Let’s take a look at your workplace: Do you use the phone? Do you go to meetings? Do you delegate work? Do you negotiate with clients, allies, bosses and collaborators? Do you write and read e-mails and reports? Do you brainstorm with others? All these activities are different kinds of conversations in which you and others want to produce certain outcomes.

Conversations are not only descriptions of what people can see around them. Conversations produce outcomes in terms of business results and peoples’ emotions. If you are negotiating a sale with a potential client and you listen to him saying, “Yes, we will go for it”, you will probably feel an emotion of joy. After the sale you and others will hold many other conversations inside your company in order to produce and deliver what you sold. The final outcome of your sales conversation will be expressed in the money that your company will receive from the customer and his expression of satisfaction with the quality of the content and the opportunity of the delivery.

Keep in mind that one single successful sales conversation generates many other types of conversation. What if there were misunderstandings in one or more of those conversations? In other words, what if there were bad conversations held and not everyone understood the same in terms of what had to be done, who was responsible for doing what, and when? Most probably this miscommunication will have a negative effect on production and delivery time, and also on useless tracking time, complaints and mutual accusations. Moreover, the company’s reputation might be damaged and the overall climate might be harmed.

Having the right conversation with the right people at the right time is a key element of productivity and time management. Just as you need to learn the physical principles and the dynamics of electricity in order to work as an electric engineer, you need to learn how to converse in order to be effective and efficient, whatever the position you hold in the organization.

In a conversation there is always someone who speaks and someone who listens. Many people consider that speaking is more important than listening. Nevertheless, here comes the secret: the most important thing we do in a conversation is listening and not speaking. Actually, what do we speak for? We speak in order to be listened to. We would not speak if we did not expect someone to listen.

Listening validates speaking. That is why it has become one of the key skills of leadership. A leader who is a keen listener will be able to anticipate breakdowns, to sense emotions, to enhance talents and to help align the purposes of the company with the expectations of its employees, optimizing the use of time and increasing its productivity, while creating an environment of well-being in the workplace.

A very important difference between listening and speaking is that listening happens. You do not decide to do it. Nevertheless there are ways in which you can become a good and active listener:
1. Do not take for granted that the person to whom you are speaking will effectively listen to what you are saying. What is said will be heard by her ears, but the listening includes perceptions and interpretations which can be different between the speaker and the listener.
2. When you give an instruction always check what the person listened to.
3. Pay full attention while listening.
4. When what you listen is not clear for you, ask until there is no doubt for you, especially if you are going to make a promise regarding what you listened.

In contrast to listening, you decide what you will say. There are six different speech actions, involving different responsibilities for each of them.

Conversations matter. Human language is unique and allows us to create, to learn and to innovate.

If you’ve ever felt like transformation isn’t happening fast enough – like you’ve been in a holding pattern too long – read on.  This is for you.

First, I want to remind you that the Universe is ALWAYS conspiring for your highest good, no matter what it looks like in the outside world.  And, second, it is CONSTANTLY sending you winks, nudges, signs, signals and two-by-fours (if needed) to move you on the path most desired by your soul. 

How do I know?   Because once again I was blessed to gather with a few dozen of my MasterHeart clients at a sacred, transformational and powerful retreat last week.  And while we were gathered, I both facilitated and witnessed deep patterns and fears being released with ease, grace…and laughter.  I saw people committed to their dream…willing to step into it in a BIGGER way than they dreamed possible.  Even though it meant letting go of the normal safety zone.

Old out-dated stories were dropped, new neural patterns were established, decades old habits were shifted for the good, and a “soul family” was reunited as these authors prepare to impact thousands of lives with June’s release of the Wave Four of my “Pebbles in the Pond” book series. 

Facilitating their transformation and witnessing the profound changes has left me awe-struck once again.   I truly hope I never lose my wonder of how quickly transformation can happen!   All it takes is a moment of courage, trust and taking a new step.  And doing that over and over again.  

The inspiration I received last week by pouring into, and receiving from, my amazing clients lead me to writing this new article for you today.   It offers three keys to fast-tracking your transformation.  Enjoy! 

Love and Blessings,

And yet, we do not always seem to be using this potential to actively build a better world. Although there are statistics that show a progressive improvement of a civilized way of life since our pre-history, the unstopping political, racial, social, and economic conflicts and the massive domestic and personal violence at present makes me wonder: What is the matter?

I have received an answer to this question many times. I have been told that it is absolutely necessary to take into consideration the issue of human nature. Seemingly, human beings not only have the biological disposition for learning, but apparently we also have instinctive features like greed, violence, a lust for power, envy and resentment which are an essential part of our nature. My listening is that we are the way we are and we cannot change that. It’s a fact of life. Then, another question bursts forth: Should we accept these traits as THE essential aspects of human nature, traits that are fixed and immutable, unable to change?

