Month: February 2009

20

3 Steps to Listening Better & Hearing More

Susan Mazza | 22 February 2009 | General Leadership

When it comes to teaching people to communicate we have historically focused a lot more on effective speaking, writing and presenting than on effective listening. Yet what has you trust someone more: the ability to speak eloquently or the ability to listen so that people actually feel heard? Too much of the former and not enough of the latter is all too often what causes us to label someone that 10 letter word “politician”.

If you buy into the belief that successful leaders engender a high degree of trust, I would argue that listening is a critical skill. It may even be more important than speaking skills. I’ll even suggest that by learning to listen better you will actually become a better speaker, presenter and writer.

3 SIMPLE STEPS TO LISTENING BETTER

1. Prepare for What You Want to Learn, Not Just What You Want to Say

We spend a lot of time preparing for meetings by putting together speaking notes and PowerPoint presentations. Our focus is all too often entirely on us. [click to continue...]

20

Four Chords to Innovation

Susan Mazza | 15 February 2009 | General Leadership

Recently I read a post by Heather Fenoughty, an internationally respected film, tv and theatre composer and sound designer. She suggests that if you have writers block when trying to compose that you find a four chord progression and play with it to make it your own. Since you can’t copyright just four chords you can avoid “a crisis of conscience”. Apparently even Bach did this!

I have come to believe that there really is no such thing as original thought, only original expression. So when I read her post and watched the accompanying video what I saw was a perfect demonstration of this in action. Click here to go check it out. It plays a series of songs that are completely different yet use the same four chords.

A great way to develop your leadership is to train yourself to think in new and innovative ways.

But that does not have to mean coming up with a never conceived of before idea. Those are far and few between. What it does mean is bringing a new point of view to an existing problem or opportunity. [click to continue...]

17

THE Best Definition of Leadership…

Susan Mazza | 08 February 2009 | General Leadership

…does not exist.

There is not one agreed upon definition in the world despite how much leadership has been studied and written about. As of today 316,641 results returned when searching Amazon for books on leadership. According to Warren Bennis in Leaders (1997) “academic analysis has given us more than 850 definitions of leadership”. I think it is fair to say that defining leadership will be studied and debated for a long time to come and it is likely we will never all agree on THE BEST definition.

Although that is the question I have been asked and challenged about the most.

A very good friend even wrote to me having spent a good deal of time reading what I wrote, thinking and searching the internet trying to help me do a better job of defining leadership. The definition I offered in one of my posts was “Translating vision into reality” by Warren Bennis. Yet she strongly believes that “Vision is not a catalyst for leadership.” Essentially the definition I had offered in her worldview was just wrong. [click to continue...]

7

The Red Car Theory of Leadership

Susan Mazza | 03 February 2009 | General Leadership

No I am not talking about the theory that red cars get more tickets or have more accidents. Although that is a theory, there actually seems to be little evidence to support it. Besides, the question of whether they do or not is not as interesting to me as why they might. Perhaps it is because of their color alone. Then again, maybe the hype about red cars made them more noticeable.

This phenomenon, however, leads us to an important question:

Why do we notice one thing and miss something else entirely?

When I graduated from college I bought a red Pontiac Grand Am. And from then on I noticed two things while driving around: (1) how many red cars were on the road, and (2) how many Grand Am’s there were of all colors. We notice things that we have some personal connection to, whether that connection is based on our experience, our desires, our knowledge, or something else.

Here’s why: because everything we have learned and experienced creates the context or lens through which we relate to the world.

[click to continue...]