Archive for July, 2009

Do you want to facilitate others to be more resourceful? You should if you want to be successful at work and at home. Leaders can often do better with facilitation than with directing. Professionals can often do better with facilitation than with advising. So what do I mean by “facilitation?” Here is a continuum that [...]

You need to know “How to have presence” in order to have good listening skills and build effective work relationships. Most leaders and professionals need to cultivate the skill of being fully present for important conversations. Being present is an art that can be learned. How good are you at it? You know when someone [...]

You need to know when to interrupt in order to have good listening skills and build effective work relationships. Most leaders and professionals need to cultivate the skill of interrupting when needed. You probably think that interrupting is bad listening. Often it is. We think it is bad, but we go ahead and do it. [...]

You need to know what things to avoid in order to have good listening skills and build effective work relationships. Most leaders and professionals need to cultivate the skill of asking good questions. Here are 3 tips on things to avoid: 1. Avoid starting your question with “why” if you are asking about an interpersonal [...]

You need to know how to ask good questions in order to have good listening skills. Most leaders and professionals need to put some effort into cultivating the skill of asking good questions that build effective work relationships. Here are 4 tips on how to ask good questions: 1. Facilitate the other person’s creativity with [...]

You need to know how to ask good questions in order to have good listening skills and build effective work relationships. Most leaders and professionals do not cultivate the skill of asking good questions. They know how to ask an initial question, listen for a short time, and then launch into their solutions to problems [...]

To have good listening skills and build effective work relationships, you need to know when to turn on your active listening skills. In prior articles, I have written about delaying giving advice unless someone is new to their job or task. Normally, listening is the best first step. Managers and leaders have complained that the [...]

To have good listening skills and build effective work relationships, we need to Avoid Giving Advice Initially. Advice has its place, but timing is important. When you give advice quickly, the other person tends to do what? Get defensive. They see advice as carrying along with it the message, “You are not up to snuff.” [...]

To have good listening skills and build effective work relationships, we need to be curious. Staying curious allows us to focus on what the other person is saying so that we really get it. This takes openness rather than being judgmental. What gets in the way of this crucial interpersonal skill of staying open and [...]

To be a good listener and build effective work relationships, we need to be curious. When the other person says something we dislike, we tend to judge it as bad or wrong, and concentrate on preparing our arguments to refute them. When we speak in a disagreeing fashion, the other person tends to harden up [...]