Disguising the circumstances, I’ll say that I encountered this at a recent event where I ran into two old friends whom I hadn’t seen in a long a time and one person whom I knew slightly and the others didn’t know at all. Person number three not only monopolized the conversation but did so with topics completely unrelated to the event. Celebrity names were dropped, information about excretory symptoms of illness was overshared. Our naked attempts to seize control of the discussion sailed over the offender’s head like Titan rockets.

I was thus happy to find this article about conversational narcissism from artofmanliness.com in a Lifehacker article on how to make a good first impression.

Here are a couple of subspecies of conversational narcissists:

 The Punctuation Deprived: One thought flows seamlessly into the next. There are no pauses and, by the time you realize the subject has changed, there’s no way to go back to comment on the previous one or to derail the runaway train of thought.

The Provocative Interjector/Hijacker: This guy often thinks he’s a real card. In a conversation about sleep disorders, he pops in with “Well that’s only true if Herman Cain wears red pajamas” and, next thing you know, you’re talking about the GOP debates.

That’s the great thing about blogging. It’s the written equivalent of conversational narcissism. That’s enough about me, but you can talk about me some more by using the comment box below.

Here are her four rules of improvisation:

• AGREE. If your coworker says “Let’s do a news release about this,” agree, at least for starters, and see where it takes you.
• Say YES, AND. Say “let’s do a news release and share the information on social media.”
• MAKE STATEMENTS. Be a part of the solution.
• THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities.

You can read it online at Amazon.com. It’ll take a little effort, but it’s worth it. First, go to this link. Click the “search inside this book” link below the picture of the book. Then, in the search box type

the rules of improvisation that will change your life

Enjoy!

• Thankful
• Thoughtful/tactical
• Teachable
• Truthful
• Tenacious
• Transparent
• Trustworthy

The one that stuck with me the most was “Thankful,” a quality he used in, of all places, job applications.  If the applicant couldn’t list 50 things for which they were grateful, they didn’t make it to an interview.

Can you list 50 things for which you’re grateful?

According to Erik Meier, when you examine the day-to-day conversations that take place in the business arena (or almost any setting), you’ll discover examples of miscommunication and non-communication occurring in varying degrees. Conversations will contain distortions, deletions, and generalizations. They are part of the fabric of interpersonal communication. And, it’s the distortions, deletions, and generalizations that get in the way of closing more sales…and closing them more quickly.  Read more.

Laurie also wrote the definitive book on how to use a teleprompter.

Many of my readers work in creative fields, like graphic design, advertising, film and broadcasting.  Here’s an article I first wrote in 2008 with advice on how to manage creative people.

If you were an auto manufacturer, would you have a budget line item for “steel,” without indicating what percentage of it went into cars or trucks, chassis or fenders,  Europe or North America?

I understand why association executives fear this approach.  They have a handful of profit centers – membership, advertising/sponsorships and donations, for example – and dozens of cost centers.  They dread the prospect of board members scanning a column with three rows of black numbers and 20 rows of red and asking, “Why are we ‘losing’ money here?”

Instituting and enforcing time sheets will not endear you to the staff, either.

“I’m too busy,” they’ll say, and ”I do too many different things to be able to classify them.” That’s hogwash, as anyone who works at a professional firm will tell you.  Attorneys, CPAs and public relations people keep track of their time in 15 minute increments.

You don’t need to be that precise.  Most employees will probably work on only a handful of discrete projects on any given day.  A rough estimate will probably suffice.  Bonus:  Without using time sheets as a club (unless you need to), filling them out will make your staff much more aware of how much time they spend at the virtual water cooler.  Oh, and did I mention you need to do it, too?

Keeping track of your time is like lifting weights:  The more you do it, the better you get.

You might also discover that you legitimately can allocate more time by administrative staff, like bookkeepers, receptionists and HR people, into programs.  This is more important to public charities than to trade associations, since donors favor nonprofits with a low percentage of their expenses attributed to administration.

Over time, better time allocations will help you measure changes in your products (services).  Is it more cost effective to purchase clip art for your newsletter or have an employee creating custom images?  Did that change in territories reduce travel time as you’d expected?  Was it better to have an entry-level employee spending more time on the project or a higher-paid employee doing it more efficiently?

The aggravation of explaining, implementing, allocating and enforcing time sheet use will pay off in the long run.

Sure, your corporate policies can limit how employees refer to the company in their social media relationships; but what if you used those tools to increase communication and collaboration at work; to train employees, or to incorporate them into your marketing and community relations campaigns?  Intel did just that, as told in this article in the Feb. 3, 2010 Harvard Business Review.

I often write about my involvement in community theater.  At Stagecrafters, I’m the chair of the Builder’s Guild, which is the group of guys – and I mean guys – who build our sets.  Now, I know jack about building sets. That means that, whenever we need to decide how to do something, or what to do, or when, I have to get the guys involved.  I have to draw out their opinions and knowledge and listen until they reach consensus.  I completely need their help to get things done and – know what? – they want to help!  New volunteers have taken on new responsibilities, while the long-timers, given a reprieve from having to build every set, are sharing their knowledge with the newcomers and solving some of our long-standing problems.

And that’s all because I had to embrace my stupidity and ask others for help.