Is Listening an Art?

When listening to another person, don't just listen with your mind, listen with your whole body. Feel the energy field of your inner body as you listen. That takes attention away from thinking and creates a still space that enables you to truly listen without the mind interfering. You are giving the other person space - space to be. It is the most precious gift you can give. 

Most people don't know how to listen because the major part of their attention is taken up by thinking. They pay more attention to that than to what the other person is saying, and none at all to what really matters: the Being of the other person underneath the words and the mind. 

Of course, you cannot feel someone else's Being except through your own. This is the beginning of the realization of oneness, which is love. At the deepest level of Being, you are one with all that is.

Most human relationships consist mainly of minds interacting with each other, not of human beings communicating, being in communion. No relationship can thrive in that way, and that is why there is so much conflict in relationships. 

When the mind is running your life, conflict, strife and problems are inevitable. Being in touch with your inner body creates a clear space of no-mind within which the relationship can flower.

It May NOT Be Important What You Say But It Is Critical What You Listen

Fontaine's Fables have lived on for so many years because we remember the moral or lesson due to the story. I am sure you are familiar with some of Jean De La Fontaine's Fables that I posted on my Facebook wall page some time ago.

When presenting we are taught to create and craft a story to help anchor our message in the audience’s mind. But there is another important aspect to storytelling that we often don’t think about as leaders but it is a vital one.

Leaders spend so much time telling stories that they forget to listen for stories. How well people embrace your corporate values, directions and goals can be heard in the stories that people tell.

Each week encourage people to share with you a story that will give you better insight. Do this by asking a thought-provoking question such as, “Share with me a customer story you experienced that demonstrates phenomenal customer service.”

In everything there is duality, so ask for a story on the opposite side as well - “Share with me a story that shows customer service that frustrated our customer.”

Listen and don’t interrupt the person. You are not trying to edit their story but instead to let it unfold. Think of interrupting as having about the same effect as someone stopping you kissing to coach you on how to kiss. This is the time to just experience the kiss of the story.

Try to see some parallels in the stories you hear. Are there disconnects with what the company says versus what the customer experiences? How about the employees? Do they experience from management the same high level of service that you expect them to provide to your customers?

Think about how these stories can be creatively used - to give live “testimonials”, to highlight employees, to launch new directives.

Your company is a wealth of stories; the question is are you maximizing the riches of them?

Falling Out Of Love With My Drama – Part V

I have been receiving some interesting comments these past few weeks, on the drama that we all participate in without our knowing it. Some of the comments relate to the drama in the workplace and how it is very disruptive to good teamwork. While drama is just part of the human condition, I am sure you have experienced unwanted drama and wished there were ways to reduce it.

As you all are aware of, from my radio discussion as well as my earlier blog articles that there are various kinds of drama and many different symptoms and sources. In this article, I will discuss the most common kind of drama in the workplace. This is where a person acts out his or her daily frustrations in ways that create chaos and loss of focus that hurt the productivity, effectiveness, and teamwork of the group. I am not addressing the serious drama caused by mental illness or tragic events. BTW, this is the last part of the mini-series on Avoiding Drama in our lives. 

Let’s take a look at the seeds of this problem without going into the mechanics of the Quantum Physics but, to identify some mitigating strategies. Drama is a result of people who feel they are not being heard. If an individual believes his or her opinions are valued and considered in the decision process, then there is less need for drama. If the culture is real, and people are not playing games with each other, then the distractions of drama will be significantly reduced.

It is a function of leaders to establish a culture where people see little need for drama in order to be a vital part of the real action. Here are some tips that leaders can use to reduce drama in their organization:

1.    Admit mistakes. You gain respect when you are honest about the blunders that you make. People will feel less like acting out in response to your foibles if they see you willing to be vulnerable.

2.    Anticipate needs. Be proactive at sensing when people need to be heard and provide the opportunity before they become frustrated.

