In the media recently I’ve been hearing the word ‘kindness’ discussed by business folks.
Kindness – not a word historically …

Did you ever wonder why training fails more often than not? When important material, meant to improve or…

Do you know what’s stopping you or your company from making the…

What if it were true that we only understand a fraction of what others say to us? And if true, what can we do about it?
As someone who has taken great pride in accurately hearing what others say, I was annoyed to discover that it’s pretty impossible for any listeners to achieve any consistent level of accuracy. The problem is not the words – we hear those, albeit we only remember them for less than 3 seconds and not in the proper order (Remember the game of Telephone we played as kids?). The problem is how we interpret them.

We enter into collaborations assuming we’ll succeed as teamwork partners. Yet we rarely achieve true partnership:
* Because we listen uniquely and through biased filters we sometimes mistakenly presume intent or misconstrue what’s been said and agreed upon. Problem: Flawed assumptions, wasted time and relationship capital, and restricted scope.
* There is often not enough diversity to enable maximum creativity and unrestricted solution options. Problem: Similar ideas and options constrain possibility and maintain the status quo.

“Content is king”. I’ve heard that phrase for years. But what does it mean?