168 Posts Found

People will debate you if you’re asserting something, whereas if you’re asking for feedback, they won’t be as honest because they don’t want to hurt your feelings.

Content: Quotation | Author: Abhishek Agrawal | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

Leaders who listen well create company cultures where people feel heard, valued, and engaged. In addition, employees who experience high-quality listening report greater levels of job satisfaction and psychological safety. If you’re interested in sharpening your listening skills, try using these four techniques: (1) Listen until the end — don’t jump in or interrupt the speaker; (2) Listen to summarize the problem, not to solve … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Debra Schifrin | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

In a famous social-science experiment conducted in 1946 by psychologist Solomon Asch, participants were given one of two sentences. The first began, “Steve is smart, diligent, critical, impulsive, and jealous.” The second read, “Steve is jealous, impulsive, critical, diligent, and smart.” Although both sentences contained the same information, the first one led with positive traits while the second one started with negatives. When asked to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Carolyn Dewar, Kurt Strovink, Scott Keller, Vikram Malhotra | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

If we look at the distance between that minimum standard and how we actually want to interact with one another—with trust, kindness, respect, love, and care—there’s a very big gap. Laws can only do so much. You can’t legislate kindness; I can’t order you to treat me with respect. What this means for organizations is that policies are essential, but it’s also important to create … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Jessica Nordell | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

For all the communication around strategy, we know that leaders at many companies don’t provide the necessary context for employees to understand what the words and sentences in a strategy statement actually mean. What can leaders do to help employees understand enough context to understand a strategy? In this article, the authors offer three ideas.

Content: Article | Authors: Andrew MacLennan, Constantinos C. Markides | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior, Strategy

The classic psychological rule is often misapplied. But when understood correctly, it can radically improve your EQ.

Content: Article | Author: Jessica Stillman | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Too much performance feedback is of the “do good and avoid evil” variety. That may sound harmless, but overly general feedback increases feelings of defensiveness, rather than openness to behavior change, because it involves broad judgments and invites counterpunching rather than discussion.

Content: Quotation | Author: Frank V. Cespedes | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

For interpersonal [feedback], I’m a big fan of a simple formula: “When you A, I feel B, because C, and what I’d really like is D.” Specific behavior, specific emotion, specific cognition, specific alternative behavior.  And I think a variant can be used for delivering performance feedback as well: “When you A, it causes B, because C. One thing to try could be D.” Specific … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Matt Wallaert | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

Lecturer Matt Abrahams shares what it takes to be a more confident, connected, and clear facilitator.

Content: Multimedia Content | Author: Matt Abrahams | Source: Stanford University | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

It’s easy to assume that listening is merely about showing up and paying attention to the other person, but it’s also deeply tied to paying attention to ourselves. Being an effective listener is about building self-awareness around how you naturally show up in conversation.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ximena Vengoechea | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Personal Development

We often think of miscommunication as an issue with our own content or delivery — that if we could tweak the what or the how, our message would be more effective. But that perpetuates a dynamic where we view our counterparts as an audience, not as collaborators.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ximena Vengoechea | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

Forward-looking companies think carefully about communications—not just in terms of what resonates with investors, but with a range of stakeholders; and not just communications for the sake of announcing to others but in order to learn, become smarter, and improve as an organization. Employees are a key constituency and are invariably an important source of insight. Companies can also continuously improve by engaging through trade … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Dame Vivian Hunt, Donatela Bellone, Hamid Samandari, Lucy Pérez, Robin Nuttall | Source: McKinsey Quarterly | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior, Public Relations

You may have communicated your must-win strategic goals ad nauseum, but without shared context—or the common understanding of what matters, why it matters and how the pieces fit together—your leadership team will be clueless.

Content: Article | Author: Rebecca Homkes | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior

When things feel personal and when our ego is involved, it gets really hard to listen.

Content: Quotation | Author: Ximena Vengoechea | Source: First Round Review | Subjects: Communication, Organizational Behavior, Personal Development

One of our foundation principles is that leadership and communication are the same thing. Communication is leadership.

Content: Quotation | Author: Kip Tindell | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Communication, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.

Content: Quotation | Author: Haruki Murakami | Subjects: Communication, Leadership, Management, Organizational Behavior

We rely upon persuasion when an objective, inarguable truth isn’t available, when the facts can be interpreted in different ways and judgment is required. Then the persuader, instead of arguing to prove a truth, must enable the listener to accept a mere possibility – to accept the idea that another explanation might be viable and begin to consider it.

Content: Quotation | Author: Bruce Craven | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Communication, Leadership, Organizational Behavior

In the old days the boss might have said, “Stop talking and get to work!” Today, the boss might say, “Start talking and get to work.” You need to communicate and collaborate with colleagues, consultants, customers, suppliers, and thought leaders to keep learning and get things done.

Content: Quotation | Author: Paul B. Thornton | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

Simply communicating the choices you have made is often insufficient. What you really need to do is to communicate the choice and the alternatives considered and rejected in favor of the choice. It is the positioning of the choice relative to the alternatives considered that makes the choice clear to people. This means that what you need to say is not “We have decided to … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Author: Constantinos C. Markides | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior

Five key practices can unify leaders up, down, and across the organization—and spark concerted action.

Content: Article | Authors: Deborah Lovich, Henning Streubel, Joseph Halverson, Robert Werner | Source: Boston Consulting Group (BCG) | Subjects: Communication, Management, Organizational Behavior, Teamwork