Can you tell your life story in 10 words or less?

By Marcia Reynolds, MCC (United States)

I heard a great story on National Public Radio's (NPR) "Talk of the Nation" about the storytelling skill of Ernest Hemingway. When asked if he could write a story in six words, he came back to his challenger the next day with these lines, "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." Although the story you see when you reflect on his words may be different than the one I see, the images inspired by the words are emotional and memorable.

http://www.coachfederation.org/articles/index.cfm?action=view&articleID=594&menuID=11&goback=.nvr_74761_1

Interpersonal communication is not a set of skills but the result of relationships

After many years working on interpersonal communication and on ways to assess how competent a person is as a communicator, I have gradually changed my approach to it;

I have come to the conclusion that we cannot train a person to become a better communicator by teaching or transferring a set of skills. The same skills in one person seem to work and they don’t in another, they are adequate to one situation but useless in another. In order to escape from the contextual and time-irreversible aspect of communication, we have very often referred to as an Art.

But there is something that always happens; a good relationship brings a good communication. And here is where I can work. I can help people to identify what makes (in their terms) good relationships, work on self-awareness and self-resilience to enable openness and curiosity for the other… and when this happens, when the persons gets to know better how to be at ease with the others, then, communication emerges.

The Economist - The World in 2010 Leadership in the information age by C. Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!

"... The first is listening. It is a hoary cliché of management schools that a good boss knows how to listen. But this is shouldn't be merely an exercise in empathy. Listening to your employees at every level is one of the best paths to new insights..."

Leadership always happens in the terms of the other

Can we split the responsibility of being a good leader and a good human being? Too long we have hid ourselves behind “being professional” from being open to others… We can continue trying very hard, increasing our competences… whatever.
Leadership is not about what we want to do, it is about how others perceive us, how others enjoy what they are and do today, how we articulate an image of a better future for them.
We can talk about efficiency for ages, but we will remember those who let us be and let us learn.

A New Leadership paradigm - learning by sharing

Dear friends,

We have all experienced leadership and leaders from many and varied perspectives. We all know that we live in an unpredicted and changing environment. However, leadership management theories are still rooted in the principles set out by economists and thinkers of the late XIX Century. A new reality needs new principles.
We will probably not be able to articulate a new paradigm of leadership ourselves, but we can certainly start the journey. And this journey can only take place sharing our personal experiences and thoughts.

Looking forward to listening to you all,

jon and fernando