Seek first to understand and other great habits from Stephen Covey
In 1989 Stephen Covey wrote The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is still a source of wisdom to me and one of the few books I revisit to align to my true north. My 2 favorite habits are “Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.” and “Begin with the end in […]
Hacks for mentoring
I was asked to follow up from last week’s post with more hacks for mentoring. New supervisors are often uncomfortable giving direction to those who just recently were peers. Being a first-time supervisor is probably the most difficult step in a leaders journey. So, let’s start with your mental game.
Receiving feedback
Is it easy for you to receive feedback? For most of my life, you could give me positive feedback all day long. I would tend to dismiss it, but I’d be emotionally happy. If i received negative feedback, my stomach clenched as my jaw froze into a slight tight smile, which may have looked like […]
Giving feedback
Do you give fair and accurate informal feedback to your direct reports? Teams that do outperform by 40%. Would getting better at giving feedback and receiving it help your company perform better? Dr. Eve Meceda spoke to my Vistage groups about mindset and gave us a set of clues for how to give fair, accurate […]
Relocated abroad
On the plane from Lima, Peru to Santiago, Chile I sat next to a young woman whose accent in English immediately caught my attention. I had offered in Spanish to switch seats with her as she had the middle seat between my husband by the window and my seat on the aisle, She smiled and […]
Communicating, really?
A random comment caught me off guard last week. A senior executive said that their executive team brought in a facilitator and set goals for 2019 and he had real clarity as to what his role would be going forward. Here is what surprised me: He said that in all the time he had worked […]
Don’t take anything personally
The second of The 4 Agreements in the book by Don Miguel Ruiz is “Don’t take anything personally”. When someone cuts you off on the freeway, or is rude in a store, we can usually see that it is about them, not about us. We can take a deep breathe and move on.
Psychological Safety
Have you ever evaluated the level of psychological safety in your team? Is it okay to challenge the status quo? Can people discuss behaviors that bother them? Is it acceptable to challenge a supervisor when they don’t show up on time or blame a subordinate when they forgot to do something?
Rule changes
Watching the World Cup Final between Croatia and France, I was thinking about the rules. About offsides, how high was that kick, did it hit his arm? Was that guy really hurt or is he just dragging out the clock.
Civil Discourse
I have not seen the United States of America, the land I love, so torn up since the late 60’s. The name-calling, the divisions, the neighbor pitted against neighbor….the lack of civil discourse. If this has been planted by the Russians, as they have been accused of doing, then they are winning and we, the […]