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How Active Listening Improves Workplace Performance
You subconsciously know when people actively listen to you. They give you their full attention, and you feel respected. On such occasions, you easily get your message across because others don’t just hear you, they understand your words. If they aren’t sure what you’ve said, they ask for clarification. As such, there’s no misunderstanding, and you don’t have to repeat yourself needlessly further down the line. Active listening involves paying attention to spoken words, noticing the tone and speed of words spoken, and recognizing the body language accompanying what’s said verbally. Passive listening is inferior, low-grade communication. It occurs when people are only partially attentive to what’s said. As a result, they listen selectively, honing in on data they expect to hear and missing vital…
Why Training Your New Employees is Harder Than You Expect
Scenario 1: A parcel delivery company seasonally brings on extra staff to handle heavy traffic. At the depot, parcels are scanned and sorted by hand, ready to be taken by delivery drivers. New staff in the depot are given a basic orientation and shown how to use their scanner. The supervisor who is training them emphasises repeatedly how easy the job is. At the end of his talk, he asks “Has everyone got that?” Everyone nods. They have just been told that it is easy, and have been given a half-hour talk. They know exactly what to do. But over the course of the shift, problems arise. Some parcels aren’t recognised by the scanner. Badly wrapped parcels fall apart. Some new staff decide on their…
8 Strategies for Remote Leadership
In a speech in January of 1977, the Twelfth President of the Mormon Church; Spencer W. Kimball said that “The leaven of true leadership cannot lift others unless we are with and serve those to be led.” Among other things; he was talking about the criticality of being face-to-face with the people you lead to be able to offer them the best possible leadership. History tells us that he was right for the thousand years prior to this speech, but the avenues of leadership were opening up even as he was speaking Our bookshelves are replete with stories of leaders who ruled over vast empires (both political and corporate) effectively exerting influence over a huge number of people. In almost every case, however, the leader…
Leadership Lessons in Presenting an Oscar
Those of you who do not closely follow current culture, (or who may have spent the last weeks on a remote island somewhere) may not have heard that there was an incident at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony where the prize for the Best Picture was initially presented to the wrong team. According to news reports, the envelope for Best Actress was mistakenly given to the presenters by one of the two accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers (now known as PwC) rather than the correct envelope. As a result, the Oscar for Best Picture was given to the team from La La Land rather than to the correct picture; Moonlight. Disbelief and dismay followed when the mistake was corrected after a significant delay. This is, of course,…
Hire “A” Players (and let the others go)
If your goal is to create an exceptional organization of engaged employees – to go out and win the championship – then you have to get one thing right: hiring. The good news is that most (if not all) of your competitors are getting it wrong. Mark Murphy, author of Hiring for Attitude tracked 20,000 new hires and found that 46% of them failed within 18 months. But even more surprising than the failure rate, was that when new hires failed, 89% of the time it was for attitudinal reasons and only 11% of the time for a lack of skill. Which begs the question: Are You Hiring the Right People? Despite such research, most organizations today make hiring decisions based on job skills. Even conversationally…
Why Do You Lead?
This post originally appeared at Leading With Mission. Born, Built or Appointed Why do you even want to be a leader? This leadership stuff is tough! There’s accountability for the organization’s success, responsibility for the human beings that follow you, scrutiny of everything you do and don’t do, criticism for well…everything and don’t get me started on the stress! So why do it? Why do you choose to be a leader? When asked, most leaders will tell you HOW they became leaders instead of WHY they choose to lead. Some leaders will tell you that they were born this way – Natural born leaders just waiting for someone to direct, something to organize or some group to influence. Others might tell you that they chose…