DRIVEN Blog
Self-Check Strategies: How To Make Feedback Sessions Work for YOU
Formal workplace feedback can be a tough nut to crack. Considering the contrasting perspectives of the givers and receivers of feedback, the amount of openness to ideas can vary, as can the trust factor between the parties. In my recent article Openness To Influence: The Factors To Consider Before Receiving…
Openness To Influence: The Factors To Consider Before Receiving Feedback
At the very end of my most recent article Listening to Understand: A Social Skills Staple Examined, you were challenged to experiment with four prompts during your conversations to more effectively “listen to understand” and to remain open to influence. Were you able to stand under another’s reality without…
Listening To Understand: A Socials Skills Staple Examined
The essential social skill of Listening is rarely mastered, even by those among us who pride ourselves on being great listeners. In my recent article, Chit-Chat Credentials: Sharpening Your Social Skills with Two Distinct Listening Styles, I offered what may have amounted to a wake-up call for many of us by sharing…
Chit-Chat Credentials: Sharpening Your Social Skills with Two Distinct Listening Styles
Listening is a communications staple and should be utilized more than 50% of the time during conversations. But just knowing this doesn’t seem to guarantee we’ll act on it. For example, I laughed out loud when a colleague once confessed about the way he uses his listening skills: to hear when the speaker is finished…
Snap Out of It!: How Being In-Trance Can Distort Our Social Skills
Because I’m an advocate of full transparency, I must make a confession: I felt a bit like Captain Obvious this month, using the DRIVEN blog to detail the importance of our culturally-embedded social skills….you know, those interactions of professionalism that stand as a “given” in any arena. And yet…
The Eyes Have It: Refining Your Social Skills Through Appropriate Eye Contact
In order to engage with colleagues professionally and effectively, it’s crucial to eliminate any preoccupations with or insecurities about our own communication techniques. Having a solid handle on our social skills in the workplace assures those communications go smoothly, and that we don’t misrepresent ourselves…
Put‘er There: The Social Skills Behind Our Most Common of Greetings
Since human relationships are directly tied to culture, it makes sense that refined social skills are vital for a healthy work environment. Culture dictates our sense of safety and acceptance, which directly impacts workplace productivity and engagement. In my recent article Clever Conversation: The Positive Effects…
Clever Conversation: The Positive Effects of Social Skills on Office Culture
After months of exploring the nooks and crannies of Emotional Intelligence, it’s time to tie up this concept into a neat little package. To do so, I’ll attempt to emulate an admired college professor’s talent of pulling themes through. This professor always amazed and amused me by spending 75 minutes lecturing about…
A Well-Oiled Mind, Part 2: More On Emotional Wellbeing Through Self-Compassion
Plain and simple: A functional mind equals a sharp and creative professional who’s prepared to meet the challenges of a multi-dimensional career. Such a professional is experiencing a high level of emotional wellbeing with a strategy of compassion at her core. In my recent prequel to this article, I illustrated…
A Well-Oiled Mind: How To Achieve Emotional Wellbeing Through Self-Compassion
Our recent look at self-compassion focused on tending to one’s mind— you know, that crucial piece of equipment we rely upon as knowledge workers yet inflict abuse upon without remorse. I must confess that I don’t think Kristin Neff was referring to our mental energy when she wrote, “Self-compassion involves…
A Self-Compassion Primer: Mental Energy Maintenance Through Staying Present
You may have noticed that DRIVEN has been spending some serious time on the topic of self-compassion. Why, you may ask, is self-compassion so crucial to a professional’s success? The answer resides in neurochemistry. If you're not kind to yourself, you can't show true compassion for others. When you…
Cracking The Kindness Code: The Quest To Define Self-Compassion
In our exploration of emotional intelligence, the big questions lately have been, “How do we develop compassion?”, and more specifically, “What is the magical ‘fourth step’ that bridges us from empathy to the mutually beneficial state of compassion?”. In a past article I offered you some insight into the first three…
Evolution or Revolution?: A Darwinian Take On Compassion
In our quest to understand empathy as a pure and fundamental component of emotional intelligence, it’s necessary to make the comparison between empathy and compassion. In my recent article Reconsidering Empathy: The Neuroscience of Compassion, I clinically differentiated between the two words as…
Reconsidering Empathy: A Look At The Neuroscience of Compassion
In our methodical exploration of empathy, which is one of the key components of emotional intelligence, we’ve distinguished empathy from sympathy, and we’ve considered ways to zoom out from our own life perspective in order to contemplate the countless other points of view in this big world. In my latest…
“You’re Not Alone.”: Why Practicing Empathy Requires Going Inward
Understanding the components of empathy and how they connect us emotionally and intellectually is a distinguished exercise in emotional intelligence. Putting empathy into practice is a whole different ballgame and is a true accomplishment for those of us who can pull it off and sustain these skills throughout…
“If I Understand You Correctly,….”: How The Pros Put Empathy Into Practice
All summer long, we’ve been examining empathy as part of a greater overall study of emotional intelligence in the workplace. We’ve distinguished empathy from sympathy, we’ve demonstrated how empathy applies to your career, and we’ve shown the undisputed connection between one’s bias and their personal…
Gauging Your Personal Microclimate: How Bias Can Be Elusive
Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. It’s been said a million times and was written about extensively by John Gray in his 1992 book of a similar title. And if you read my recent article What Planet Are You From: Dissecting Gender-Derived Bias At Work, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how…
What Planet Are You From? Dissecting Gender-Derived Bias At Work
Personal bias is a tough topic to approach. Even those of us who can acknowledge that we see the world through the filter of our own life experiences are still often unable to reckon with our partiality. We sometimes see bias exclusively as a shortcoming, when in actuality, it’s an inevitable part of the equation that…
Gauging Personal Bias: How We’re Blinded By Experience
Many of us consider bias to be an ugly trait, even when we’re referring to our own biases. But rather than suppressing our individual biases, it’s a wise idea to investigate them and learn to be aware of how these unique ways of seeing the world influence our mind and actions. If you read my recent article…
Expanding On Empathy: Why Bias Is Part of Your “Terroir”
Practicing Empathy is difficult because each of us experiences our own reality. This often reduces empathy to a nice-to-have, when in actuality, for a sustainable workplace where inclusion is built into the culture, empathy is a need-to-have. In my recent article I Feel Your Pain: An Empathetic How-To For…