3.    Hear people out and consider their input seriously. Positive body language is essential to show respect for all people.

4.    Improve the level of trust. High trust groups respect people, so there is a feeling of inclusiveness that does not require high profile actions to get attention.

5.    Reinforce people well. Providing sincere praise is one way to show respect. This reduces people’s tendency to say, “Hey don’t forget about me over here.”

6.    Respect outliers. When someone’s view is contrary to the majority, there may be valid points to consider. Do not ignore the valuable insights of all people.

7.    Work on your own humility. Climbing down off your pedestal means that you are more willing to be on an equal footing with others.

We must also realize that some people are world class at creating drama; Drama Kings and Drama Queens. For these people it is a kind of sport. They do it to gain inappropriate attention or just to be disruptive. These people need coaching to let them know their antics are not really helping drive the goals of the organization. The leader needs to provide feedback about the issue and set the expectation of improvement. If the drama continues and is disruptive, then the person may be better off in some other organization doing a different function.

Drama is all around us on a daily basis, but good leadership can mitigate the negative impact and keep bad habits from becoming an organizational albatross.

Ever wonder why you feel bad when someone yells at you?

Research with the formation of snowflakes shows that when symphonic classical music/sound is piped into the development area, the formation of snowflakes is very symmetrical and beautiful. While the formation of snowflakes with very erratic and discordant sounds such as death rock or suicide music the snowflakes are not able to achieve proper symmetry because of discordant sounds. Ever wonder why you feel bad when someone yells at you?

The eyes may be the window to the soul, but language is the door to the mind. It's also part of the engine. In many ways, language is the currency of influence, ego-nomics, and value generations / destruction - all of which goes straight to the brain.

In my work, I look at the axiological value of words / language and how this impacts people at a neurological / emotional / cognitive level. Not only in the conversations we have with others, but the conversations we have with ourselves as well.

It is a proven scientific fact that the brain is wired for LOVE and not hate. Neuroscience has viewed the neuron/dendrites of audio signals related to compassion vs hatred. That research showed very full tree-like dendrites with the sounds and words of a compassionate human behavior while those relating to words of hatred, bitterness, strife, and anger are very sparse, and have the shape of burnt and wilted tree.

Deadly Communication Mistakes to Avoid - 5

here is skill #5 for today; (if you missed skill #4 yesterday, click here):

BEING RUDE – rudeness is perhaps at the root of many major in-house disasters. No matter how much you feel the other person deserves it, you should never be rude. Politeness goes a very long way in communication. Always be polite.

Deadly Communication Mistakes to Avoid - 4

Here is skill #4 for today; (if you missed skill #3 yesterday, click here):

TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION – so many times, you might be talking on a certain subject and thinking about it at the same time. With that background in mind you say something cryptic and expect the listener to understand exactly what you mean. When you say something you need to say it clearly, in complete sentences and ensure that the person whom you are addressing is on the same page with you. Talk clearly.

Deadly Communication Mistakes to Avoid - 3

Here is skill #3 for today; (if you missed skill #2 yesterday, click here):

ASSUMING YOU KNOW IT ALL – everyone would have come across a know-it-all and everyone knows how deeply annoying it is to keep hearing, ‘Oh! I know that!’ When someone else is talking empty your mind of bias and prejudice, which by the way includes assuming you know what the person is talking about. Try to catch the talker’s point of view; you will be often surprised how different the subject is from what you thought it is. Good communication skills demand that you never assume anything. Stay unbiased.

Deadly Communication Mistakes to Avoid - 2

Here is skill #2 for today (if you missed skill #1 yesterday, click here):

REACTING WITH ANGER – no matter what the other person says; do not react with anger or insults. This cuts off the communication. The person or persons will stop communicating with you fearing your reaction and you will become the loser in the end. When you are angered by what others say, learn to control your feelings and steer the conversation to neutral grounds. Emotional outbursts kill good communication. Control your emotions.

