Active listening skills aren’t just a nice-to-have. They improve communication, strengthen relationships, boost team performance, spur personal and professional growth, and play a huge role in leadership excellence. Taken further, active listening is not just functional. It’s effective. How so? Anyone who has experienced good listening can understand its power. When someone listens to you well,…
12 Customer Gifts that Outshine Partridges in Pear Trees
‘Tis the season for getting inundated with fruit baskets, coffee mugs, and drab holiday cards from anyone whose customer list you’ve managed to land yourself on in the past year. In other words, ’tis the season of missed opportunities. This year, why not wow your customers with something more human, more personal, more valuable than a no-personality, one-size-fits…
Notes from a Cynical Valentine & Great Dater
On the surface, I might look like Valentine’s version of Scrooge: I’m the one rolling my eyes when boxed chocolates appear on store shelves before Christmas ornaments have made it to the sale rack, the one shaking my head at this blatant commercialization of romance. To me, it’s always felt like Hallmark invented Valentine’s Day—even…
The Law of Compensation II: How to Increase Your Value
In my last blog post, The Law of Compensation: How to Make More in Any Year, I promised to follow up by answering a simple and essential question: How? How do we constantly make ourselves more valuable? As many of my readers know, I think there’s great power in brevity. So, I’ve selected 3 brief…
Listening for Revelation
If you aren’t already a relatively good listener, this post is not for you. You’ll be better off starting with the basics and coming back to this once you’re truly good at active listening and effective listening—hearing, checking for understanding, and caring about what the speaker says. But if this list of good-listener traits describes…
A Single, Positive Change for the New Year
The other day, someone asked if I’d be interested in sharing some advice on New Year’s resolutions. I jumped right in with 1 simple tip and 1 suggested resolution—both of which apply to changes you make at this or any other time of the year. Tip: Pick 1 Behavior change is hard enough, so don’t…
