Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Skills Improvement

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for personal skills improvement.

  • Want Real Teamwork? Start With Vulnerability!

    Want Real Teamwork? Start With Vulnerability!

    I was sitting in a multi-day training with a group of executive leaders. I had yet to put my finger on what was missing with this team, when a question was asked that made me realize, these people don’t know each other. Through this question, it became apparent that they aren’t “allowed” to put their guard down and be real. They don’t feel like they have permission to be vulnerable.

    Some of these people had been working together for ten plus years and were hard pressed to name any of their colleagues hobbies much less their co-workers spouse and/or kids’ names.

    And they were passing this mindset down the chain and throughout the company. The uber-professional guard they had up was creating issues with trust, teamwork, and ultimately business results.

    To be an authentic leader requires a certain level of vulnerability. As Criss Jami said, “To share your weakness is to make yourself vulnerable; to make yourself vulnerable is to show your strength.”

    It’s hard, though, to just come flat out and ask, “tell me how you are weak” especially with people in leadership roles. If you have a team lacking in vulnerability with each other, here are three suggestions (starting from easiest to most difficult to facilitate) to get people talking in a way that exposes vulnerability and allows strength to rise out of weakness:

    1. Ask the group to answer a pre-prepared list of questions about themselves. Then have the group simply share their responses. These questions can be anything from, “Do you have pets? What kind and what are their names?” to “Where did you grow up?” to more probing and thought provoking questions like “What is the best advice you have ever received?” to “What do you want your legacy to be?”
    2. Simply ask the group to share their response to what has been their greatest success in life so far and what has been their greatest failure. I would also suggest you ask for the greatest professional and personal success and failure so that people don’t limit their responses to only work related answers that the team may already know.
    3. Ask the group to share their story. To do this, ask them to share the 5-7 defining moments of their life that have shaped who they are.

    As Brene Brown said, “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
     

    How do you help people step into the light by way of darkness?

    Shine today.

     

    Enjoy this post? You may also like:

    2018 Is the Year of Authenticity

    The Essence of Authenticity

     

  • Living in Gratitude

    Living in Gratitude

    Continuing with our Year of Authenticity theme, today I’m thinking about and working towards the idea of living in gratitude.

    Living in Gratitude –  For out of a place of gratitude comes the ability to see all things for what they are.

    If you missed the blog post regarding our theme, check it out here: 2018 Is the Year of Authenticity.

    Our lives are busy. One way to work towards living authentically is to be grateful for what we have, including a busy schedule. After a weekend out of town, I worked on my fourth load of laundry. Although I wanted to grumble about everything I needed to do to catch up, I reminded myself to be grateful for clothes to wash, healthy children to clothe and for a washing machine.

    How else can we live in gratitude? Here are a few ideas:

    1. Start each day with a mental list of what you can be grateful for. (For me personally, this is prayer time.)
    2. Take time to say, “thank you”. Whether it is to text a sweet aunt for your birthday card or to simply thank a stranger for letting you go ahead of them in the grocery line, take time to show that you appreciate the thoughtfulness of others.
    3. Give. This year, one of my “people first” goals is to work towards doing at least one small act of kindness each week. It doesn’t have to cost a thing. A quick text or call to encourage someone else who may be having a tough week is a great way to live in gratitude.

    One of my favorite authors, Richard Paul Evans, has “GratiTuesday” each week on his Facebook page. What a great way to find out what others are grateful for! Check it his page here: https://www.facebook.com/RPEfans/.

  • Living Life Gratefully is Living Life Authentically

    Living Life Gratefully is Living Life Authentically

    My great-grandmother taught me the art of gratitude. She lived a very hard life, but through it all she was grateful. She always found the positive in everything and helped others see the positive in their lives as well. As we explore how to be authentic, I find myself thinking of her and what she taught me a lot. This quote from best-selling author Sarah Ban Breathnach is the perfect illustration of what effect gratitude can have on you.

    “You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: The more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given to you.”

    As Josie Robinson, author of The Gratitude Jar: A Simple Guide to Creating Miracles, said, “Focusing on what you have to be grateful for forces you to not only become a more positive person – but to attract more positive situations into your life because they become self-fulfilling prophecies of the thoughts you’re putting out into the world.”

    For suggestions on how to live a grateful life, visit www.josierobinson.com.

    Like this post? You may also enjoy:

    2018 Is the Year of Authenticity 

    The Essence of Authenticity 

  • Hearing vs. Understanding: The Art of Active Listening

    Hearing vs. Understanding: The Art of Active Listening

    One of my favorite active listening quotes comes from Stephen Covey, the author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is: “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” The art of active listening isn’t easy, but it’s important.