Deadly Communication Mistakes to Avoid - 1

In continuation to my Quantum Physics of Beliefs Round Table discussion on Miscommunications last week (in case you missed it, click on the link), this week I will be writing this 5 part mini-series on more communication skills.

It does not matter how good you are in your profession; if you are a poor communicator, you are likely to run into many work-related problems. It may surprise you, but 90% of these problems would not be there in the first place if you could communicate clearly to and with your peers, superiors and subordinates. Good communication skills in the workplace are not a ‘nice to have’ but a requirement.

Many unknowingly commit deadly mistakes in communication that result in having them completely cut off. Recognize and avoid these mistakes (in no particular order) and your professional and personal life would take off: (here is skill #1 for today)

TOO BUSY TO LISTEN – communication means information sharing. In other words, it means you give and take information. Most of us just give information and when the time comes to take in information we shut off. The result is a huge communication gap, which in turn can create chaos. Good communication skills require you to listen. Talk. Stop. Listen.

Falling Out Of Love With My Drama – Part IV

If you missed the Part III of this mini-series of articles, you can click here and catch up.

Continuing on to the fourth step in the process of avoiding the drama in my life...

Step 4 – My Now

And this is where I want to live for the duration.  Staying in the present is so much more interesting than you might ever imagine. This is where your greater capacity lives and this is where your joy resides

My present is the only possible reality and it is the one that we are just really learning about. We have a lot of epigenetic learning from our family, community and schools, etc. that have trained us to look backwards for information and look forward for success.

Our success is here now – we can only exist in this moment and the rest is all made up from only slightly accurate information – flawed views of life that are often based on fear and longing rather than what we can actually know for sure.

In the present you are always fresh, new and available to every idea, opportunity and resource that your world is offering to you.

Choose your way to stay in the present by having a good friend to check in with, or meditating/yoga, doing your Affirmations, taking long walks in nature, reading great books – whatever skill or technique works for you to keep you aligned with your present.

I would not choose to live anywhere else.

Next week, I will share some additional thoughts on avoiding the drama in our lives.

What's So Hard About Real Conversations?

In continuation to my Quantum Physics of Beliefs Round Table discussion on Miscommunications last week (in case you missed it, please click here on this link), today I will be writing about this struggle that most Leaders go thru regularly in their communications with their followers.

What does it mean to “come out from behind ourselves to have real conversations”?

What’s so hard about that?

If you are a Leader, your job is to accomplish the goals of the organization. You do that in large part by making every conversation you have as real as possible.  A Leader’s job is essentially to engineer the types of conversations that produce clarity, cooperation, creativity, drive, and a connection to values beyond the company.

Your conversations may have to come up with a big new idea, or transform your company into a better place to work, or maybe figure out how to improve customer-renewal rates. You may use conversations to enhance collaboration, or provide leadership development, or deliver performance review feedback.

Success as a Leader depends on the success of your conversations, and occurs one conversation at a time. Here are four components of successful conversations:

In order to execute initiative and deliver goals, Leaders must have conversations that:

1.    Interrogate reality

2.    Provoke learning

3.    Tackle tough challenges

4.    Enrich relationships

Each of these four components is tough assignments for any one conversation to achieve.  To help put this into perspective, the next time you have a conversation, ask yourself which, if any, of these goals you think was approached, even minimally.

·         Did I ask about the other person’s perspective?

·         Did I try to understand the person, situation, or issue better?

·         Did I try to get to the real issue, and the nuances behind the challenges?

·         Did I enhance our relationship, deepen our connection?

Managing YourSelf - Part V

One of the most important parts of business management is managing yourself. It’s not about managing the business but, it’s about organizing your life so you can accomplish the things that are important.

There are five key critical lessons that I have been posting here one lesson for each day. Click here, if you missed Part I on Thursday; here for Part II on Friday; here for Part III on Saturday and here for Part IV yesterday. 

