by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Leadership Development, Meetings, Team Manager Skills
I was very pleased to see an international expert on software development express the following clear insights into the types of workplaces my executive coaching seeks to foster.
Visionaries are designing organizations for collaboration. These firms remove the bottlenecks imposed by the strict hierarchies of the past. [In hierarchical firms] no one was being rewarded for taking the kind of risks that lead to innovation or other breakthroughs in performance which thrive in a climate of collaboration.
Knowledge workers spend a large proportion of their time seeking information, much of the rest making sense of what they’ve found, and relatively little time in applying what they now know.
Transitioning from a hierarchical way of working … requires letting go of habitual behaviors that may have worked well in the hierarchy, but no longer serve anyone when collaboration becomes a critical part of the work process.
…
[The result is] … humanized work with an emphasis on mastery of our craft, a focus on rapid learning and feedback, delivery of business value (sooner not faster), and close connection to customer needs (even ones the customers’ haven’t noticed yet).
…
— Diana Larsen on Agile Fluency,
Barriers to Agility &
the value of Open Space Technology
in InfoQ
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners
Sorry, this limited time offer has ended. All material is included in the new, expanded edition available in paperback, hardcover, Kindle, and audio versions. Click here for more details on this blog.
I am happy to make available at no charge and for a limited time the bonus chapter to my Amazon #1 best-selling book, The Courage to be in Community. The free bonus chapter is a simple, practical guide to building better relationships at work and at home. The focus of the book was the importance of compassion and authenticity, while this new section is all about implementation, with specific advice on how to be compassionate and authentic in your day-to-day life.
This free download also includes links to recommended books and articles for further study and practice.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Team Manager Skills
Expanded 2nd Edition Now on Sale!
Tony’s short book on building community is now available
with an extra chapter and a guide to additional resources.
The new chapter is a simple, practical guide to building better relationships at work and at home. The focus of the book is the importance of compassion and authenticity, while this new section is all about implementation, with specific advice on how to be compassionate and authentic in your day-to-day life.
This expanded edition also includes links to recommended books and articles for further study and practice.
➤ Paperback , hardcover, and Kindle available on Amazon!
➤ Paperback and hard cover available on Barnes and Noble!
Audio version read by Tony Mayo also available.
To hear a sample click here for Audible or iTunes.
(more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, For Salespeople, Leadership Development, Quotes and Aphorisms, Sales Techniques, Team Manager Skills
Everyone’s favorite radio station is WII-FM
What’s
In
It –
For
Me
Broadcast on their frequency and they’ll tune in.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, For Salespeople, Sales Techniques
Another good reason to avoid jargon, shibboleths, and technical terms with colleagues and prospects. It makes you sound untrustworthy, even criminal. Listeners naturally wonder, “What are you hiding behind those obscure references, technical terms, and acronyms?” For good reason.
The word jargon originally meant unintelligible noises resembling speech, like the twittering of birds. But early on, jargon became the name of the peculiar speech used by criminal groups.
–Professor Heller-Roazen
Learn to Talk in Beggars’ Cant
The New York Times
See also, Misunderstood Jargon, on this blog.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, For Salespeople, Sales Techniques
No sooner did I post my article on the pitfalls of misusing jargon that I found myself in a conversation that was confused and distorted by the use of technical terms without a shared context.
A client mentioned his plan to delegate the task of staying in regular, informal contact with customers between transactions. We naturally agreed that these “keep warm” meetings were a valuable and often overlooked source of repeat business. Since the activity is so valuable for the business, I asked how he was going to track the sales representative’s performance on scheduling and conducting these visits. “I’m not worried about that. Her personality assessment is clearly very high ‘I,’ so I know she will happily do the meetings.”
I told him that puzzled me. The most popular assessment tool is (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Sales Techniques
I like this guy.
We speak the same language.
— from many movies, in many variations
Some people hate to talk to mechanics. Most people don’t know what their doctor told them.
No one likes reading the fine print. Computer departments often find it difficult to get support from the business side. The operations people find it impossible to get the technical people to listen. Jargon used with the wrong audience is a big part of the problem.
People want to be included but using jargon cuts both ways. If everyone in a conversation knows the jargon, everyone feels included. Everyone is “in.” The person who does not know the jargon is “out.”
Consider a sales call on a doctor’s office. The salesperson begins to talk about VoIP, SAAS, and generational back-ups. How would the office manager feel if he were a computer
expert? Respected, included, and comfortable. How would the novice feel? Disrespected, incompetent, and uncomfortable, perhaps? The typical reaction of a person feeling that way is to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, For Executive Coaches, Leadership Development
Bad presentation–or resistant audience?
Executives often find themselves assigning blame. Many believe that ranking and sorting their colleagues is a key management skill–and I agree. A much rarer and more powerful skill is the ability to see our own contribution to the unwelcome behavior we see around us. Why is self-awareness more powerful than judging others? Because altering my own behavior is the best access I have to altering the future.
I know this. I teach this. I also forget to practice it.
In November of 2007, for example, I was in San Diego attending a weekend training for coaches. A breakout session was led by the author of one of the best-known books on coaching. It is a good book and I was very eager to attend. His ninety minute workshop was scheduled six times over two days–I was in a morning session on day two.
The author immediately struck me as irritated, aggressive, and arrogant. (Here I am, always ranking and sorting.) His opening seemed vague and rambling and his responses to questions were not pertinent. (Here I go, proceeding to collect evidence for my case.) People were shaking their heads and looking at each other. Coaches are a fairly supportive audience but in the first fifteen minutes, five of the thirty people walked out, one while the author was responding (elliptically) to his question! (Perfect. I have other people agreeing with me, a seductive substitute for truth.) I decided to (more…)
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Quotes and Aphorisms
The principles of meeting facilitation, as delineated three centuries ago.
…a mutual deference is affected; contempt of others disguised; authority concealed; attention given to each in his turn; and an easy stream of conversation maintained, without vehemence, without interruption, without eagerness for victory, and without any airs of superiority. These attentions and regards are immediately agreeable to others, abstracted from any consideration of utility or beneficial tendencies: they conciliate affection, promote esteem, and extremely enhance the merit of the person who regulates his behaviour by them.
–David Hume 1711-1776
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
Section VIII Of Qualities Immediately Agreeable To Others.
by Tony Mayo | Communication, Conversation, & Confrontation, For Business Owners, Team Manager Skills
While coaching many top executives I have noticed that managers seeking “advice” are often just avoiding a confronting conversation. I remind them of some wisdom embedded in the development of our language.
Con is Latin for “with.” Con-front is to face something together, to move forward in unison. Doesn’t that make confrontation more appealing? Appealing or not, it is a big part of every manager’s job.
Versare meant to turn or change, especially to open or close a door. In early English a con-versation meant talking with a person to make a change, to open some doors and close others. This also is a big part of managing.
Still, not everyone knows or remembers how to have these confronting conversations. Here is my step-by-step guide, for free: tiny.cc/toughtalk
See also, on this blog, step-by-step conversation instructions with video here:
The Conversation Contract.
Recent Comments