Whose responsibility is it to communicate? Does a manager’s responsibility for communicating an assignment absolve the employee of their responsibility for finding out what the assignment is? A student approached me at the beginning of class to inform me that, “I didn’t read the case assigned for tonight. I wasn’t here last week and they […]
Influencing others – having an impact on their ideas, opinions, and actions – requires using different types of conversations and not recognizing this limits our effectiveness. I recently read an article in which the authors maintain that effective leadership requires influencing others and that leaders can influence those others through five different influence styles. The […]
Successful change depends on the use of the four conversations. I recently led an MBA course on Leading and Managing Change to a group of practicing managers in which they were required to produce an “impossible change” – one that was currently well beyond their position and capability to produce. In other words, they couldn’t […]
This is from Laurie, even though it says the author is Jeffrey. I see why performance conversations are such a confront: saying publicly what I’ll do and by when would be fine if I was sure nobody was listening! So, I have created a timeline for getting my “management is missing” summaries – including solutions […]
We recently received three copies of our book, The Four Conversations: Daily Communication that Gets Results, from our publisher and they were in Chinese (see photo). What a treat to see how something you wrote looks in another language! A colleague of mine has had several of his textbooks translated into other languages, but none […]
I took my ideas about an online conversation for “Management is Missing” into several meetings over coffee and lunch in the past 10 days. I had lunch with a man who develops websites: he liked the Performance Circle idea, and we sketched out some thoughts on how to have the kind of interactive discussion I’m […]
Credibility is a key element in effective leadership and depends on the effective use of closure conversations. Most people realize that credibility is built by telling the truth. But credibility is also built by doing what you said you would do by when you said you would do it and when you don’t, acknowledging the […]
My daughter and I recently visited my mother at her home in Kentucky. My mother is 89 (will be 90 early next year) and is concerned about who will “pay her bills” (take care of her) in the remaining years of her life. It was an invitation for an understanding conversation, which my daughter and […]
Good working relationships are essential to getting work done and to a satisfying work place. But what can we do when relationships turn sour? You could have a closure conversation with the person. One of the managers in my Mastery in Execution class had a very poor working relationship with a woman at work and […]
A manager in my Leading and Managing Change course approached me after class with the following issue: “There are things at work I should be accountable for and I am not. I think I should be accountable because they are in my area, but my boss doesn’t hold me accountable for them. Do you have […]
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