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Listening with empathy is a critical skill for anyone who wants to succeed at work. Salespeople with great listening skills sell more. Physicians with great listening skills face fewer malpractice lawsuits and have better patient outcomes. Leaders with great listening skills have more inspired and engaged employees.
There’s a common assumption that middle performers are universally maxed out, already operating at peak efficiency, and with no hope of improvement. It’s a big reason why so many middle performers (who often make up roughly 70% of the workforce) get the least amount of performance coaching from leaders. But only a scant 10% of middle performers actually fall into the maxed out/no hope category. 
Most presenters fall short when it comes to engaging audiences while driving home their point. Too many slides, the wrong kinds of slides, rambling, lack of an objective and a weak argument are just a few of the presentation sins most speakers commit.
PechaKucha, a weird Japanese presentation technique devised by Tokyo architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham can help.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, CEO or middle manager, virtually everyone has to create (and present) business plans. And while there are literally thousands of business plan templates available, they will all fail if you don’t answer these three critical questions (that you might have never heard before) when you’re creating and presenting your business plan.
Do you regularly have to ‘fake’ having a good attitude at work? Do you have to consciously “act” or “put on a show” to display appropriate emotions at work? If you do, you’re probably a lot less happy with your job than those that don’t have to put on a show.
If you’re having trouble finding time for your big goals, you’re not alone. We recently asked over 1,500 leaders: “Did you successfully complete your goals for today?” and provided three responses to choose from: “Yes,” “No,” and “I have no idea.” The most common response was “I have no idea.” The problem is that too many leaders aren’t sure what their goals really are.
Have you ever been plowing away at some big project for what seems like minutes, only to realize that you’ve just burned through 5 hours? Or been running around frantically all day, putting out fires, only to realize that you’ve barely made a dent in your to-do list?
You’re sitting at your desk, intensely focused on writing that big report, when you start to feel a weird tingling on the back of your neck. You try to refocus, furrowing your brow and redoubling your efforts, but you can’t shake the disquieting sense that you’re being watched. Finally, you give up and slowly turn around in your chair, sincerely hoping there’s not an ax murderer lurking behind you.
New managers have a fair number of challenges; maybe they’re a manager for the first time, or taking over a new team that loved their previous manager, or they got promoted over some of the employees they now have to manage.
Whatever the situation, the first thing a new manager has to do, before sitting down and talking to all the people on the team, is to understand ‘what are my goals?’ and ‘what have I been put in this leadership role to accomplish?’
The Drama Queens (and Kings) at your office need to be the center of attention. They’re provocative, emotional and reactive. And they are highly skilled at getting everyone around them worked-up, frazzled and emotional (that’s how they stay at the center of attention).
