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“Creating Successful Leaders”

November 14, 2011 Get a Life

By Margaret Smith
Speaker | Career Coach | Certified Insights Discovery Practitioner

Making your voice heard, being noticed, overcoming your inner saboteur, improving interactions with others: These are many of the topics I discuss with my coaching clients. These are also many of the topics that the writer Julie Morgenstern addresses in her article, “Five Ways to Get a Life” published in O Magazine. Read on for a bunch of useful and fun advice about taking back your life!

Morgenstern’s Advice:

  1. Shorten your work day by 30 minutes: This may seem counter-intuitive, but I promise that you’ll get more work done because committing to leave earlier gives you a deadline and forces you to eliminate the little time wasters (silly interruptions, procrastination, perfectionism) that typically eat up your day.
  2. Avoid multi-tasking: Recent studies show that it can take the brain twice as long to process each task when you switch back and forth between activities. By learning to focus your full attention on one project at a time, you can regain the extra hour or two you crave.
  3. Break the habit of total self-reliance: Insisting on doing everything yourself burdens you and prevents others from feeling valuable and needed. Delegate more at home and free up your time for things you love and excel at doing.
  4. Capture all your to do’s in one place: People who haphazardly write lists on stray notepads, post-it notes, and backs of envelopes waste time wondering what to do next and worrying that they’re forgetting something. Choose only one tool to track everything you need to do and prioritize from the top down.
  5. Schedule one purely joyful activity each week: Think of an activity (dancing, reading, playing an instrument) that you haven’t done for a long time that brings you instant happiness. Put it in your datebook as nonnegotiable and watch the quality of your life improve.

Also try to start each morning with the most important item, not the many small and easy tasks. Remember that you can always squeeze the little things into the gaps.

Your Challenge: Give one of these life-improving ideas a try, and let me know how it transforms your day!

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November 7, 2011 The Benefits of Being a Better Listener

By Margaret Smith, Speaker, Career Coach, and Certified Insights Discovery Practitioner
You may feel like you’re already a pretty great listener. Or perhaps you’re ready to admit that your listening skills could use a little improvement. Either way, everyone will benefit from a little refresher on the necessity of being a good listener, with a few helpful tips for staying focused on the person across from you, on the other end of the line, etc.

If your listening skills improve, you’ll also see improvements at work, at home, while socializing, and everywhere in between.

Has there ever been a time in your life when you’ve lost sight of what a conversation was really about? Have you ever been “sucked in” to a toxic conversation or argument that’s become completely unproductive? Of course you have—we all have!

I’ve found that the best way to avoid conversational distractions that become argumentative is to remember this one simple fact: Listening is about gaining knowledge. In a conversation, it’s important that I remain a dedicated listener because otherwise, I may as well have a conversation with myself in the mirror.

By focusing on the messages of others at work, you not only improve productivity, you also strengthen your relationships with the people in your life because you avoid misunderstandings and make others feel heard and understood.

An awesome benefit of being a better listener is the positive impression you leave with those you listen to. Being a better listener actually makes you seem more respectful, composed, and interesting to other people. It may seem counter-intuitive, but displaying genuine interest in what someone else is saying actually makes you a more interesting person to them.

Your Challenge:

Improve your listening skills starting now. Think about your plans for the rest of the day and choose an interaction that you’ll practice improving your listening skills during. This interaction may be with your children when you or they walk in the door, with a supervisor this afternoon, or even with the next person with whom you share a phone conversation.

Share your story: Have you ever interacted with someone who was a really good listener? How did this make you feel? How did it affect your image of, and relationship with, this person?

Interested in learning more about listening or working one-on-one with a professional career coach to gain a competitive edge? Contact Margaret Today to learn about career coaching and UXL’s public workshops!

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October 31, 2011 How to Deal with a Negative Person and Get Things Done

By Margaret Smith, Speaker, Career Coach, and Certified Insights Discovery Practitioner

Have you ever proposed something to someone, or asked another person (at work or otherwise) to do something, and been shocked when you’re met with a determined “no”? Perhaps nothing can be more frustrating than this situation, because despite your being reasonable and nice, your request is met with a stubborn refusal.

If you’re a parent like me, you have probably already had your fair share of yes-no-yes-no battles. But, have you ever faced this perplexing situation at work?

I read an interesting article recently by Dr. Rick Krischner, which speaks about this very issue and offers a new approach to dealing with people in opposition using the Polarity Pattern.

As Krischner explains, there are two ways to use the Polarity Pattern to achieve your desired outcome (which is getting someone else to do something).

The first way to use the Polarity Pattern is to anticipate the other person’s reaction to your request or proposal, and bring up the negatives before they do. “If you can anticipate that they are going to attack your idea and point out its flaws anyway, might as well invite them to do it so that they are on your side!” explains Krischner.

The second way to apply the Polarity Pattern is to openly agree with the hopelessness of the situation (as the other person expresses it). This brings to light the unreasonableness or extremeness of the other person’s perspective.

Krishchner uses a story to illustrate this second use of the Polarity Pattern:

“…A CEO was complaining to his assistant how the employees in his company were inefficient, incompetent, and utterly incapable of doing a single thing right. His assistant, with a look of utmost earnestness on his face, suggested, ‘You’re right. Let’s take them all outside, shoot them, and burn this building down!’ The CEO laughed at this idea then admitted, ‘Alright, it isn’t so bad!’”

The key to mastering this technique is the understanding that the only way a negative person can stay negative when someone is agreeing with them is for them to go positive.

Do you have a personal technique for dealing with a stubborn person? Share your best practices and stories below!

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