My friend Armen over at TimelessInformation had a great post that really got me thinking in a brief discussion and comment with him and still afterwards now.  His article titled Quality, Traffic and Criticism, included a piece about communities that form within sites or blogs and how some accept criticism and debates and others turn a cold shoulder and send visitors who challenge them away.   This practice of embracing visitors and welcoming a discussion I believe is a true demonstration of keeping an open mind.  On the other hand, bloggers and forums that tell people to leave if they don’t like something or agree with it, shows clearly how close minded they are.

Armen mentioned this is a sign of needing acceptance from their group and I think this very accurate!  When someone is not open minded, they tend to seek approval for what they believe in and don’t have the confidence to consider something else and then defend their point of view constructively or objectively.

Open Mindedness Stems From Beliefs

On the other hand, someone who is open minded will most importantly know that they could be wrong and that beliefs may change and likely will over time.  This is important since so much we do is shaped by our beliefs, having an understanding of those beliefs truly shapes our characters and in this case, how open minded we are.

• You cannot be open minded and never willing to let a belief change.
• You cannot be open minded and avoiding a debate you have not yet had because of some unknown risk to that belief.
• You can be open minded by knowing how your beliefs have changed in the past.
• You can be open minded by knowing that your beliefs are going to change again as you learn more about yourself and about life.

Kill the Need For Acceptance

So as Armen mentioned, being open minded can have a lot to do with acceptance as well.  To have an open mind, it is important to accept oneself but not be burdened by seeking acceptance from others.  The reason for this is because it is very easy to be locked into a mindset of way of doing things when struggling to be or stay accepted by others.  That struggling for acceptance will limit how open you are to change and new ways of thinking or behaving.  To change this, you must kill the need for acceptance  and be willing to risk change.  Know that there are possibilities to find acceptance in new things and by new people as well, but don’t rely on having or you will struggle to move on to new things.

Have New Experiences

Experiences teach us more than any other activity and the more a person experiences and the more variety in those experiences, the more likely they will be to have an open mind.  Everyone knows someone or has some experience travelling to, learning about or living in difficult cultures and it can be very revealing.  Things can be done differently by others and seeing this helps us to realize that we don’t have to do everything the same way as may have learned it or developed habits with.  Variety in our experiences quickly teaches us to explore life, to seek out new exciting things around us and to not limit to what is already known.  This ties to tightly to learning I am very passionate about this.  Having new experiences gives us a lot to learn from and every time we learn, we carve away our borders of certainty and become a bit more open to change and new ideas.  This is very important for having an open mind.  Locking out new experiences and living life without new experiences creates a type of security in our minds that resists change. And I mean resisting change without a reason for standing up against it.

Embrace Change

So as I just mentioned new experiences bring about change.  Its inevitable and how we react to that change is really what shapes out openness.  Do you embrace the changes you face in life or do you resist them?  Are you optimistic that a change will have a good outcome or do you fear the worst?  Being optimistic and not being afraid of new things will help you embrace change and to have an open mind.  Embracing change is more than just accepting it as well, its really about seeking change and even promoting it or hoping for it.  Change is a powerful tool to shape the way we think and understanding how quickly our thinking is formed lets us look readily for change and what benefits can come about from it.

Expand Your Social Circle

Another way to learn to have an open mind is through your friends and relationships.  Every person is such a unique individual with their own perspective on life shaped their own experiences, there is a lot to be learned in relationships with others.  Having a variety of friends and lots of social interaction inevitably leads to discussions about experiences, stories and shared opinions, debates and likely disagreements.  All these things challenge what you know and think about and its a fantastic way to explore new ideas, learn from others and to create a need to have an open mind.  The social environment with others relates back to the topic of acceptance I mentioned above and its common for people to use acceptance positively in this situation.  Seeking out new friendships and connections often forces some level of compromise and acceptance of the other person in order to get along with them.  This acceptance of other people and their ideas helps you to be more open minded  and willing to consider something you may not have on your own otherwise.  So, if you want to know how to have an open mind, expanding and seeking a wide set of friends and social circle is a great way to do it!

