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Category: Team Building
Leaders Listen…to everyone
While reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I noticed an article on “Work Place Bias”. The author gave an example of an executive from a major aerospace security system provider. Her name was Denise, and she admitted “I may not have made the best decisions because of inadequate input from introverts. I tend to favor more talkative personalities.”
This reminded me of a key fundamental of a collaborative team: Idea fluency.
Good listeners know their filters
Remember the game of telephone? Most of us played it at birthday parties when we were of grade school age. We all gathered in a circle as the leader or host whispered some silly phrase in the first person’s ear. The first person whispered the message to the one on his right and the pattern continued until the message had gotten all around the circle. The only rule was that the message could not be repeated. You heard it once, and that was it. When the last person to hear the phrase was asked to identify the message, there were always plenty of laughs. The message was usually quite different from the original.
In teamwork, just like the game of telephone, communication can get distorted as it is passed along.
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Blessed are the Nitpickers
I would like to put the spotlight on who I believe are the most persecuted group of people on earth – the “nitpickers”. You know who I am talking about. These are the folks who take your marvelous idea or plan and start poking holes in it. They say things like, “What about this?”…”What could happen if?”…”Have you ever considered these possible consequences? All of a sudden, we creative people get defensive and even irritated. When this happens the communication wall goes up, and the quality of the collaboration goes down.
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Share information, but not this information
A few weeks ago I came across a business article entitled, “How to discuss pay at work”. The article gave tips of just how you should discuss your salary when with a co-worker. They gave four suggestions: I have one…DON’T!
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The most important and neglected principle in leadership
Yesterday I was talking with a client who had some exciting news: She was the heir apparent to taking over a key position in her company. She wanted a professional development plan that would help prepare her for the position. We started with the amount of annual income she would be making, and computed that her time would be worth $75 per hour. We then reviewed her time log, and asked the question: “How many of these tasks and activities would you pay $75 per hour for?”