Listening is Hard!

Listening is hard because it involves keeping your ego constrained long enough to consider what is being said before formulating your response.

Wisdom often lies in the pause between stimulus and response.

Few people listen well, which makes good listeners all the more relevant and important.

When someone starts talking, our focus should be:

1. Listening intentionally to what they are saying

2. Ignoring patterns in their speech and forming conclusions 

3. Putting said about whether we agree with what they are saying until they have finished   speaking

When we quickly prepare responses as a listener the conversation becomes about us. When the other person does the same meaningful communication ceases to occur.

Rather than making the conversation about you, work to understand the other person's perspective. You don't have to agree with them, but you owe it to them to be respectful and open minded.  

Remember and put to use one of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits - Seek first to understand then be understood.

We should make it a habit to seek understanding with one another.  A conversation is not a competition to make a point, but rather an exploration of each others thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, and biases.

Your Last Project

It has been said “You only live as long as the last person that remembers you”.

In Project Management it has been said that “You are only as good as your last project”.  While this statement may see unfair, it is nonetheless true in many environments.

Be, Say, and Do!

 

Three action steps when working with others, per Ajayi Jones

1. Be: Write down what’s important to you, and what’s worth fighting for. 

2. Say: When you don’t see eye to eye with your boss or disagree with the rest of the room, ask yourself these three questions. If you answer “Yes” to all three, speak up.

• “Do I mean it?” 

• “Can I defend it?”

• “Can I say it thoughtfully?

3. Do: Match your thoughts with your actions. 

Fair warning: Just because you follow these steps, it doesn’t mean your team will automatically be on the same page. It’s more that these practices force you to check in with yourself, and know that you said what you needed to say. 

You’ll leave the discussion knowing you tried.

Variety is the Spice of Life

It has been said that variety is the spice of life.  We can fear variety (change) because of its unknown impact be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological.  Variety often means trusting others and stepping into the unknown with courage.

You must embrace change to experience the spice of life!

Tom Brady has some thoughts about change.  “Life is about always changing and adapting to different things. Today, the world wants to blame, and shame, and guilt, and fear everything all the time”

Do you blame others when changes go wrong?  Do you fear change? 

Sometimes it takes courage to embrace Variety!

Ignorance of Things

Nobody should be embarrassed for not being familiar with the Sunning-Kruger effect, the cognitive bias in which the more incompetent or ignorant you are about something the better or more knowledgeable you think you are at that thing.

Wisdom vs. Knowledge

From dictionary.com - The primary difference between the two words is that wisdom involves a healthy dose of perspective and the ability to make sound judgments about a subject while knowledge is simply knowing. 

”Anyone can become knowledgeable about a subject by reading, researching, and memorizing facts. ... Wisdom is knowing when to say it.”

Project Management Similar to Creating Art

"A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not.  It is the discipline to discard what does not fit - to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort that distiguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life"

Author Unknown