Nurture Your Creativity

Creativity is the last area I consider important in learning how to have an open mind.  Being creative and doing creative activities help to develop right brain thinking, which also enables us to think outside the box and not be as limited and close minded about life and our experiences.  Take opportunities to develop and nurture your creativity by actively taking on hobbies, writing, creative content creation or building things, basically anything that requires you to be creative.  Many people have this opportunity in their work as well which is a fantastic way to truly nurture creativity.  Whenever you can, participate or volunteer for creative projects to practice and develop more creativity.  Natural creativity and open minded thinking go hand in hand, as you must let your mind seek new things and be creative to truly have an open mind.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 17 Comments »

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 11 Comments »

As a blogger (and many of you reading this as well) I regularly visit others’ blogs, new blogs and surf through socially connection blogs.  In doing so I’ve come across a huge variety of sites.  As much as I’d like to say its always about the content, we all know that while that is an important factor for the quality and impression of any blog, there is one other big component of a blog that is just as important, the overall blog etiquette at the site.  By etiquette I mean how well the site and the voices on the site are behaved and what impression this leaves the visitors.

Stay on topic

Often I find that bloggers shift away from what they know about to publish popular content that is way off topic or not related to their blog in any way.  Usually I see this from bloggers who are seeking growth, popularity or other “traffic” generating measures so they are willing to bring in unrelated content or popular at the expense of their existing readers and visitors who expect consistent content.  I think it is much better to publish off topic items or content as guest posts on sites where that is a regular topic.  This would benefit everyone more by exposing to a new audience, by helping create great content for another blogger and by sparing existing subscribers of unrelated content they may not be interested in.

Be honest, don’t act like you know everything

Often I see bloggers responding to questions, comments or stating opinions as if it is fact and true.  While there is nothing wrong with writing your thoughts (after all, that is what blogging is all about) but it is misleading and dishonest when a blogger states opinion as if it is fact, or leads readers to believe that they know a lot about a subject when in reality they do not.  It is best to be honest with your readers and state how you have learned something or where you learned it and why you are sharing it, instead of making it seem like an absolute true when in fact, it may just be an opinion.

Don’t reply publicly to every single comment

Reading blogs is great for the content, but the best part of blogging is the connections, the discussions and the people you can meet through commenting.  It’s because of this that I like to read through comments after a great article and you often get a lot more insight, opinions and additions to the original article.  However, some bloggers feel a weird need to reply to every single comment and its incredibly distracting and simply unnecessary.   Some comments are as simple as “Thanks, I liked the article” and then the blog owner goes on with some comment that adds no value and simply repeats what was already said.  If you have something valuable to add, then by all means add it and welcome your visitors but to set a guideline to always reply publicly is just poor etiquette for the discussion area.  There is no reason why a blogger can’t reply to many of these visitors to welcome them in a private email to keep their comments and discussion focused and on topic so they are more enjoyable to read.

Spare your visitors of all popups

I’m sure that this is a personal preference but I think it is safe to say that in general, people don’t like popups showing up.  I am seeing more and more sites using newsletter subscriptions and popups to entice visitors to sign up.  What I really hate is when I visit a site and it says I’ll only see the popup once, and then it keeps showing up or it shows every time I visit.  Unfortunately, many bloggers see this as a necessity and use popups to grow their followers but I find it to be far too aggressive and unnecessary. Personally, I often find that these are the very sites that leave my reading lists first and since I enjoy visiting sites for the comments, they often are the first to leave my news reader as well since every visit to a page to read comments leaves me with some popup subscription.  I am much less likely to share these sites in social media and I would always prefer to promote a clean article, then one with annoyances that will face those I share it with.

