Listening: Your secret power.
I’m Canadian, and a communication matcher. I will do whatever it takes to agree with you. It’s part of my nature. You say “It’s a gorgeous fall day today!” I will say either “Yes, it sure is!” or I might get specific and say, “Yes it sure is, especially this afternoon” or if I think globally, I might say “Yes, this whole autumn has been spectacular.” For me, and other matchers, finding a way to agree with you, is my way of making you feel heard and connecting to you.
Just Skills
I was well established in my career when the realization came to me that the skills that I downplayed or underutilized in my career were actually the ones that mattered.
Kindness, Compassion, and the Bottom Line.
My business for the last 20 years has been to build a case for treating customers as humans. Recognizing them as individuals. Fighting back against the idea of outsourcing customer service to reduce overhead and increase the bottom line.
How Are You in Service to Your Employees?
When I was in my late 20’s, I had a boss who would insist that I bring a notebook and two pens to each meeting with him. During a meeting he would say “Now, with your red pen, please write…” and “with your black pen write …”.
Introducing People Lab
At People Lab, we believe everyone deserves to be excited to go to work. That the key to engaged leadership, engaged employees and satisfied customers & stakeholders is kindness, empathy, and respect. (It’s not fluff — according to Gallup 87% of employees worldwide are not engaged at work. Companies with highly engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147% in earnings per share.)
Purposeful Pauses
All of us have todo lists, competing priorities, and more on our plates than we can generally manage in a day. We get pulled in different directions, by the demands and requests of others, and what we hope to accomplish versus what we actually accomplish everyday.