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Category: Communication (Page 6 of 14)

The most common mistakes to avoid at work

07/06/2016 /

In one of his articles, Dan Shawbel explains which are the most common mistakes to avoid on your workplace. As is well known, even the brightest rising stars can find themselves falling more rapidly than they could imagine, and all because of some mistakes which could be easily avoided. Here you can find the most common ones:

1. Being too political;

2. Multi-tasking too much;

3. Complaining about work;

4. Making promises you can’t keep;

5. Pretending you’re in charge when you’re not;

6. Focusing all your attention on your job;

7. Not being opportunistic;

8. Not learning from your mistakes.

You can read the full article here.

Carl Walks Closer to the "Falling Down" House

Image source: Flickr.com – Judy Baxter

Speak beyond words!

17/05/2016 /

You don’t speak with your mouth: you speak with your body, too.

Or rather: your body speaks for you. Your body’s movements and positions express your thoughts and feelings. Your facial expressions communicate information. Also, body positions affect attitude.This happens silently and often mechanically.

Body language does not have a real grammar. The first step is to become aware of it. For this to happen, you have to practice. Here are some tips:

  1. Do not gesture above your shoulders.
  2. Talk more with your hands.
  3. Watch your eyes (eye contact is important).

Interesting? Find more here.

Hands

Image: Flickr – Francesca Solaro (CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

How to talk so others will listen

03/05/2016 /

A post published on the Coaching Positive Performance blog stresses the importance of communication skills as a pivotal part of everyday life.

It highlights 7 essential communication skills which will improve the quality and effectiveness of our communication in order to deliver a clear and specific message to our audience:

  1. Be complete
  2. Be concise
  3. Be considerate
  4. Get your facts right
  5. Be clear
  6. Be courteous
  7. Keep it appropriate

The post also suggests to master communication skills with a simple but powerful guide to communicating with confidence.

Read more here.

listen

Image: Flickr – Britt Reints (CC BY 2.0)

12 books a leader should read

28/04/2016 /

On December 2014 Bob Sutton, Professor at Stanford University, published the long-awaited list of 12 books (or 13…) recently published books that every leader should read.

This is the list:

1. The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.
2. Influence by Robert Cialdini.
3. Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.
4. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
5. Collaboration by Morten Hansen.
6. Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie.
7. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull.
8. Leading Teams by J. Richard Hackman.
9. Give and Take by Adam Grant.
10. Parkinson’s Law by the late C. Northcote Parkinson.
11. To Sell is Human, by Dan Pink.
12. The Path Between the Seas by historian David McCullough.

Sutton suggests also to add a 13th book published in April 2015: Work Rules by Laszlo Bock.

Do you want to know more? Click here

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Image source: Flickr – Jonathan Kim (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Brevity (in diplomacy)

14/04/2016 /

On August 9th, 1940, Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of UK, sent a Memorandum to the War Cabinet . He asked his staff to write shorter Reports and to avoid those useless phrases which could be replaced by one word.

In particular he wrote, in the final part of the Memorandum:

The saving in time will be great, while the discipline of setting out the real point concisely will prove an aid to clearer thinking.

Copy of the original document is available at UK National Archives http://www.ukwarcabinet.org.uk/documents/345

cab-67-8-11-0001-000

 

15 ingredients to be (emotionally) wealthy

07/04/2016 /

Sherrie Campbell in a post for the blog “Entrepreneur“ investigates a particular area of life which, if fully developed, may lead to everlasting happiness and success.

Sherrie’s thoughts could be considered as a recipe! You can imagine emotional wealth as a well-prepared dish to impress your loved one and each ingredient needs to be carefully picked!

Here are the ingredients:

1.Confidence is like the salt we put in boling water to cook pasta

2.Resilience is like the cooking pot

3.Keep looking forward is refraining from testing  during the preparation

4.Don’t compromise yourself: if you don’t like molecular cuisine, don’t do it!

5.Faith: believe in yourself and your abilities: the object of your desire will be satisfied!

6.Maturity: be patient, and choose no shortcuts (no frozen pizza, pre-packed sushi or home-delivered chinese, please!)

