As the last article in this series of The Importance of Asking Questions, I want to get back to basics. The basics of healthy, helpful conversation. I have become acutely aware of the number of conversations I have that are one-way conversations. The type of conversation that are primarily about the other person. The kind
Without knowing it, we disempower ourselves by placing limitations on our thinking. Our thinking reflects what we know AND what we don’t know. Inherently, our thinking is then limited. Imagine it like this. You are on a scenic drive through the mountains and everything you can see is directly in front of you. You see
For the past few weeks I’ve been writing about the importance of asking questions to connect the dots, solve the right problem, and seek understanding. What I haven’t written about yet is how to ask the RIGHT questions. I think its an important part, don’t you? Recently, I saw this brilliant graphic by Yulia Kosarenko
Look above. Do you find these phrases annoying? Frustrating? Irritating? In my opinion, if you have SAID or HEARD these phrases even once, that is one time too many! It’s like this folks—If you find yourself saying things like the aforementioned phrases, people aren’t doing a very good job of seeking understanding. And guess what?
Hours of meetings, research, and effort ONLY to find out it was the WRONG problem. I remember this happening with a client a number of years ago when I delivered training on employee engagement. The goal of the training was to “empower employees to work together better by building trust with each other”. Great! I
A theme popped up this past week when I was teaching classes on Strengths-based Leadership and running meetings that don’t suck. The class discussions led me to pull out Socratic questioning information in all three classes. This was not planned. Then I noticed the topic of questions coming up in my personal life too. Several
Two weeks ago I wrote about how to communicate better with introverts. Now it’s time to give the extroverts the love and the attention they desire … because extroverts have communication needs too. Take a look at these descriptions: Attention seeking Easily distracted Noisy Exhausting Talks too much Impulsive Sociable Outgoing Friendly Enthusiastic Life of
How can I lead and inspire with Generate G Factor? First, you don’t have to have a leadership title to lead. You don’t have to be the boss, owner, supervisor, team lead, etc. Ponder this for a moment. We all lead unintentionally all the time. Yes, that means people are watching and listening to you.
Quit telling, because no one wants to be TOLD what to do - especially adults in the workplace. If you are looking to disempower your employees, make your coworkers resentful, and build invisible walls that stunt communication, teamwork, and camaraderie, then, by all means, keep telling people what to do and how to do it.
I’m serious, get a sense of humor for goodness sake! – Good-Humored G Factor About 5 years ago I was invited to speak to a group of over 100 people in job transition and boy was it ever a situation requiring good humor. If you have ever been in “transition,” you know it is a
