s numbers, so that small numbers are not fatal with a consensus process, but consensus is not always beneficial when there are large numbers of women. Men and women enter deliberative settings facing different expectations about their influence and authority. Karpowitz and Mendelberg reveal how the wrong institutional rules can exacerbate women’s deficit of authority while the right rules can close it, and, in the process, establish more cooperative norms of group behavior and more generous policies for the disadvantaged. Rules and numbers have far-reaching implications for the representation of women and their interests. Bringing clarity and insight to one of today’s most contentious debates, The Silent Sex provides important new findings on ways to bring women’s voices into the conversation on matters of common concern.