My answer is “no”. Our potential of creativity, learning, sociability, collaboration, vision, knowledge and human language are also aspects of human nature. In fact, most of these are distinctly human traits, as opposed to instincts, which we share with the other animals. If we have this huge and creative potential it is our responsibility to use it fully in order to improve our world and our species. For this statement, I have been criticized as being naïve and a wishful thinker.

If you claim for acceptance of the status quo of our “unchanging nature”, accepting only the comfort of that which is known, you run the risk of stagnation. If you are not willing to train your attention and discipline in order to wholly use your human potential, then you are not living within  the paradigm of human nature, so rich in possibilities, but in the paradigm of mammal nature, to which we also belong. All mammals have bodies, instincts, brains, sensations, and emotions, human beings included. And the Universe has provided us, humans, with the amazing tool of human language which allows us to learn, to create, and to learn from what we learn, constantly moving the boundary of what is possible.

Our human nature enables changes, growth, and development. Luckily, I am not alone in this way of understanding human nature, differentiating you and me from the rest of the animals. I invite you to open up to this way of looking at ourselves, and to invite many others to do so. One day we will live in a better environment and human nature will naturally be considered what it is: that which makes us human.

This is my dream.

I know it can seem naïve when expressed bluntly, within a context of permanent war and violence, displacement of masses of people all over the world, burglaries, slavery, and all sorts of crimes happening everywhere today. Nevertheless, it has been historically proved that this violence is decreasing and life condition of masses of people is improving.

That is why I keep this dream and nurture it.

Larry Page, one the founders of Google, was invited as the keynote speaker in a newly founded educational institution.  He stepped into the podium, greeted everyone and immediately after that, he asked the audience: “Are you working on something that can change the world?” There was silence and some people looked around, probably feeling some discomfort.

Have you have ever asked yourself this question? If you have not, I invite you to stop reading and ask yourself what you spend almost your whole waking hours on. My bet is that few people find a dream they are passionate about and devote their lives to it, turning it into their service to the world and their business. And I am sure that within these few, most of them are men.

If you are a woman, you have probably been covertly conditioned to think small, and not to dream about how you can serve the world. You have been taught to believe that you have the extremely important role of caring for your immediate environment: get married; have children to care for, nurture, and protect; be a loving wife and a good companion for your husband. That is it, and you are probably extremely busy. If the family needs more money or if you are not willing to throw away your profession, you will still have the same obligations as before, plus your work. No wonder you will probably feel stressed and overwhelmed, and you will ask yourself, more than once, “whoever made me do this?”

Almost half a century ago, my father asked me if I wanted to continue studying after high school. When I told him I would become an engineer he frowned, lifted his index finger and said “Listen to me, daughter, that’s a very bad idea. You will probably find a nice young man during your second year at the University, you will marry him, leave your studies, and another nice boy will have missed an opportunity to really become an engineer”. I became an engineer, I got married, had two children, worked all the time, and life became quite overwhelming while raising the kids.

You might think that things have changed after so many years. I am also a coach since 1991, and this is what I continue practicing now. Last year (2014), one of my female clients discovered that she just could not say “I want to be a leader”. It was like revealing something that was forbidden to her. If she showed that she is developing her career and is becoming a leader at her job, it would be seen as a demonstration of arrogance, and she could not allow that to herself.

Actually, women might have some more leadership possibilities today than forty years ago. Nevertheless, I think we need to speed things up. Our organizations cannot continue to be managed the way they were more than 100 years ago, when F. Taylor multiplied productivity by a factor of thousands, and M. Weber developed the concept of bureaucracy which allowed this new way of production to be organized and managed. Several factors do not allow the world to continue this form of production. As an example, look at the acceleration of change, which demands very fast decision-making, with information which cannot be centralized at the required speed. This means that every person in an organization must become a decision maker. What a change that one issue will be able to produce! Remember: the female mind can see things the male cannot observe, and vice – versa. All human groups require leadership of men and women!

I invite you to share my dream and align our efforts to change the world by:

1. Using the differences between men and women’s  biology to enrich diversity of viewpoints and aspirations, and heighten our collective creativity and capacity for innovation
2. Using the advances in neuroscience to “reprogram” (learn) women’s and men’s “unconscious mind”, which is thousands of times more effective than the “conscious mind” in producing results, many of them unwanted
3. Seeing and hearing women’s presence and voice just as much as men’s in the public world and reciprocating in the private world
4. Multiplying women’s presence in leadership positions in boards, higher management  and government
5. Training  and coaching women and men to overcome their fears and to learn new skills that will enable them to share more of their respective worlds

Sally Bendersky
Contributing author to the #1 International Best-selling book series, “Pebbles in the Pond”
www.sallybcoach.com

February 13, 2015