Aretha Franklin’s most famous song is “R-E-S-P-E-C-T find out what it means to me.”  My college instructor, a tall white man in his sixties sang this song in a falsetto voice that made me cringe. But he delivered the point—find out what it means to me, not what it means to you.

I took a day-long course through the U.C. Davis Extension called, Managing Workplace Conflict with Larry Hoover, a 30-year veteran in the field of mediation. Through Larry’s teaching style—a combination of passionate storytelling and real-life examples, the role of great communication was made clear to me. 

I’ll tell you how Aretha figures into this experience. So many times in life we assume to understand .... more