I believe that the ability to hold up the mirror to those we support is essential but also one of those skills that requires you to have full confidence in the follow through. You need to hold up that mirror with full confidence and conviction.

Read an article I co-wrote with a fellow workshop host Kazuko Kotaki published July 13th 2021

To change cultures, we need to change habits. For organisations to create inclusive cultures we need to look at our habits, habits that are invisibly fuelling our cultures. Our habits are formed in reaction to the culture, the context, the environment, the ‘smell of the place’, but the culture lives inside every person who adopts the habits of that culture.

Soft skills are not some hippy, ‘woo woo’ concept.  Soft skills are life skills, they help us to form and sustain relationships, help us manage ourselves and others and they make us human. Communication skills are one of the most important soft skills, not only for leaders and managers but for anyone.
I want to share why communication skills matter for employee engagement and why human connection is the secret sauce.

Think of a two-way radio or a walkie talkie. When you have your finger on the talk button, you can talk. But at that time it cuts the audio from the other side and you can’t hear what they are saying. Human are not good listeners. But we can do better if we decide to.

Do we have the skills to understand culture and its impact? Our own culture and others’?
Our maturity and intelligence in intercultural communication is seen in how we interact with empathy and sensitivity in the moment. In how we learn from experiences and adapt thinking for each person, situation and encounter.

When we see feedback as a treat, an honour to receive and ignite our curiosity to know what the other person can see that we can't, then we can be more open to the learning opportunity in front of us.

This month I have been working with clients to help them get unstuck and get talking about bias, it has been fun and I have had great feedback about the value of these sessions. They are a great warm up to the group coaching that I am running in September. I finished the second of three sessions all about taming those bias gremlins. There is still one more to join, and here is why…

Silence never solved any problems.
Martin Luther King said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
When we say nothing, nothing changes.

Have you been in a conversation and been triggered by something they said, which distracts you?
Do you interrupt people when they talk?

Of course we all do these things, because we are human, it is normal. But when it is an important conversation, for us or for the other person, these natural responses can hold us back from really understanding what the person is trying to share.

They say change is good, but sometimes we have become creatures of habit. My house, my desk, my job… in this case, my sofa! We assign our ownership to them and attach to them, that is why it becomes difficult when things change.

In these days of virtual working, we certainly need to pay attention to ‘how’ we communicate and importantly, how we can support leaders and managers to be aware of their audience’s reactions. 

Something that builds stronger human relationships is that we have a shared truth. That starts by moving out of what we know to be our through and getting a better understanding of another person’s perspective. That all starts with listening. Here are some tips to help you listen better…

How can you communicate a message authentically when it doesn't feel like your message? If it doesn’t come naturally, it is often because it doesn’t feel like you.