Never copy content

I wish everyone had the moral compass to know that copying content is wrong but sadly, it is not true.  Copying other people’s text, full articles and images is wrong and you should never do it without permission.  I have found my own site’s content and even my own pictures I have taken scattered onto other sites often without permission.  On one hand, it is nice to know that it is valuable enough for others to want it, it is also nice to know that that value is attributed to the right person for their hard work to create it.  This one is simple, good blog etiquette means that you just don’t ever copy content without permission.  Period.

Always site your references

Related to other people’s content is then in how you use it.  I often read people quote someone or mentioning an article they read, but they fail to include a link or proper reference where the original context could be read.  If you are going to use references or external content, please always include the appropriate links and detailed reference so that the content could be found.  This is especially useful from blogs as often blog articles become the search engines top pages for studies, articles or interest or other things one might be doing research on, and if the reference are their the site is still useful to such a visitor, if it mentions it without the link, it is next to useful.  Do your readers a favor and always site your references.

Accept criticism and allow healthy conflict

Some bloggers hide comments that they perceive as negative even when they are respectful and simply differing in opinion.  I’ve had my own comments removed from sites, seen whole discussions get removed and even seen many bloggers completely remove commenting from their site because of criticism or conflicting opinions.  It’s important to have this interaction on a blog and any blogger not willing to have any, might as well not be blogging as it only shows they are close minded and one sided.  If you can’t learn from your visitors who are interested in the content in the first place, then who will you learn from?

Reduce the ads for direct visitors

This tip goes far beyond etiquette but I will start there.  I first learned about doing this from Steve at My Wife Quit Her Day Job which shows you how to put ads into your pages only for search engine traffic visitors and not people who type your URL directly.  I’ve implemented this on my site and it works great and have seen many versions of it at other blogger’s sites as well.  Basically it lets you show less ads to visitors your link or type your site in directly which is a huge benefit since those visitors are less likely to click your ads anyway, since they are usually repeat visitors and after your content, not the ads.  The second advantage of this is that you will get a higher click through ratio on your ads since the ads are shown to general visitors, not the people less likely to click.  This results in higher payouts by google since the click through is also higher on your site and it can make a significant increase in your ad earnings.  My ad impressions went down by about 25% implementing this but my ad revenue went up by 30% immediate and has been sustained.  The value of this to your visitors makes your site more attractive to regulars.  I wish that bloggers would implement this for the popups and subscription notices in the section above on popups.  It would provide the same benefits to the visitor and clean up a blog.

Don’t spam the network

Growing attention to your blog takes work, no doubt.  It requires guest posts, back links, other site commenting and social media.  Using all or any of those is easy to abuse and so you must learn to put similar effort into those areas with proper etiquette as your site itself.  Don’t go on a commenting rampage unless you are adding valuable comments, as it can easily be seen as spam.  The same is true of social networking and back links.  Most of the social networking sites either work by computer algorithm or simply by followers, either way, they naturally detect spam and if there is not a mix of others’ content, promotion of friend’s sites and a healthy mix of content, your efforts could easily be considered spam.  The more you promote other people and build your connections in pretty much any social media, the more successful you will be in that network.

Focus on giving value, not selling it

Many bloggers dive right in to focusing on making money before they really are providing strong value and usually results in a poor blog or sort lived one.  Those that look to provide value first, grow the value and then look to benefit from it do much better.  As for your content whether it be subscriptions, ebooks or services, if you give enough of that away for free and give away that value, the sales will come as a result of the value, instead of having to continuously sell it.  Giving away a number of ebooks before you start selling them will allow visitors to know what value to expect and see examples of your work, which increases the likeliness that they will actually buy something as well.    My own example of this is with my free ebooks I give away.  They have created tremendous traffic, comments and feedback for my site and they are consistently downloaded more than 7000 times per month!  Please if you haven’t seen those before, do take a look.

Do you have any additional blog etiquette tips??  Please add them in the comments below.