7.Discerning: proportion and quality of ingredients are always better than quantity, just as friends

8.Reality: you cook what you really want: no trendy recipes!

9.Readiness: put your cooking tools on the working board,

10.Self-preservation: you know when to stop cooking and have a sip of wine

11.Value time: or your soufflè will deflate…..

12.Have limits: no red wine with lobster, please!

13.Altruism: you cook for your loved one, not for your own glory

14.True to yourself: see n. 8!

15 Create happiness: it’s not a given, it’s an happiness-generator

For the full article read here

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Image source: Flickr – Anders Sandberg – (CC BY 2.0)

 

How to improve your presentation skills

17/03/2016 /

The way how you give an information is as important as the information you are giving. This is why improving your presentation skills is crucial in order to capture your audience and pass your message.

In this article, Sarah Kessler provides a guide to teach us how to preprare and deliver a good presentation and to answer questions on it.

The first step is to prepare your presentation. While preparing you must:

  1. Research your audience (Who is it?)
  2. Structure the presentation (opening, body, closing)
  3. Practice, practice and practice but not memoryse (videotape yourself!)

The second step is to deliver your presentation. The delivery of your presentation depends on:

  1. Verbal delivery: be brief, ask questions to keep the audience engaged, work on your tone, avoid fill words, avoid speaking softly
  2. Body delivery: stand at comfortable distance, eye contact
  3. Power point

The last step are the questions that could arise after the end of your presentation. You must be prepared to them and anticipate them while preparing your presentation. It is a good idea to take questions before the end of your presentation. Anyway, remeber that you don’t have to answer to all the questions you receive from the audience.

Read here the full article

Presentation skills

Image source: Flickr – Lorenzo Gaudenzi (CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0)

15 diplomacy strategies for negotiations

10/03/2016 /

The word diplomacy often invokes power and intrigues. Nonetheless, diplomats deal with the world’s biggest problems. Although people have often the impression that diplomacy does little for the wealth of the world, the world would be worse without it.

In this article Anna Mar, underlining the role of diplomacy in the relations among countries, suggests to use diplomatic techniques and strategies in everyday business negotiations.

She points out 15 diplomatic strategies that can be used:

  1. Use an advocate (Shutter diplomacy)
  2. Superrationality
  3. Use of objective criteria
  4. Tit for tat
  5. Buy time
  6. Ignore imposed constraints
  7. Name the trick
  8. Call bluffs
  9. Build golden bridges
  10. Avoid escalation
  11. Anchoring
  12. Make your ideas seem their ideas
  13. Never allow your opponent to lose face
  14. Code words and politeness
  15. Set uo your opponent’s victory speech

To read more about these strategies, click here

Diplomacy strategies

Image source: Flickr – Immaginario diplomatico (CC – BY – NC – ND 2.0)

‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word

25/02/2016 /

The need for an apology might suddenly emerge in organizations. At some point, every company makes a mistake that requires an apology—to an individual; a group of customers, employees, or business partners; or the public at large.

Maurice E. Schweitzer, Alison Wood Brooks, Adam D. Galinsky inquired into the “The Organizational Apology” on the Harvard Business Review September 2015 issue.

Should we apologize? We need to consider the “psychological contract” – the expectations customers, employees, business partners, or other stakeholders have about an organization’s responsibilities and what is right or fair.

When an apology is needed, setting up a strategy might help convey remorse and minimize the damage or defuse a tense situation.

As a general rule, the more central to the mission of the company the violation is and the more people it affects, the more important it is that the apology be pitch-perfect.

Suggestions for a tailor-made “sorry”.

  1. Who. The more serious and the more core the violation, the more necessary it becomes that a senior leader make the apology.
  2. What. Choose words to express candor, remorse, and a commitment to change. Leave no room for equivocation or misinterpretation.
  3. Where. Strive to control the coverage of an apology to determine how loud—and widely heard—the message will be.
  4. When. The quicker, the better.
  5. How. The way an apology is delivered can matter just as much as the content of the apology.

Read more here.

sorry

Image source: themuse.com

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