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Mike
Carruthers:
When
you're at work and people ask you to do something, the first thing
you should do is ask why.
Bill Jensen:
Because most everyone who is sending stuff to you is
just trying to get stuff off of their desk - and frankly they
haven't thought through why.
Bill Jensen,
author of the Simplicity
Survival Handbook...
So your job as
a listener is to ask "why?" several times, to get
to the essence of something. Mike, why are we having this call?
Well we want to do an interview. Yeah, well why is that important
to you or me? It's important to ask "why?" several
times to get to the essence of things. And if you do, very often
you will find most often you don't have to do whatever you're
being asked to do.
You know those
times when your boss wants you to do something, or wants to
implement some policy or procedure, and you know it's the stupidest
thing in the world; Bill has a great idea for what to say then.
"Boss, help
me understand," that's a universal way to change a politically
incorrect question into one that's correct - just put help me
understand in front of whatever you want to ask. That defers
judgment or blame and makes it softer. So basically, "Boss,
help me understand, I'm not clear, maybe it was me and I wasn't
listening properly in this meeting."
You can link
to Bill's website from
ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net,
I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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