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“Is it what the teacher teaches or what the student learns?”
In one of my favorite book series’ there is a difficult teacher who gives the main character (Jacen) a hard time. When Jacen gets upset and lashes out verbally, she responds with “Is it what the teacher teaches or what the student learns?” (emphasis mine). When you’re studying communication, you can learn from good teachers…
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What works for me might not work for you.
What works for me might not work for you. Let’s find something that does work. I was practicing coaching on another coach today and had a problem that was familiar to me: Motivation that starts strong in the morning and drops quickly over the course of the day. I have chronic pain and deal with…
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“Yes, but…”
When someone presents an idea that has some good elements and some bad elements, it can be tempting for me to say: “Yes, but [whatever I think is wrong with their idea]” instead of: “Yes, and here’s how you could build on that idea”. “Yes, but…” can make them feel like you don’t understand what…
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Framing
One of my clients was trying to charge a setup fee to figure out what needs to be done for software projects before agreeing to do a big project. He got push-back on the idea of a setup fee from clients and few, if any, paid it. While working together we reframed the “setup fee”…
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One Question for You (and testing a tip).
Would you rather read writing like what I’ve been sending (that’s more general), or would you prefer writing that’s more specifically about communication in closing deals and navigating difficult conversations? Tip: It’s best to ask one question at a time. You’re more likely to get a response, and a more likely to get a good…
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Read less, do less, be consistent.
And you’ll accomplish more. I was talking to my Uncle today about how we’re both dealing with health problems and what God was teaching us through that. One thing we are learning is to take things we used to be able to do in an hour or two of focused effort and break them into…
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Summarize
I take turns coaching or being coached with another new coach. He coached me recently and made little summaries as we went through our coaching call, but didn’t summarize and tie in the last part of our conversation back to the main topic at the end. We’re both learning, so it’s fine, but that gave…
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Sleep is an underrated communication skill.
Getting a good night’s sleep can be the difference between successfully negotiating a deal and setting good expectations, or failing to do any of that. When we are sleep deprived, we don’t think clearly, and offen can’t find the right words. The worst part is that like drunk people don’t know when they’re drunk, sleep…
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Assume for a moment that they’re not crazy
If someone does something that seems crazy, it’s worth asking yourself: Assuming for a moment that they aren’t crazy, why would they do this? I’m in a leadership group online and came across a question and answer that went like this: Question: “How can I show them x when they’re missing something so obvious?” Answer:…
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What do you mean by that?
What do you mean by that? The “warning signs” of the big problem my client dealt with in yesterday’s post were there, he just didn’t see them. A team member was acting like everything was under control, but almost as an aside they mentioned they were overwhelmed. He later found out that they were very…