Posted by Mike King under Learning & Personal | 16 Comments »

Today, I have a guest post that is not your typical self-improvement or personal development article, but one written as an adventure in taking fun to the max to build relationships within an office. This is written by a reader John who offered up this guest post with some initial comments that I thought describe it best:

As an outdoor enthusiast, gun toting war veteran, some may think it strange, but yes, even I am on the never ending quest for a bit of order, more time, and perhaps even some balance! …  I phoned my friend and suggested he arrange a small get together with the three people in his office he found particularly difficult, to come play airsoft for an afternoon, and I would foot the bill. I claimed I was promoting a new leadership concept, but, in truth, I wanted to see what would happen when they were put in a situation where they were interdependent and the results were easily calculable.

I’m holed out high on a bluff, watching them advance through a pair of binoculars. The advancing enemy force is unlike anything I’ve seen in my long tours abroad. They come charging in slow motion like a band of marauding Vikings, if Vikings wore flat fronts and penny loafers. Leading the charge is my friend Jim, wearing business formal in crisp dress shirt and tie, M4 held high. In fact all of them are in varying degrees of office attire. These are his workmates. I call in their positions with my radio, and my small well trained team starts suppressive fire. At the crack of gunshots their initial bravado is halted, and they scatter behind walls and barriers for cover. I make sure to let a few volleys from my heavy machine gun go over their heads. Little by little, they start to advance, providing covering fire and inching towards the center of the arena. They’re soon outmatched and outgunned. Each round that afternoon went like this. But every time they came out, they’d last a little longer, work together better, communicating and signaling each other clearly. At the end of the long day of playing airsoft, we meet and recap. The prim polished crew I said hello to that afternoon is gone. So was the initial air of tension and hostility between them. They’ve come back begrimed and ratty, scuffed and bruised, but with arms slung over each other. It’s a phenomenon that I’ve seen on the airsoft field as well as the battle field. A group starts as strangers, but they come together as teammates. Another mission successful. The lessons of cooperation and teambuilding learned in airsoft makes it a great activity for offices to participate in.

I am fortunate to work in a great office at Airsplat, where we sell Airsoft guns during the week and “kill” each other on the weekends! We’re tight knit and as much friends after work as we are teammates during the day. I didn’t realize how unique my situation was until one of my friends Jim, called me to vent. One of the skirmishes at work got the best of him a couple Friday’s back and he let it all out for an hour about the inane squabbles and petty competition.

After listening to his story, I reflected, and came up with a proposition. I suggested my friend invite his department, including the three people in his office he found most difficult, to play airsoft for an afternoon, and I would foot the bill. Anticipating his resistance I posed it as a favor because I was promoting a new leadership course. In truth, my desire was to see the results of them interacting outside the office in a situation where their interdependence would actually mean the difference of “life” or “death!” (or at least a couple good stings from bb’s)

One of my favorite books of all time is The Art of War. Though it is full of countless battle tactics that translate easily into life strategies, one in particular stands out to me. Sun Tzu said “If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.” My whole philosophy was riding on this. The slight twist in my situation was that the enemy was intangible, but equally threatening – discord. The challenge was to show these fellow office mates the benefits of communication and teamwork in a less formal environment where they could see the tangible results more readily.

When I caught up with Jim afterward he told me: “You know, we’re still not all buddy-buddy, but we’re talking with each other more, getting our priorities right and turning in projects on time. It feels….I don’t know, smoother.”

What this reinforced for me was that several key strategies that develop on the field also thrive in the workplace.

