2 4 1 Special

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: Learn to Ask Better Questions/Lead Your Boss

Competencies: listening, two-way communication, leadership, interpersonal effectiveness, influence/negotiation,

Who benefits: any employee or anyone in the job market

Consultant Usage: coaching listening skills, training or coaching “managing up” skills, executive coaches working with clients on “boss relationship effectiveness”

What’s it about? Today is a two-for-one posting.  Let me explain why. 

I first came across a posting, “Learn to Ask Better Questions”, by accident and I am glad I did.  I have been frustrated recently by people who claim to be excellent listeners, but can’t stop interrupting long enough for me to confirm their skills!

Let’s face it, most of us overrate our listening skills.  We confuse hearing with listening.  The posting has four good tips to help us be better able to honestly connect with our co-workers, reports, customers, job interviewers.  The information isn’t that new, most of us have heard it before, but it is a good review presented in a refreshing way.

This is a two-for-one posting because it turns out that the author has a new book out on a totally different subject that really looks intriguing. The book is Lead Your Boss: The Subtle Art of Managing Up. 

Be honest, who amongst us has not wanted at some time in our career to have more influence over our boss and the “higher ups”.  Like what I read in the Blog posting, reviewers credit the author with writing in a friendly and useful manner.  I liked the way one reviewer wrote about the book: “practical and tactical”.   Another reviewer said you will learn to “Lead from the middle.”  Sounds good to me.

The book also promises some good instructional stories.

So there you have it, a two-for-one special.  Hope you find at least one to be useful to you. 

Catch you later. 

[tags]listening, listening skills, active listening, leading, managing up, influence skills, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.