Intermittent posting in next few months March 7, 2014 | John Rusk I did promise to post something on people skills every week… but some things have come up which will get in the way of my regular posting schedule. In particular, I’m preparing a half-day people skills workshop. “Regular transmission” will resume in a few months. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on what… Read More
Review applicable skills February 24, 2014 | John Rusk This is is the third and, for now, the last in a series of tips on how to prepare for discussions which you know will be difficult. Tip 3: Review applicable skills I remember being faced with a particularly difficult meeting some time ago. Feeling unsure about how to approach it, I broke out a… Read More
What you want. What you really, really want. February 17, 2014 | John Rusk | 2 Comments Last time, we talked about a tip for situations when you have a difficult meeting coming up. Here’s another tip I’ve found useful. Tip 2: Figure out what you really want Sometimes we find ourselves with counter-productive thoughts in the lead-up to a discussion: “I just want him to admit that he’s wrong”, “These people… Read More
Prepare your stories February 10, 2014 | John Rusk In my last post in this Dialogue Skills series, I talked about learning and that fact that real learning requires practice. So how can you practice dialogue skills? Perhaps the easiest situation is when you are expecting a meeting or conversation to be somewhat difficult. You know the other people there are likely to hold different… Read More
Key points in the video January 20, 2014 | John Rusk | 2 Comments The video I just posted doesn’t show all the slides. In practice, there isn’t a Powerpoint deck that I can post, because many of the slides are hand-drawn by me during the talk. So, instead of slides, here’s a summary of the key points. Improving our people skills can Make our projects more successful Encourage gender… Read More
People Skills Video January 20, 2014 | John Rusk | 1 Comment Over the past few years, I’ve been building up material on how we can all learn people skills. Late last year I finally got it all pulled together into a 30-minute presentation. The presentation includes several important things which I have not yet covered in writing on this blog. I presented the talk at last… Read More
Interesting article on Emotional Intelligence January 18, 2014 | John Rusk It’s overrated by some, but still really, really important: https://ideas.time.com/2011/11/01/theyve-taken-emotional-intelligence-too-far/ (The regular series of Skilled Dialogue posts will resume in February)… Read More
What is learning? December 9, 2013 | John Rusk This series of posts is about how to learn people skills, and dialogue skills in particular. So what does it mean to learn something? I fear our education system gives us the wrong idea of what learning is about. It’s easy to finish one’s days as a student, and leave with the impression that learning… Read More
Fixing the engine of public discussion November 28, 2013 | John Rusk | 2 Comments [Note: regular readers of this blog will notice the title of this post is waaay off topic. But bear with me. There’s a tenuous link to the usual subject matter.] At the bus stop, reading Twitter, I was struck by the antagonism of political tweets. Are the actions of the Right ever actually influenced by… Read More
Don’t be fooled by Myers-Briggs November 15, 2013 | John Rusk | 6 Comments The Myers-Briggs personality test classifies you as Introvert or Extrovert, Thinker or Feeler, and so on. It gives you a four-letter type like “INTJ”. The catch is, Myers-Briggs is kind-of bad. If you’ve ever felt that Myers-Briggs seemed promising, but failed to deliver long-term benefits, here’s why. Reason 1: Labeling ourselves is harmful Myers-Briggs gives you… Read More