Knowing When to Let Others Lead

There’s the saying “Too many cooks spoil the pot” I want to add in my own qualification by stating “Too many generals spoil the chance for victory” In an office environment, there can be constant vying for position, whether it be for a promotion, or who delegates the tasks on a project. Soon the discussion stops being about the original goal and more a battle of personalities and egos. Sun Tzu said, “he whose ranks are united in purpose will win.” In the heat of battle, where results are clear (“alive” or “dead”) leaders will naturally come to the forefront, and others follow will accede. I saw this in the first few rounds with Jim and his coworkers. I could see everyone telling everyone else what to do, each hiding behind his own piece of cover, yelling and motioning orders. Separated and vulnerable, they were quickly tagged out every single time. It was only when Jim started to take the lead position and show through his strong example that they started to stick together. With the common goal of victory at the forefront of everyone’s mind, the team will focus more on working together to win, and less about who’s leading.

Tenacity

Another lesson from Sun Tzu that can be applied is “You will not succeed unless you have tenacity”. How easy is it to defeat an enemy that doesn’t advance, that hides behind barricades afraid of getting shot and hit? It’s startling how many stories I’ve heard of where the employees of an office are fine with just “getting by” and scowl at those individuals who work harder for everyone’s benefit. They don’t want them to ‘rock the boat’ and make everyone else look bad. In airsoft there is no “getting by” there’s just the black and white reality of ‘living’ and ‘dying’, of victory and defeat. You win and lose as a collective whole. I think playing airsoft helped Jim and his coworkers understand viscerally that they’re all in the same boat, and that its ok to work hard as individuals and as a group. Though they lost every single match they played that day, they never gave up and kept hitting the battlefield with energy.

Making and implementing Strategy

Planning ahead both the navigation and the weapon choices and tactical strategy are critical for success in an airsoft game. If you don’t know where you are going and how you are getting there, if you don’t know how to defend yourself and your “plan b,” you will be taken out quickly. At work, this is just as important. Whether it is choosing a firm deadline and delivering something in time to be reviewed, or having the proper material on hand for a presentation to the board, without a strategy and a little planning, chaos will likely ensue, which typically later conveys into office disharmony.

Improvise and Surprise

“March swiftly to places where you are not expected” The best results come from the actions that weren’t expected. In airsoft, it could be coming at the enemy from an angle they weren’t expecting, or creating impromptu camouflage from local flora. In an office this can be taking on personal side projects that weren’t asked of you, or turning in a project far in advance of schedule. Your team can stand out amongst the rest, and if its not accepted, at least it didn’t let down any expectations, because there were none to begin with!

From the way things turned out, I’m a firm believer that airsoft is a rather unique but incredibly effective means to hash out conflict and build cooperation. After all, Sun Tzu also said “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

If you are interested in trying it out, Airsplat has a comprehensive listing of US Airsoft Fields, all perfect for arranging a shooting get together with your most or least favorite friends!

I called Jim again to see if they would be up for another get together in a few weeks. He said accounting was ready to go, they bought even more horrid ties for the event. Just before I hung up, Jim added, “Actually, the guys in marketing want to go too.”

This article was written by John Durfee of Airsplat.com, the nation’s largest retailer of Airsoft guns.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 4 Comments »

Integrity is something that is very important to me and it is one of my 4 core values (Integrity, Service, Spirit and Honesty) that I live by.  Integrity is a trait that most people aspire to have or show and there are many reasons why.  I’ll explain, but first; core values are what you shape your life around and they outline you as a person.  It’s in your core values that your nature is revealed and you can align your behaviour with who you really are by your core values.  Not everyone knows or has even thought about their core values, but whether you know them or not, you have them.  And to me it all circles back to having integrity in how you live your core values in the first place that integrity is all about.  Integrity is in part being authentic and being true and also it is about holding to your values.  Therefore integrity requires that you know your core values and you can’t really have integrity without knowing yourself since then you simply can’t stand for what you believe in.  You also can’t really have much integrity if your values are always changing, as then your values themselves don’t even have integrity, and since core values make up who you are, it’s impossible for your core values to easily change if they include integrity.  It is the value that ensures you live up to your other values and to who you say you are.

