Logos Noesis | Effective Business Communication

Leading Through Dialogue: 2 - Honest Conversations

Honest Dialogue. Photo by Ada Gonzalez via Flickr

I believe that honest conversations are essential for successful leadership. In working with leaders I have seen the problems that occur when leaders are not forthright in their communications.

According to recent research, organizations that have leaders that engage others in open and honest communication perform in the top half, and in some areas in the top quartile, of their industry. What makes some leaders more open than others to honest conversations?

Leading Through Dialogue: 1-Taking Time to Understand and Grow

We sit in a circle in an array of comfortable couches and chairs. There is a low coffee-table in the middle with objects that represent basic elements needed for successful conversations:

Keeping New Year’s Resolutions: How To REWIRE Your Brain to Create Your Future

Image courtesy of fbobolas via Flickr

At the end of year we tend to get bombarded with all kinds of writings regarding New Year’s Resolutions. Yet, I agree with Mike Brown in Brainzooming and with the study reported recently in The Guardian that most New year's resolutions are doomed to failure, because of the way they are made. They tend to be too vague, general, and with no thought for how to achieve the goal.

By the beginning of February, most people and organizations don’t even remember anymore what their New Year’s resolutions were. Many have given up on even trying to anything about them. That is why I want to make a case for finding a way of keeping New Year’s resolutions. It only requires a few tweaks. . . It’s relatively easy if you decide to REWIRE your brain to create your future

Why Don’t We Learn?

Have been there. . . Photo by littletriggers via Flickr

The end of the year tends to be conducive to thinking about past and future. Today I was reading in the New York Times The Big Zero by op-ed columnist Paul Krugman. He names this decade "The Big Zero" because he contends this “was a decade in which nothing good happened, and none of the optimistic things we were supposed to believe turned out to be true.”

Worst yet, besides zero job creation, zero economic gains for the typical family, zero gains for homeowners, zero gains for stocks, “what was truly impressive about the decade past, however, was our unwillingness, as a nation, to learn from our mistakes.” He concludes that this was “the decade in which we achieved nothing and learned nothing.” If true, what a bleak, sad, and unfortunate statement!

Mind Reading 101 for Leaders: 7 - Be silent

In the fast paced world we live we tend to think we do not have time to pause, be silent, think, and reflect. The faster you run, the more you need to draw air in. Saying you don’t have time to pause and be silent would be like saying you do not have time to breathe, because you are running. I will like to propose that we don't have time NOT to pause! You see, silent reflection helps us hold the door of our mind open long enough for new perceptions, ideas, and solutions to emerge.

Conversations that matter need breathing space. You need to slow down the conversation enough to let insight happen in the space between words. That is the only way you can discover what the conversation really wants and needs to be about. Leaders need to talk with people, not at them.

7 Secrets to Keeping a Positive Attitude This Holiday Season

To most people, the holidays mean long, hard, unpleasant, stressful work. For leaders it can be even worse. How much of it has to do with outside and family expectations and how much we bring upon ourselves is not the issue I want to discuss – although it might be something worth thinking about. What I want to share with you are ways in which you can be less frazzled and more joyful in the midst of it all.

If you can keep your positive spirit, it will be contagious in the workplace and at home. After all, the end of the year should be a time of rejoicing and goodwill. The specific ways to less stress and more fun have to be individualized. Therefore, I’m going to give you some simple and short suggestions, giving you only some general principles and letting you fill in the blanks.

Mind Reading 101 for Leaders: 6 - Take Responsibility

As a leader, your conversations become relationships. Taking responsibility for your thoughts, emotions, and for the message you need to deliver will allow you to speak with clarity, conviction, and compassion. How people feel after a conversation with you will determine if they will want to develop a relationship with you or not. It also affects the trust that develops. When relationships are on the line, there are no trivial comments.

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