A top skill to have, which requires a lot of work, is clear thinking. And the work required to have clarity of thought requires awareness of what impedes it in the first place. Those impediments are called cognitive biases, which are thinking shortcuts we use to make big and small decisions. We all have them, nobody is immune to them.
How does one increase her / his value in the workplace? How can you been seen as someone of value? How do you become valuable to your manager? Let’s face it, most people come to work to get the job done. Some do, and others don’t. That’s the way the cookie crumbles. But going above and beyond what one is asked to do is the domain of value added people; the people who are relied upon, get the toughest assignments, get recognized for their efforts and get promoted.
Learning is fun for me. I went to a Montessori school in preschool, and it shaped my life because I was taught to learn through play. I still approach every new topic as play and don’t understand doing something any other way; and ever since I’ve had an obsession with learning in general.
What is something everyone needs to learn but few know how to do well? I was recently asked this question, and I responded: Listening to understand, not just to respond.
Many years ago I was coaching a client of mine, during one of our sessions he asked me: You know Jorge, I need to get better at making decisions. How can I make better ones? His thinking was a good start, but a better point of departure is to consider and start at the opposite: why are you making bad ones?
Decisions. Big and small, they are part of our everyday life. Everything from choosing what to eat, where to park, what to pay attention to, who you date, who you marry, what you buy; these decisions determine ones future. Yet we don’t consider this when making most of these decisions; specifically the day to day ones.
in Leadership
You know what annoys me the most? When people don’t listen. A person sitting in a meeting off somewhere in their head, their attention scattered somewhere else but in the moment. You know what it looks like. We’ve all done it. It sucks. But you know what sucks more? When it happens one on one.