Alignment with Yourself

Aligning your life with your core values not only shows integrity but it allows you to life in harmony with those values.  It is a deep alignment and authenticity with your true core of your being.  Awareness of this authentic self brings a lot of peace and understanding about your life, how you live it and what you stand for.  It helps you to live a conscious “aware” life that is not as separated from your unconscious mind as if you did not tie to these core values.  This connection right to the core allows you to make easier decisions and to feel good about them, as there is no internal unknown batter going on between your conscious and unconscious values.

Aligning Your Core is Never Easy

Aligning your decisions, your actions, your choices and thoughts with your true core is not easy and often it comes at a price. You will constantly be facing situations where taking one road is not as difficult as taking another and often the easy road is the one that does not align with your values. Making that choice to live congruently with your values might cost you time, criticism, difficult actions in order to do what is right or in alignment and sometimes it means not doing things you might otherwise be able to do had you ignored your values.  It is these set of choices and alignment with your values that represent your authenticity with yourself and it can bring about a wonderful internal peace with yourself.  It lets you live your life without regret, with the feelings of satisfaction and with that internal peace to let your life as a whole flow freely and easily.  Individual decisions or choices may not always be easier, but your character and happiness in life will certainly benefit.

Every time you stray from your core values, you build up an internal stress that seems to pry its way in against your core values.  A single decision or choice often presents itself with another one where it becomes something you feel you must justify why it was off your values in the first place.  Doing this leads to similar justifications away from other values, especially when one is integrity.  This off-course action chips about at your moral character and leads only to more situations where core values will be tested.  It is easy to be trapped in a cycle of transformation away from your values and often this is made worse by the people we spend time with or the situations we face in our environment.

Protecting Your Core Values

Because of the situations we get into that test our core values, it is wise to know how to protect them.  Obviously you can simply avoid these situations but doing this will lead you to live a very sheltered life with little interaction with others.  Instead, it is better to learn ways to protect your core values while still living an interactive life.

Other people we interact with will shape and test our core values the most so there is some value in at least limiting our time spent with people who do not match our own authentic selves.  Having close relationships with people and friends that do share our own values will help you to reinforce them and stay true to them.  When your core values are not being tested, it is much easier to be authentic and honest in your relationships.  Ensure you have a strong group of friends that do share many of your core values.

Sharing your core values is another way to protect them.  Letting people know what you stand for and believe in before you are faced with a situation that tests any values, will make standing up for that much easier.  In fact, it lets you use your integrity to your advantage since you know others will expect you to follow your values, it makes it that much easier to do so with that extra pressure.  When others know your values, it is easy to rely on and ask for respect of that when there comes the time to deny a request or make a decision to maintain your integrity.

So in summary, there are 4 important pieces here to build your authentic core being:

• First, know your core values and use your integrity to live them to the core
• Second, align the choices and decisions in your life with your core values to be authentic and have a mind at peace
• Third, recognize when you your core values are challenged and make your choices and decisions based on them in order to stay in alignment with your core
• Finally, protect your core values by expressing them, sharing them and being honest about them before they are tested.  This will allow you to have integrity right to the core.

You can read more about core values here in determining and sharing your core values.  Also, my building better relationships eBook also has a whole chapter on authenticy and using that to build strong relationships.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 4 Comments »

Leadership is not always about having people follow you.  It is also about being an example for others to look up to and about being a person of good character and morals.  There are many skills a leader must have and one of the most important ones is to be a strong listener.  Good leaders truly do listen more than they speak and they let people follow their actions, more than their words.  Listening is a skill that is not only difficult to do but humbling since it requires great discipline to simply be quite and talk less than you listen.  It sounds simple, it is, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.  Here are some ways to become a better listener and show leadership in that listening.

