Newsletter 26 - 29 June 2005

Newsletter 26 - 29 June 2005 This is the newsletter for www.mindtools.com. You have received this newsletter because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. This newsletter is published by James Manktelow of Mind Tools Ltd, Hardwick House, Prospect Place, Swindon, SN1 3LJ, United Kingdom. To contact us, please email us from this page.

Contents: In This Issue... Time's Running Out... Listen, Learn, Achieve! Review Techniques Mind Tools Store A Final Note

In this issue of the Mind Tools newsletter we present the third in our four-part series on Effective Listening. This article looks at some of the most common listening hurdles. And it shows you how to clear these hurdles with common-sense tools and techniques that are sure to give strong results.

We look at an important Information Skills Tool that allows users to keep newly acquired information fresh, as well as providing readers with another look at "Design Your Life", our teleclass program starting on 5 July!

And we review "Know Your Type", a website that we think you and your colleagues will find particularly useful. This expertly assists individuals, business, organizations, teams, government, couples and those in education to determine their own unique Myers-Briggs® personality type.

Please remember, we encourage our newsletter readers to share the information in these newsletters with others. We also hope you will let us know if there is any topic you would like to see covered, or any applicable service or product you would like to read more about. We remain committed to providing you with tools that help you reach new heights of success and to do this, we rely on your feedback.

Best wishes, and enjoy this issue!

James & Kellie

Design Your Life: July 5 Teleclass: Time's Running Out!

Just a friendly reminder: The Mind Tools goal-setting and life design teleclass, “Design Your Life” is on Tuesday 5 July 2005 at 1pm New York Time. That’s 10am in Los Angeles; 6pm in London; 7pm in Amsterdam; and 10:30pm in New Delhi. (For other time zones, you can look times up using 5pm GMT/UTC at www.timeanddate.com.)

For less than the cost of a week’s worth of cappuccinos ($37, to be exact), goal-setting expert Rod Moore will show you how to design the life of your dreams, and live the life you design. And he shows you how to set vivid, compelling, inspirational goals which give you the enthusiasm you need to achieve real success.

The 5 July teleclass is the centerpiece of our “Design Your Life” program. When you register, you also get:

• A 5-Part E-Course: Classes by email after the teleclass, helping you progress your goal setting and motivating you to stay on track;
  
  
• A free 32-page goal-setting toolkit to plan and program your goals;
  
  
• A bonus guide “7 Keys to Goal Setting Success” in both PDF and MP3 formats;
  
  
• Personal email support from Rod after the teleclass to get your goals on track;
  
  
• “Get the Most from Your Teleclass”: Mind Tools guide to help you prepare and get the very most from teleclass-based programs; and
  
  
• The Mind Tools 90—day no-questions-asked refund if you’re not completely satisfied.

Visit http://www.mindtools.com/rs/DesignYourLife for more information and to register for the teleprogram.

Places are limited, and time is short: Book now to reserve your place!

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Effective Listening: Listen, Learn, Achieve!
The third in a four-part series on effective listening.
By Kellie Fowler

In the last issue of the Mind Tools newsletter, we learned that the different types or levels of communication include: 1) Facts; 2) Thoughts and Beliefs; and 3) Feelings and Emotions. And we looked at how to best respond to each. The common denominator here is to stop talking and to really pay attention to the speaker and the message he or she is delivering.

Now, we look at more listening tools, including ones we believe will make a very strong impact on your overall success as you work to become a better listener.

Effective "Parroting"

Having already established the importance of stopping talking, you may find that the strongest tool you can use to ensure you hear the message being sent to you is to simply paraphrase (use your own words) in “parroting” back the message to the sender.

When doing this, strive to:

1. Repeat the facts
2. Share the thoughts and beliefs you heard
3. Convey any underlying feelings and emotions you believe are involved
4. Take the time to communicate the message sender’s wants, needs and expectations

In doing this, you will find that the most successful listener doesn’t respond just to the words he or she hears. Instead, they look beyond the words for the feelings and the intent. By doing this, you ensure you receive the entire message every time.

