Relationship skills are sometimes seen as a subject for members of the younger generation—as if their need is the greater and older colleagues already know what they need to know.
But it isn’t necessarily so. Sure, experienced people are more skilled in professional relationships, but they are called upon so much more given their positions and the scale of the challenges they face. The bar is so much higher and the need for flexibility and resilience so much greater.
An assumption that deep learning about interpersonal skills is really for the younger crowd suggests we don’t realize the power of the skills we could be acquiring. It shows, as ever, we don’t know what we don’t know.
The more authority and responsibility we have, the more we need the most insightful approaches to take us forward.
Wise heads need more mastery not less.
Messing about with key phrases on Google such as “change for leaders”, it’s very striking that most of what comes up is about doing change to other people—organizations, employees and so forth, usually by or on behalf of various corporate bodies or consultancies.
(Occasioned by a certain politician failing to see the funny side of the routine humor dispensed on its cover by a well-known current affairs magazine.)
If you’re anything like me, your first reaction to the question might be ”Of course I solve a problem when I can.”
When it comes to a strategy or learning day, we’re used to the practice of “going off-site” to a venue away from the usual workplace. Our intention is to get away from the distractions of the office so that quality, uninterrupted time is spent on the subjects at hand—all very sensible, and the quality of the day we have usually seems to justify the decision.
We think NLP is something out there, when actually it’s something in here.
We all have power to achieve things or to be a certain way, possibly more than we’re comfortable admitting. As Marianne Williamson said, “it’s not our darkness but our light that most frightens us.”
Progress on anything challenging typically needs a balance of head and heart perspectives; some emotional intelligence alongside the logic and rationale of the numbers and the processes. Neither on their own will be sufficient.
Forgiving others’ perceived wrongs is such a freeing thing to do, both for them and for us.
We’re pretty used to being clear about what we want, what our vision is—clear enough that if it showed up, we’d recognize it.
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