How to Coach Directs on Interpersonal Skills - Part 2
June 29th, 2008On today’s cast, we complete our discussion on coaching directs on interpersonal skills.
Of course, if you haven’t listened to last week’s cast, you may want to start there. 
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June 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Apologies if I missed something, but will there be PPT summaries of these podcasts for Premium Members as I used to see several weeks back? Thanks.
June 30th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Quick question - What is the “one breath rule”? I feel like I should know it, but I don’t…
–Rich
June 30th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
What would be some metrics or behavior descriptors of direct reports taking “ownership” for there key goals? - Jon
June 30th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Rich-
To avoid interrupting, we teach our executive coaching clients to finish the (one) breath they are taking before responding. Most of them can’t do it, but it gives a sense of the need for respect of others’ comments.
Mark
June 30th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Mark–
Thanks for the answer. Makes perfect sense. I’ll have to try it myself someday.
–Rich
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:49 am
Mark-
Any metrics and advice to learn to be a “better listener”?
How many can you come up with?
Thanks.
Céd.
July 2nd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
In the cast you mentioned a website that had a lot of free information. I can’t find the website mentioned in the notes and am just too lazy to go back and listen to the cast for a third time. I never have anything to write with when I am listening to these. Thanks for another perfectly timed cast. I have a new employee coming to me that is having some real problems with coworkers. I am hopeful that the last ten minutes of his one on one can be extremely productive.
July 3rd, 2008 at 10:34 am
Tony-
Our apologies - the lack of ppt pdfs is my fauilt I am rectifying today and tomorrow. I tried a new technique, and it is NOT working. I regret the error and will clean it up.
Mark
July 6th, 2008 at 12:12 am
The Art of Great Management, Horstman’s Laws…
I was searching online one day to find ways to improve the overall moral and associate performance at my place of business and came across this great set of business ethics tools from Manager-Tools.com . Manager Tools is a weekly podcast focused on hel…
July 6th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Mark: Your epiphany is especially applicable to sales. It can be found in the notion of the “warm call” (as opposed to the “cold calls” made to complete strangers). In my experience, salespeople are quick to make what they regard as “warm calls” - where they have a belief that ANY type of relationship already exisits. And just like the story you tell about the IT manager, the connection can be very tenuous - but if the salesperson believes there to be one, that call will be made a lot quicker than a cold call. -Hugh
July 7th, 2008 at 5:10 am
This was very useful.
There’s not a lot of new material here, which is good. Instead it takes the simple ideas from the more basic casts (such as Coaching) and uses them as building blocks for further development.
It seems with Manager-Tools, whatever the question is, the answer is one-on-ones, coaching, feedback, maintaining good relationships/communication and hard work.
I would be surprised if most managers didn’t know all of this already but wrongly just think: “it’s not my job to help someone else relate/communicate better”. An attitude, from the manager, that is focused on personal effectiveness and the effectiveness of his directs would come round to the MT method in the end.
Keep up the great work!
July 11th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
This was a very useful cast — I like that it was a more detailed application of advice I’ve heard on other casts, and on an issue I’ve struggled with.
I’m wondering, though, how to coach someone who appears to listen well (doesn’t interrupt, has appropriate body language while listening) but nevertheless “doesn’t get” what he hears. Or rather, only gets the technical content and completely misses the emotional or political aspects of a discussion. Is there an old cast that covers this?
Again, thanks for the great work!
July 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
SSTogd-
No, there’s not an old cast on this, sorry. At some point, we’ll put out some casts on the issue you’re talking about. Let me suggest, though, that what you’re talking about - and our cast helps this misapprehension - is the difference between hearing and listening. Your guy is hearing, but not listening.
It’s a privilege to serve you,
Mark
July 21st, 2008 at 6:53 am
Mark & Mike
In this cast, or perhaps part 1, you mention a book called “Difficult Conversations”. There’s two books with this title available on Amazon. Any chance you could provide a link to the right one?
Best regards
Lincoln
July 21st, 2008 at 8:58 am
I think it’s this one http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-what-Matters/dp/014028852X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216645037&sr=8-1
July 21st, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Anyone have recommendations (pro or con) regarding “The Hard Truth about Soft Skills” by Peggy Klaus? I stumbled across it while preparing for an O3 with a direct who has an unusual definition of “soft skills”.
M&M - Great cast! Timely as always, reminding me to plug the “doughnut hole” I sensed was there but couldn’t really put my finger on.
Thanks,
Mike
September 16th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[…] The guys at Manager Tools had an episode on teaching people interpersonal skills a while back and they made the point that being a good speaker is great, as long as you’ve got something great to say. If you can’t listen to other people, you’ll never have anything good to say. That cast is worth checking out, the points made are easily applied to yourself rather than other people. […]