Other tools and techniques for becoming the best listener possible include containing your desire to ask questions during the process in which the speaker is sending the message to you.

Instead, continue to listen intently. Remember, the answer to your question may be in the message, but you have to continue listening.

Once you are fairly certain you understand the message, you can quit actively listening and respond with your own message (one that reaches beyond “parroting” the sender’s message).

Finding the Right Balance

For, to be an effective listener, you need to find a balance between listening, hearing and responding. This does mean revealing your own position or providing appropriate input/feedback, but only at the right time.

In the event there is confusion, make sure you send the message back that you are unsure of what is being said or perhaps that you need clarification on a few points. This step, although it may seem otherwise, is actually part of listening.

Allow the sender of the original message to clarify without interrupting. Feel free to ask him or her to say it another way, but give the sender the opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings before you jump back in.

Can you now see how effective listening now becomes more of an interactive process?

Continue to use eye contact and the “listening” body language we discussed in other articles in this four-part series. Be careful about crossing your arms or do anything that may be interpreted as being closed or critical, as both will damage the sender’s ability to provide you with a clear message and will negate your best efforts to effectively listen.

Do your best to remain empathetic and non-judgmental. Work to be accepting and respectful of the person and their feelings and beliefs (even if you do not agree) without invalidating or sharing your own position.

Clearing Hurdles...

As we have previously pointed out, even your best efforts to become an effective listener can be thwarted by some all-too-common hurdles. We have briefly touched on a few of these, but have not included all of the following.

Be wary of rehearsing what you might want to say before you say it: This has your mind focused on your next comment and not the speaker’s message.

Be careful about judging the sender and the message too early: If you judge someone to be incompetent, you are likely to not place importance on his or her message. What if your judgment is wrong? Perhaps they know exactly what they are talking about, and their message is of great importance to you or your work.

And fight the urge to identify with everything the sender says to you. If you take everything you are told and relate it back to your own thoughts or experiences, you are not allowing yourself to understand how it relates to the sender. This is one of the most important components of effective listening.

Even if you feel certain you have the solution to the problem being conveyed to you, take the time to hear everything the sender is conveying before conveying this. Don’t spend the time you should be listening working to come up with answers. During this time, you may miss what is most important.

While you are listening, do not argue or debate with the speaker (if necessary, this can come later). Arguing too early may convey that you are disagreeable or that your focus is on finding things to disagree with, instead of hearing the message. Remember, “parrot” the message then engage in dialogue that is empathetic and constructive, but only after you have listened and heard all the speaker is conveying.

Everyone wants to be right, making it tough to combat the urge to twist the facts, make excuses or skew the message so that it favors our views. Yet, being right is not nearly as important as being informed, especially when it comes to your success!

Sure, you want to be nice and supportive, as you should; but, do not placate. Being liked or popular is not the goal here. Hearing the message and acting accordingly is.

Lastly, do not pretend to be listening. Sometimes this is the toughest thing to do, particularly when we’re rushing to get something done. Many of us find our minds drifting to our next appointment, preparing for the upcoming meeting for our boss, or thinking ahead to that incoming phone call. When it comes to effective listening, living in that moment is of the utmost importance.

In the final article of our four-part series on listening, we provide you with an outline for active listening, one that can be shared with team members, colleagues, and even spouses and friends!

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Tools Reviewed: Review Techniques
Keeping Acquired Information Fresh in Your Mind

Remembering things in the long-term can be tricky. Yet, especially in today’s busy times, increasing deadline-related projects and growing to-do lists, much of the information we take-in needs to be “stored” for later use or application.

It is completely normal for memories of things learned to be clearest immediately after learning them. But, as time goes on, we tend to forget more and more of the information, finally being able to recall only small parts of what we so-diligently learned.

This can be particularly destructive in the workplace, making it important to find a reliable tool that keeps information “fresh” and saves you valuable time and effort by not requiring “relearning.”