1. Segue Into Conversation
2. Purposefully Eliminate Interruptions (technology, multitasking, etc)
3. Hold Back the Urge To Speak
4. Interact Passively

Segue Into Conversation

In order to listen well in a conversation you must be able to focus on it.  When a conversation first starts, you are almost always already doing something with your mind thinking about that so it can be difficult to immediately be attentive in conversation as a listener.  That is where a segue comes in handy. A segue is simply a smooth transition from one topic to another, or in this case, from one activity to another. It can be a brief statement or action that you do to trigger your mind to switch towards the conversation so you can engage fully in listening attentively.  A number of things can work as a segue, you just need to find and use your own method for switching tasks into an active conversation.  It is best to find both an action and a statement to use.

• Action – this could be something as simple as stepping or spinning away from your work area or computer to start a new conversation.
• Statement – the other part of a strong segue is to make a statement about starting a conversation.  This works well to help you shift your mindset and shows the other person(s) that you are truly listening attentively.  It might sound like, “OK, just one second here, let me step away from what I was doing, can you start again from the start and you now have my full attention”.

Purposefully Eliminate Interruptions

Interruptions in conversations are terribly distracting and disruptive to both people and quite frankly, they are often unintentionally disrespectful.  Everything from email and cell phones to bosses or other people stepping in to break a conversation that is already in place.  It is your job to eliminate these as best you can.  The segue can help if you have stepped away from your work area and computer, you can turn off your cell phone and leave it ‘out of sight’, and you can kindly ask people who do interrupt to wait or let you get back to them shortly after you have finished your conversation.  Every step you take to show you are focused on the other individual shows them respect and allows you to be a good listener, which you cannot do effectively with distractions.

Hold Back the Urge to Speak

Listening requires one really important point.  You simply need to shut up, and listen.  It’s simple but hard to do.  Listening really requires more than simply not speaking but also the urge to speak.  When we have the urge to speak even if we don’t open our mouths our minds are already thinking about what we want to say and we stop listening when we do this.  This is the danger of the urge to speak, long before we actually add our two bits to a conversation.  Learning to hold back the urge to speak takes a lot of discipline and practice.  The best way I’ve learned to do this is to focus on rewording what the other person is saying as they are saying it so our mind is busy really thinking about what they said instead of formulating our own response.  This ensures you are listening.  The only danger with this internal rewording is to get lost in translation and lose focus on continuing to listen.  I suggest you use verbal paraphrases and reflection with the other person when you need to slow them down or stop for thinking a bit longer on what they said.  This will also show you are really thinking about what they are saying and not just holding your tongue.

When you do finally have something to add or comment on in a conversation, ensure you wait for an obvious pause and count a few seconds before responding.  You want to ensure the other person is truly done expressing their thoughts and ready to stop and listen to you.  After all, what good will your comment have if they are not listening to you because you interrupted their thought.  Slowing down a conversation gives you more time to think about what you do have to say and a lot more time to think about and reflect on what others have to say.  This is a skill of all great leaders and one that is valuable in every relationship you will develop.

Interact Passively

Interacting as a listener must be done with careful skill to not interrupt or break the other person’s train of thought but still enable you to show interest and engagement in the conversation.  Interaction with the other person in conversation will help you stay focused on what you hear without having your mind wander from what the other person is saying.  Passive interaction can be many things:

• Nodding to show agreement or understanding
• Verbal cues like ‘uhha’, ‘OK’, ‘go on’, ‘hmm’, ‘I see’, etc
• Leaning toward the person to show interest
• Facial expressions to show reaction or impact to what was said

Keep in mind each of these interactions should be subtle and not distract the other person in their part of the conversation.  Show your interest, but don’t interrupt them or break their train of thought.  More interactive methods I mentioned earlier can be used but only at the appropriate time such as paraphrasing or responding with questions or reflection on their ideas to expand and explore a topic in more detail.  It allows you to have the person tell you more without putting your own ideas or opinions out their yet.  All these methods are important in conversation to keep a high level of interaction in place while remaining passive as a listener and not taking over a conversation.

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 10 Comments »