|
|
| www.1001TopWords.com |
|
|
Always Be Open To Learning
"We should not only use all the brains we have, but all we can borrow." -Woodrow Wilson Leave it to a child to remind you of the importance of humility and the willingness to learn from everyone. One day, my daughter Alexandra was home sick from school. Since she was home, I took her with me when I went to run some errands. That morning, I was working on a piece of business marketing literature. So I took it with me to review at lunch and pencil in a few changes. While we were standing in line to get our lunch, Alexandra noticed the paper I was holding and asked to look at it. I thought, "Sure, what does it hurt to make her happy and let her take a look?" I handed her the marketing piece and asked her what she thought. Honestly, I just wanted to satisfy her request. I did not expect to learn from her perspective. What followed was amazing. I watched as my eight (almost 9) year old daughter carefully and thoughtfully reviewed what I had developed. She then offered two or three very insightful and helpful comments on what she got from the brochure. To be honest, it never occurred to me to seek input on this piece from my child. I very nearly made a huge mistake. As we grow in both knowledge and skills, it is easy to discount or ignore input from people that we perceive as less skilled or knowledgeable than we are. Whose input do we discount? Maybe it is our children, our spouse, our employees, people with less formal education, and . . . the list goes on and on. Is it possible that they see something we don't see? Despite what we think sets us apart from them, could we learn from their perspective and experience? Virtually every successful person I know or know of says that their willingness to continue learning was critical to their success. So for now, I encourage you to remember this simple tip... Always be open to learning. Copyright 2005, Guy Harris You may use this article for electronic distribution if you will include all contact information with live links back to the author. Notification of use is not required, but I would appreciate it. Please contact the author prior to use in printed media. Guy Harris is the Chief Relationship Officer with Principle Driven Consulting. He helps entrepreneurs, business managers, and other organizational leaders build trust, reduce conflict, and improve team performance. Learn more at http://www.principledriven.com Guy co-authored "The Behavior Bucks System TM" to help parents reduce stress and conflict. Learn more about this book at http://www.behaviorbucks.com
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Wisdom From The Rock He grew up in Brooklyn, the son of an ex-con father and with a Mob-connected uncle who earned a living as a loan-shark. He credits his father continually saying, "Never lie, never steal," as an influence in his making a better career choice. After getting a law degree, he became a U.S. Attorney, prosecuting organized crime and Wall Street inside traders. Of 4,152 convictions he attained, only 25 were reversed. People Problems -- Understanding the Dueling Paradigms You've spent the last 12 years riding your technical skills up the corporate ladder. Lead People...Manage Things Master The Five Key Facets of High Performance Leadership Boy Scouts of America and Leadership Coaching The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness talks with Dennis St. Jean, Assistant Director Professional Development Division, Boy Scouts of America, Irving, Texas. The Best Ways To Multiply The Extraordinary Leadership in Your Organization Extraordinary Leaders are those who understand that in order for theorganization to grow and make the maximum impact that it can, the leadershipbase in the organization must grow first and grow strong enough to hold thegrowth. If this does not happen, the organization will either not grow orwill grow and then crumble because there is no solid foundation ofleadership. The effort to multiply leadership must be ongoing andpurposeful. Here are some ways to get your leadership base growing strongand wide! Fighting the Gravitational Pull of Positional Leadership A little on leadership? Being an Extraordinary Leader Through Tough and Challenging Times Tough and challenging times will surely come. That is a given. The questionis what kind of leadership we will demonstrate during those time. Those whoare weak leaders will see lasting damage done, if not see the organizationfall apart completely. With Extraordinary Leaders at the helm, however, anorganization can actually become stronger and thrive in spite of the toughand challenging times. That should be our goal so here are some idea on howto be an Extraordinary Leader in tough and challenging times! Women in Leadership - How to Get Promoted It is often much harder for women to get promoted than men. The most common characteristic of successful women is that they know how to express their excellence in a male dominated environment. How do they do it? 3 Es For Leaders - Engage, Empower, Encourage! "Enflamed with the study of learning and the admiration ofvirtue; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave...and worthy..., dear to God, and famous to all ages."- John Milton 10 Attributes of Effective Strategic Leaders! Did you know that people who lead strategically resemble fine-tuned machines? By focusing on their strategies, leaders see a bigger picture, they understand the reasons why and recognize the worthiness of elusive opportunities. A Good Leader Knows The Teams Colours Leadership can be a very challenging task. As leaders we don't always get to choose who is on our team. In fact very often a leader inherits a team, of which most of the members have been there far longer than the leader, and may even know more about the work than the leader. Whatever the situation, one of the responsibilities of a leader is to motivate the team to all work together towards the common goal. This can be a daunting challenge. So often the team is comprised of very diverse members, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and work styles. The team dynamics are also often complicated by internal disagreements and personal conflicts. The leader, not only has work with this group of people, but also needs to achieve the results expected by their superiors. Two Vital Abilities Any Leader Must Have As a business owner, you are a leader whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not you have to guide your group in order to expand your organization. And whether you like it or not, there are some difficult situations that you have to confront and handle -- hopefully in a way that inspires confidence in you from your staff. UNCLOS III Process model The United Nations Conference on Law of the Sea was ground breaking in the way negotiations were conducted. Several strategies were employed that allowed for efficient negotiation and a reasonable outcome as viewed by all participating parties. Two Leadership Traps: How To Avoid Them and How To Get Out Of Them (Part 2) Here's how to get out of, or avoid, the "I need ... " trap. It simply involves changing what you think and what you say in very simple ways. 3 Dynamic Techniques To Boost Your Executive Leadership! Here's a really simple way to measure the strength ofyour executive leadership skills. Ask your people to name 3important reasons why they enjoy working with you. 10 Ways to Develop Your Latent Leader latent (adj.) ? Not visible or apparent, but capable of developing or being expressed; dormant. Peek Inside The Heads of Amazingly Successful Leaders Would you like to know what really goes on inside the heads of astoundingly successful leaders? Here is your chance. Part of the research for my book Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change? involved highly successful executives filling-out my Abilities & Behavior Forecaster? pre-employment test. C4 Leadership: Taking Your Leadership (and your Life) from Good...To Explosive! Chances are if you're interested in this post, you're looking for a few tips to take your leadership and/or your life, up a notch or two. Read on for a few things that have really helped me make my leadership more explosive after first defining what C4 is. Character Traits of Extraordinary Leaders When people make a decision (either consciously or unconsciously) to followyour leadership, they do it primarily because of one of two things: YourCharacter or your Skills. They want to know if you are the kind of personthey want to follow and if you have the skills to take them further. Yes,there are other variables but these are the bulk of the matter. This week wefocus on the kind of character that causes people to follow your leadership. Chris Top 7 Favorite Leadership Books 1. The West Point Way of Leadership.
|
| © Athifea Distribution LLC - 2013 |
