Of course, the coaches don’t play the game. But the best players become the best by understanding their strengths, their weaknesses, and learning from great feedback how to become better and better. The players want to get any advantage they can in order to win. Great coaches provide great quality feedback. Each of these incredible athletes is or was at the top of his profession for a long time, as far as athletics go. Each of them has had one or more tremendous coach that

TV script writers have learned how to make NOT listening hilarious. The cast of SUPERIOR DONUTS includes the stereotypical older Jewish guy, the cool young artistic black guy, the female cop just a little past her prime and feeling it, the standard ‘ugly’ American, the beautiful Latina, and the successful middle eastern businessman. Part of what makes this comedy work is that the characters listen for what they want to hear, act on what they thought they understood, then fin

The movie Forrest Gump used his character to tell us things we already know yet don’t fully understand. Listening is one of those things. We think we know a lot about listening, and maybe we do know a lot about the WHY and the WHAT of listening. But more importantly, we don’t see HOW our listening behaviors and skills affect others. Our bus-sized blind spots (see our blog, Is There Danger In Your Blind Spot) prevent us from seeing things we don’t want to see. We usually see

What if the real world of work was more like The Voice television show where contestants have the luxury of picking their coach? They know everything knowable about their potential coaches and pick the one they think can help them the most. As a manager, would your direct reports pick you? Why? Why not? There Is No Mystery One of the key skills of coaching is listening. And your direct reports know all they need to know about how good of a listener you are. Managers can

Frozen at the microphone. Holding onto the podium for dear life. Physically shaking with nervous tension. Rapid-fire speech. Inserting non-words, uhh, umm, and ahh continually. Losing their place. Quavering voice. Deadly monotone. Shifting weight from leg to leg – almost dancing. The list goes on. Teaching presentation skills over the past 25 years has exposed us to nearly every form of nervous behavior imaginable. And every time I see someone who is battling their n