Reflective listening is one of the most important, if not the most important, skills you can develop. Here are some questions from God Space: Where Spiritual Conversations Happen Naturally:
All posts by MICHAEL PEARSON
Great Interview Questions
Vanessa Van Edwards has a great post on 10 behavioral interview questions.
They are:
- What is something you used to believe, but no longer believe?
- Who were the competitors at the last company you worked for and how did the company differentiate itself?
- Tell me about your best and worst days at work?
- If I called your current boss, what would they say about you?
- Are you working on anything exciting outside of work?
- You have two teleportation devices, where would you place them and why?
- Wait…Do you remember all of our names and what we talked about?
- If you didn’t have to work, why would you come into the office?
- Describe the last significant conflict you had at work and how you handled it>
- Is there something I should have asked and did not ask you?
Watch the video to find out why they are great and what answers you would like to hear.
How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 3
In two prior posts, here and here, we discussed ways to structure conversations, even everyday ad hoc conversations, to achieve your objectives. Every conversation is an opportunity to build relationships, to coordinate activities, to plan for the future, to sell your ideas, to get ideas, or to recap the past.
Today, we will discuss a method designed to start a conversation with nearly everyone, even strangers. It’s called the OSA method and it’s ripped from Marni Kinrys’ Wing Girl site. Continue reading How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 3
Understanding the 5 Types of Difficult People
“Be slow to attribute to malice or guile, that which can be explained by ignorance, incompetence, or muddling through.”
— My modification of from Heinlein’s Razor, stolen from Napoleon
Homeowner associations are unique among nonprofits.
In a homeowner association, everyone looks out for themselves. And they don’t hesitate to break the rules and complain about others breaking the rules.
Rule-breakers and complainers are difficult people, falling into one of five categories. Continue reading Understanding the 5 Types of Difficult People
How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 2
In our last post, we discussed three ways to structure conversations, even everyday ad hoc conversations, to achieve your objectives. Every conversation is an opportunity to build relationships, to coordinate activities, to plan for the future, to sell your ideas, to get ideas, or to recap the past.
Today, we add another structured conversation, with a specific focus strategic planning
How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 1
Mindfulness is an important buzzword these days. Basically, Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.
We each hold dozens of conversations, mostly mindless conversations, every day. These are wasted opportunities to build relationships or coordinate activities or to plan for the future or recap the past. It is possible to focus a conversation so that it has a meaningful result by using some simple techniques. It is possible to plan your conversations. And after a smidgeon of practice, you can apply these techniques with little or no effort. Continue reading How to Hold Mindful Conversations – Part 1
Know Your Constraints
Every nonprofit has a mission to achieve a vision where a problem is solved.
So why aren’t they there now?
It’s because they have a small number of constraints, at least one. The constraints could be funding, volunteers, management time, facilities, weather, skills, tools, software, legal, whatever. The constraints could be anything. Continue reading Know Your Constraints
Getting Past the Blank Page
I wrote a post offering a quick way to get past a blank page using the here-it-is, ain’t-it-great, however, approach. That works for emergency situations, where you just have no idea at all where you are going.
If you have more time, here are four ways to get started: Continue reading Getting Past the Blank Page
Leadership at Amazon
Amazon has published a set of leadership principles. Great! Many organizations do that. But they have people, long-term managers, whose job is to see that new hires understand those principles and that the organization actually follows them.
The principles are easy to read but harder to apply. They are contrary to practices in many, if not most organizations. For example, the customer comes before profitability. Most companies follow the dictum of Milton Friedman that the sole purpose of a corporation is to increase profits.
Obviously, Amazon understands that the higher purpose of a corporation is to add value. Then profits come as a fallout of that value.
Another principle is ownership. Leaders are owners. They think long-term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They take ownership of issues and results.
Most of the other principles flow from these.
Dave Anderson, one of those Amazon leaders, has written an article, both humorous and sad, about outrageous responses to interview questions about these principles. Then he demonstrates an answer he loves. He posted it both on Scarlet Ink and on Linkedin. Go read it. You will be glad you did.
Are You Ready to Apply for Grants?
The Linkedin Grant Writing Networking Group created this grant readiness checklist.
It is interesting, although I like my list better.
I have not cleaned up the obvious grammatical, structural, and punctuation errors. Continue reading Are You Ready to Apply for Grants?