{"id":3967,"date":"2025-05-07T18:50:37","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T18:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3967"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:39:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:39:52","slug":"imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagining Interactions at Work in Advance"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Imagining potential work-related interactions in advance helps professionals to prepare responses to their ideas, suggestions and questions. It can also make introverted or less talkative people more comfortable making conversation and speaking up in meetings.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron<\/a> of Georgia State University said that as jobs become unstable and employees are increasingly geographically separated and likely to communicate via technology, professionals may find it more difficult to feel connected with one another. Imagining interactions with bosses and colleagues can help workers communicate more effectively.<\/p>\n

Byron and research colleague Beth Schinoff<\/a> of the University of Delaware published an article on this topic in Academy of Management Review<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA benefit is that you might be more prepared; you\u2019ve been thinking through various scenarios for how a conversation or meeting might play out,\u201d Byron said. \u201cLet’s say you want to discuss a potential new initiative, so you might anticipate that there\u2019s going to be some resistance to that, and that\u2019s a possibility that you should be anticipating, that with any change, you might be met with some resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s really useful to think through: What would that look like? How are you going to respond? How do you keep your cool?\u201d she said. \u201cMaybe this feels like something really cool that you came up with, and so it would be really important to think through: How are you going to not appear defensive when someone pushes back on your proposed initiative?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that way, thinking through the possibilities is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bryron said people should think through: How could this go wrong? But it\u2019s also important to think through: What are the ways this could go really well?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s because you need to keep yourself energized and enthusiastic about what you\u2019re going to do,\u201d she said. \u201cThe best-case scenario is that you think through lots of different scenarios of how this could play out, so that you\u2019re \u00fcber-prepared for whatever might come at you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Imagining potential work-related interactions in advance helps professionals to prepare responses to their ideas, suggestions and questions. It can also make introverted or less talkative people more comfortable making conversation and speaking up in meetings. Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that as jobs become unstable and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,20,71,29],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behavior","category-careers","category-communicating","category-emotions"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nImagining Interactions at Work in Advance - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Imagining Interactions at Work in Advance\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-07T18:50:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:39:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":343,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/boss-talks-to-team-members-big.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"BEHAVIOR\",\"CAREERS\",\"COMMUNICATING\",\"EMOTIONS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/imagining-interactions-at-work-in-advance\\\/\",\"name\":\"Imagining Interactions at Work in Advance - 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It can also make introverted or less talkative people more comfortable making conversation and speaking up in meetings. Academy of Management Scholar Kris Byron of Georgia State University said that as jobs become unstable and…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}