    Last night my husband came home from work and walked through the door with that look on his face. The one that leaves no question about what kind of day he had and makes me wonder if I should even brave asking.

    I took a deep breath and dove in.

    He proceeded to tell me about an issue he’s having at work and how the meeting he and his boss had to address the issues went completely sideways. The person they met with kept interrupting them and disputing everything they said. In the end, the meeting accomplished nothing but to further increase the stress on all parties.

    I’m a listener. I much prefer to sit back and watch everyone around me and listen to what they say. But the art of active listening is in the details. To really listen, or be an active listener, requires so much more than just hearing the words. There are five stages to active listening:

    • Receiving or hearing the message being delivered
    • Understanding or learning from what was said
    • Remembering or retaining the information provided to you
    • Evaluating or judging the content of the message received
    • Responding or providing feedback to the deliverer of that message

    My husband knows when he brings up work issues that I go into HR mode. So after a long talk and lots of questions from me, he began to realize that the meeting failed not just because the other person refused to listen, but so did he. While he heard the concerns they presented, he failed to understand what they were saying. He simply responded back with his own concerns, not evaluating and taking into account the information they had attempted to provide him.

    Some of my recommendations to him included:

    • Know when to engage in conversation: The meeting was held when tempers were still flaring. None of them walked into the meeting with the intent of listening, only with the intent of speaking.
    • Don’t interrupt the speaker: You can’t receive, understand, and evaluate the message if you don’t let them deliver the entire message.
    • Focus on the message, not the sender: By going into the meeting frustrated, my husband engaged in bias by not giving the message the attention it deserved because he was unhappy with the person delivering that message.
    • Know when you need help: One of my suggestions to my husband was that it could have been beneficial to all involved if they had asked a neutral third party to attend the meeting and help mediate it.

    I often fail at my own advice, especially where my boys are concerned. So this year I have committed to being a more active listener with them, to give my time to them and not just hear what they say, but understand it. The art of active listening is like any art; we have to practice it to hone it.

    How can you commit to being an active listener this year?

    The Practice of Listening is one of the 5 things we believe can lead to living an authentic life. Want to read more about living authentically?

    2018 Is the Year of Authenticity 

    The Essence of Authenticity

    4 Ways to Listen to Yourself 

  • 4 Ways to Listen To Yourself

    4 Ways to Listen To Yourself

    “Your life is always speaking to you. The fundamental question is: Will you listen?”  Oprah

    Last week, I declared 2018 the year of authenticity, outlining five things that need to be present for someone cultivate authenticity: listening, gratitude, acting out of joy instead of obligation, being vulnerable and avoiding comparison to others.

    Authentic means being real and true to your design. But how do we actually practice the things?

    I’m coming to believe you can’t practice any of them without first listening to yourself.

    And in order to listen to yourself or anyone else, you have to find quiet. The noise has to be turned off.

    I’m sitting in my home office, watching the very beginnings of the sun rising. Everyone else is asleep in my house. It is quiet, still, peaceful. I’ve found that rising early is about the only time I can find literal quiet. But in finding the literal quiet, I have been able to find inner quiet more throughout the day since beginning some practices that cultivate the ability to listen to myself.

    Some ideas to help you listen to yourself include:

    • Practicing meditation. Here is a great beginner’s guide to meditation.
    • Practicing yoga. Yoga is similar to meditation in that it guides you to focus on your breath, but different in that it is an active practice that can be viewed as a physical workout as well as a mental and spiritual one. I like Yoga Zone videos if you’re a beginner.  If you also run, I like Runner’s Love Yoga although her flow and tone is less peaceful than the Yoga Zone instructors.
    • Exercising. Speaking of running, you can combine it with meditation.  If this is of interest to you, you might find Another Mother Runner podcast: Mindful Running with Author Mackenzie Havey valuable.
    • Journaling. I’ve found that combining a gratitude list and a prayer list in my everyday journaling exercise to be what speaks to me the most to tune into myself each day.

    I don’t know about you, but with so much going on during the day, if these things don’t start off the day, they don’t happen. Seeking to rise early allows these things and therefore the quiet that I need to be able to listen to myself so I can better hear throughout the day.

    If you are seeking rise early as a practice, here are a couple of good resources to consider:

    7 Morning Habits that Make People Happier

    The Early to Rise Experience

     

    Oprah’s quote tells us that we always have an inner voice that needs to be heard. If we listen, it guides us to better living. Authentic living.

    Another quote from her helps us know when we’ve found it:

    “You’ll know you’ve found it when every cell in your body vibrates with your own truth. When you’re filled up by what you’re doing instead of being drained by it.”

     

    Be filled today.