And, now the last lesson in this mini-series:

#5. “Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know that an effective decision is always a judgment based on “dissenting opinions” rather than on “consensus on the facts.” And they know that to make many decisions fast means to make the wrong decisions. What is needed are few, but fundamental, decisions. What is needed is the right strategy rather than razzle-dazzle tactics.”

The best decision makers don’t make many decisions. They focus on the ones that are important and the ones only they can solve. How can they do this?

Most situations are generic and have a standard solution. Once you understand this and know the standard solutions you can cut through the easy problems and focus on the few unique problems that really require effort.

The effective executive does not need to make many decisions. Because he solves generic situations through a rule and policy, he can handle most events as cases under the rule; that is, by adaptation. “A country with many laws is a country of incompetent lawyers,” says an old legal proverb. It is a country which attempts to solve every problem as a unique phenomenon, rather than as a special case under general rules of law. Similarly, an executive who makes many decisions is both lazy and ineffectual. The decision-maker also always tests for signs that something atypical, something unusual, is happening; he always asks: “Does the explanation explain the observed events and does it explain all of them?; he always writes out what the solution is expected to make happen—make automobile accidents disappear, for instance—and then tests regularly to see if this really happens; and finally, he goes back and thinks the problem through again when he sees something atypical, when he finds phenomena his explanation does not really explain, or when the course of events deviates, even in details, from his expectations.

Managing YourSelf - Part IV

One of the most important parts of business management is managing yourself. It’s not about managing the business but, it’s about organizing your life so you can accomplish the things that are important.

There are five key critical lessons that I have been posting here one lesson for each day. Click here, if you missed Part I on Thursday; here for Part II on Friday and here for Part III yesterday. 

#4. “Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done.”

Getting things done is not enough. You must get the right things done. What is most important? Focus on that.

To be effective is the job of the executive. “To effect” and “to execute” are, after all, near-synonyms. Whether he works in a business or in a hospital, in a government agency or in a labor union, in a university or in the army, the executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done. And this is simply that he is expected to be effective… All in all, the effective executive tries to be himself; he does not pretend to be someone else. He looks at his own performance and at his own results and tries to discern a pattern. “What are the things,” he asks, “that I seem to be able to do with relative ease, while they come rather hard to other people?”

Come back tomorrow for lesson #5.  _/|\_

Managing YourSelf - Part III

One of the most important parts of business management is managing yourself. It’s not about managing the business but, it’s about organizing your life so you can accomplish the things that are important.

There are five key critical lessons that I have been posting here one lesson for each day. Click here, if you missed Part I on Thursday and here for Part II yesterday. 

#3. “Effective executives build on strengths—their own strengths, the strengths of their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths in the situation, that is, on what they can do. They do not build on weakness. They do not start out with the things they cannot do.”

Judge people by what they are good at. If you want people who are competent at everything you’ll end up with a team of mediocrities.

The task is not to breed generalists. It is to enable the specialist to make himself and his specialty effective. This means that he must think through who is to use his output and what the user needs to know and to understand to be able to make productive the fragment the specialist produces… We can so structure as to make the strength relevant. A good tax accountant in private practice might be greatly hampered by his inability to get along with people. But in an organization such a man can be set up in an office of his own and shielded from direct contact with other people. In an organization one can make his strength effective and his weakness irrelevant.

Want to get ahead? You must do this for your boss as well. Stop bitching about what they are bad at and do the work necessary to allow them to focus on what they are good at.

Conversely, there is nothing quite as conducive to success, as a successful and rapidly promoted superior… The effective executive, therefore, asks: “What can my boss do really well?” “What has he done really well?” “What does he need to know to use his strength?” “What does he need to get from me to perform?” He does not worry too much over what the boss cannot do… Subordinates typically want to “reform” the boss. The able senior civil servant is inclined to see himself as the tutor to the newly appointed political head of his agency. He tries to get his boss to overcome his limitations. The effective ones ask instead: “What can the new boss do?” And if the answer is: “He is good at relationships with Congress, the White House, and the public,” then the civil servant works at making it possible for his minister to use these abilities.

