Month: May 2018

I found some great Memorial Day weekend reading in this month's Harvard Business Review, and as I travel this weekend I'll be thinking more about one article in particular, The Surprising Power of Questions by Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John. The authors break the issue of questioning down to two main problems: “Most of us don’t ask enough questions, nor do we pose our inquiries in an optimal way.”It reminded me of a question I have addressed to some of my clients:“Are you interested or interesting?” For instance, I have had clients who wanted to be more likeable, but they just couldn't seem to make warm connections with others at work--or, sometimes, even, outside of work.I know that if it feels like someone isn’t interested in me, it’s pretty hard for me…

People love superhero stories in part because we all wish we had special powers beyond the ordinary. Yet every day we overlook or undervalue special talents in ourselves and others that are as useful in our lives as X-ray vision or super strength. In an article in the Harvard Business Review, “Why Talented People Don’t Use Their Strengths,” author and executive coach Whitney Johnson writes that, based on her observations, the problem is less that we don’t know what we’re good at, but that “we often undervalue what we inherently do well.” That makes us less likely to appreciate those abilities as special, and may also make it less likely that our employers know about them.Johnson identifies our “superpowers” as things we do “effortlessly, almost reflexively, like breathing.” We could all do…