Curiousity – A Key To Listening

Why do we all have such difficulty listening to others?   For me I often distracted by my thinking about what I am going to say next.  I am thinking "How can I share my ideas" rather than find out what the other person thinks.   How can I make myself more c

Importance for Relating to Others

Many people have criticized business and engineering schools for not teaching any courses on how to wins friends and influence people.  Tom Peters and Dale Carnegie come to mind. However the key success factor for people to be successful in taking a leadership role is their abil

Bias For Action

When Dan Pink asked Tom Peters what was the most important principle from his book 'In Search of Excellence', he said without hesitation "A Bias for Action."  Dan Pink thens asked what was the second of the eight and after a long pause he said "A Bias for

Career Choices – Careful Who You Talk to

When I was in high school and considering careers, I seriously considered going into medicine.  I had a really good friend whose father was a doctor so I asked if I could talk to him.  If I recall correctly one of the first things he said to me was that I would have to acc

7 ways to tame your email monster

Here are some suggestions from a newsletter I read.  It has to do with dealing with email while writing a report, proposal, requirements document or memo. 1. Never try to write when you might receive ANY alert (either audio or visual) about emails lurking. Turn off your no

Get Anyone To Do Anything

From a book called "Instant Influence" I extracted the following six questions: Why might you change?  (for yourself why might I change?) How ready are you to change  – on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 means "not ready at all" and 10 meands "to

Give The Client or Customer 10% More

Do you have a delighted customer or client?  I bet you are in demand.  Harvey Gellman, my mentor and business partner, had a saying "Give the client ten percent more than they expect."   Don't just meet their expectations but exceed them. That is really

Why Are You Who You Are?

Ever wonder why you do what you do?    I often wonder why I ended up doing what I did.   How much of what you have done is based on luck and chance? There are not simple answers to these simple questions.   I think we set driection in our life based on many inf

How To Influence People

I am rediscovering Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People."   The amazing things is that his ideas are as relevant and fresh now as they were when he wrote it in 1935.   "If you want honey, don't kick over the beehive."  

Communications – Listening

In consulting listening is one of the most important skills and one of the most difficult for me.  I find that my ability to problem solve, my tendency to rush to solution and my preconceived ideas and prejudices all get in the way of listening well.  My thoughts and eager