Same goes for yourself. Do not turn yourself into a mediocre generalist. Delegate what you are not good at and spend your time on what you are good at.

Come back tomorrow for lesson #4.  _/|\_

Managing Yourself - Part II

One of the most important parts of business management is managing yourself. It’s not about managing the business but, it’s about organizing your life so you can accomplish the things that are important.

There are five key critical lessons that I have been posting here one lesson for each day. Click here, if you missed Part I yesterday. 

#2. “Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, “What results are expected of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools.”

Don’t focus on the work in front of you, focus on results. If you are just doing what comes in, you are on the treadmill, not making a difference.

'If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away “operating.” He may be an excellent man. But he is certain to waste his knowledge and ability and to throw away what little effectiveness he might have achieved. What the executive needs are criteria which enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.'  ~ Peter Drucker

Come back tomorrow for lesson #3. _/|\_

Managing Yourself - Part I

One of the most important parts of business management is managing yourself. It’s not about managing the business but, it’s about organizing your life so you can accomplish the things that are important.

There are five key critical lessons that I'll be posting here one lesson each for the next 5 days:

#1. “Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.”

Record how you spend your time. Cut the things that steal it. Then consolidate your time into chunks big enough to accomplish good work.

"Effective executives, in my observation, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes. Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally they consolidate their “discretionary” time into the largest possible continuing units. This three-step process: recording time, managing time, and consolidating time… " ~ Peter Drucker

Come back tomorrow for lesson #2. _/|\_

Falling Out Of Love With My Drama – Part III

If you missed the Part II of this mini-series of articles, you can click here and catch up.

Continuing on to the third step in the process of avoiding the drama in my life...

Step 3 – My Future

Finally I got to the point of looking ‘forward’ even though I am aware from Quantum Physics that there is no time – just ask Einstein.  For me this was sort of a way station. It was a place I lived for a while until I really understood that my future is right now. It was useful in the sense that at least I had separated out from my past.

Living in the future may be slightly better than living in the past – but for me this was true only because it was a stepping-stone to get me to see the value of living in the present.

The most important lesson I learned at this level was to start seeing a different future, something fresh and new and sometimes seemingly impossible.

Many people are very skilled at picturing the potential catastrophes in their lives – all the things they fear might occur. But when asked to picture a really amazingly wonderful future, all the things they ever wanted, they then feel very blocked and unable to picture anything.

It was not until I really looked at how I use my knowledge of the Quantum field and the capacity to change my DNA with Intention – that I was able to move myself into the future now – by bringing the future to me in the present.

Stay tuned for Step #4 next week.

Falling Out Of Love With My Drama – Part II

If you missed the Part I of this mini-series of articles, you can click here and catch up.

Continuing on to the second step in the process of avoiding the drama in my life.

Step 2 – My History

How many of us are ‘married’ to our stories. It is easy to believe that if you give up your ‘story’ you will no longer be yourself and you will never be able to rectify what has happened and create something new. The truth is, it is your stories that keep you stuck and interfere with your capacity to create the new life you want. Once you choose to create what you want instead of what you have, you have no need for what was.

When we look at our biology and our brain works from a Quantum Physics point of view, we are primarily energy that is affected, changed, modified and created by our thoughts, our environment, and the entire energy field.

Our history is essentially frozen memories that may or may not even occurred.  

“I have suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of which never happened.” ~ Mark Twain

The truth is that the past is truly irrelevant – think about how often remembering past events has made you feel better, or helped you avoid the same mistake again, or improved your relationships – as a coach I can tell you I haven’t seen that in others and certainly not in myself.

Your history is over – LET IT GO!!!

Stay tuned for Step #3 next week.