“Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”
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Ancient philosophers can teach business leaders how to help employees live better and reach eudaimonia.
The article “What can business leaders learn from ancient Greek philosophers?” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/business-learn-from-ancient-philosophers) describes some techniques used by ancient philosophers which can help achieve the “good life”:
- Dare to disagree (Socrates)
- Let people seek fulfillment (Aristotle)
- Be a good role model (Plutarch)
- Build a resilient mid-set (Epictetus)
- Keep track of your ethical progress (Rufus)
- The art of happiness (Epicurus)
Diplomats, like many other professionals, have to write many different types of documents. Whatever the type — legislation, a technical report, minutes, a press release or speech — a clear document will be more effective, and more easily and quickly understood.
The European Commission (Directorate-General for Translation) has published a few years ago a simple guide titled with many useful and practical hints (not rules) on “how to write clearly“.
Here are the 10 hints included in the publication:
1. Think before you write
2. Focus on the reader
3. Get your document into shape
4. KISS:Keep It Short and Simple
5. Make sense
6. Cut out excess nouns
7. Be concrete, not abstract
8. Prefer active verbs to passive
9. Beware of false friends, jargon and abbreviations
10. Revise and check
The guide is available in all 23 official languages of the European Union.
You can find the online version here (choose the preferred language)
Only those who dare to fail greatly
can ever achieve greatly.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Do you want to be successful or happy?
Are you successful so you feel happy? Our society leads us to think that success and happiness are the same things. But are we sure that success is the way for happiness? You can be a very sucessful person without being happy and you can also be happy although you have not attained any position, honor or power yet.
Stuff and status can be not enough to feel happy. If you are looking for your personal fullfillment success might not be the right answer.
According to Sarah Vermut how you personally define success and how you personally define happiness is entirely up to you. But you must recognize the difference!
Read more on Enterpreneur
Image source: Flickr – Anton Aymemì (CC – BY – NC – ND – 2.0)
One of the common mistakes in public speaking is that we often underestimate the importance of the form in the message we try to convey.
Unlike written pages, oral communications are a bloom of conscious and unconscious signals coming out from our body, like voice tone and modulation, gesticulating, glances with the public, dialogue speed and so on.
Each of these signals carries a different value that can alter the substance of the message, even in an unsuccessful way.
As diplomacy is essentially communication, a good deal can be reached only after smart negotiations and persuasive talks.
Hence, creating the right empathy with our listeners could add further value on the outcome of our agreements.
In an article published on the popular magazine Mental Floss, the American journalist Cindy Fisher Crawford has tried to summarize 5 effective steps to becoming a better public speaker from “Toastmasters International” and other public speaking experts:
1. MAKE YOUR SPEECH CONVERSATIONAL
As tempting as it may be to type up a speech and read it word for word, refrain from doing so.
Audiences listen better when the speaker talks to them instead of reads to them.
2. PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE
A great way to ensure your speech goes smoothly is to rehearse what you’re going to say.
3. CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
If they’re yawning, you need to infuse a spark in the conversation.
4. DELIVER YOUR SPEECH WITH PASSION
The best way to get your audience to care about what you’re saying is to show how much you care about the topic.
5. TAKE YOUR TIME
Your presentation is not a race. Take your time as you interact with the audience and slow down if you make a mistake.
Image source: FLICKR – JohnDiew0107 –
(CC BY-NC 2.0)
We often have to deal with changes, trasformation and adversities both in our daily life and in our career. That is why the concept of resilience – broadly defined as the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt to change, and keep going despite adversities – offers significant suggestions with regard to our behaviour. The importance of being resilient is clearly highlighted in this article which examines some elements essential to resilience.
Here are some significant tips to follow:
- be always able to cope with change, stress and adversity;
- consider both setbacks and successes as positive learning experiences;
- view difficulties and challenges as opportunities to grow and evolve;
- be able to adapt – and partially adjust – yourself but be ready, at the same time, to return to your original status;
- be able to absorb energy when “elastically deformed” and later release and use that energy;
- be able to absorb or avoid damage, without suffering complete failure;
- be able to provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of problems and challenges to normal operation.
Image source: Flickr – Askew View Photo (CC-BY-ND 2.0)
You make a living by what we get, you make a life by what you give – Winston Churchill
Image source: Wikimedia (public domain)
“All experience is local. All identity is experience. I’m not a national. I’m a local. I’m multi-local.”
In her TEDTalks Taiye Selasi says that people’s identity cannot be explained only through a national identity. Although countries remain important in shaping our identity, in order to really know who someone is, we would better ask “where are you local?”.
Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. – Jack Welch
Image source: Wikipedia Commons
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