Surprisingly, it may be as simple as reviewing the knowledge you need absorb and apply later more frequently, which enables you to keep it fresh and alive in your mind. This makes it easy to recall when you need it with a minimum of effort.

The first step to successfully doing this is to spend a few minutes reviewing material immediately after the learning session. This helps you to:

• Confirm that you understand the material;
• Reduce the time needed to relearn information when you need it; and
• Improve the quality of future learning, by building on a well-remembered foundation. This helps your mind to make connections and linkages that it would not otherwise make.

A good way of carrying out this review is to rewrite your notes. You can do this effectively by putting the information learned into a Mind Map (see http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_01.htm).

After this, reviewing information should be relatively easy and need not take long. Carry out reviews at the following times:

• After one day
• After one week
• After one month
• After four months

Review the topic by taking a few minutes to jot down everything you can remember about the subject, and compare this with your notes. As you may suspect, if you review information often, it should stay fresh in your mind, and will be easily accessible when you need it.

For more information on information skills, and how to study and retain knowledge, go to http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_ISS.htm.

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Tools Reviewed: Personality Testing
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®
http://www.knowyourtype.com

Ever wanted to know your personality type? Or, perhaps as the leader of a team, you quite rightly want to understand more about the different personalities of your team members?

At http://www.knowyourtype.com, you can find this out and more. In fact, relying on the KnowYourType™ personality test, you will get important insights into how and why people understand and approach the world in such different ways.

It's called the "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument".

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, also referred to as the "MBTI® Instrument" or "the Indicator" provides a useful way of describing people's personalities by looking at their preferences on four scales (extraversion vs. introversion, sensing vs. intuition, thinking vs. feeling, and judging vs. perceiving). These preferences combine to yield one particular type.

There are 16 dynamic energy systems or types. There is no right or wrong type, and there are no better or worse combinations of types in work or relationships. As the site points out, each type and each individual bring special gifts.

The purpose of learning about type is to help you understand yourself better and to enhance your relationships with others and the site emphasizes that each person is unique.

Certainly, you are the final judge of your best-fit type and your results on the MBTI Instrument suggest your probable type based on the choices you made when you answered the questions. The same holds true for colleagues, spouses, etc.

Of course, type does not explain everything. Human personality is much more complex. Instead, number scores on the MBTI Instrument indicate clarity of reporting a particular preference. They do not measure skills or ability or degree of use, but may be quite useful in cultivating a stronger understanding of a person or even for appropriate job placement.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Instrument is a self-report questionnaire designed to make theory of psychological types understandable and useful to everyday life. MBTI® Instrument results identify valuable differences between normal healthy people, differences that can be the source of much misunderstanding and miscommunication.

Past clients who have relied on the KnowYourType® personality test include America Online, Ernst & Young, Kaiser Permanente, US Cellular, Schwab, Raytheon, Whirlpool, the US Military and more, proving this test is a reliable tool that, when used correctly, can yield strong results.

KnowYourType tests your personality using the MBTI® Instrument, which costs $99.99/person up to 10 people, and $74.99/person for more than 10 people.

You can get a similar assessment at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm for free, but please bear in mind that this is not quite the same thing .

The Mind Tools Store:

• The Mind Tools E-book: All of the articles on the Mind Tools website in one convenient, easily-downloadable, easily-printable PDF file. We have excluded advertising to enhance clarity and have formatted sections to be easy to read, print and use. More >>
  
  
• Mind Tools Relaxation MP3s: Download 15-minutes of intense relaxation in MP3 format with our relaxation MP3s. Put stress behind you, and face the rest of your day with renewed energy and enthusiasm. More >>
  
  
• Personal Coaching from Career Excellence Professionals: Find career and life direction, bring your job under control, build self-confidence and put yourself on the path to long term success with a Mind Tools coach. Our coaches give you the focused personal coaching you need to make the very most of your career and life. More >>
  
  
• Make Time for Success!: Make Time for Success teaches the 39 essential time management and personal productivity techniques that help you bring your workload under control and maximize your effectiveness, so that you can make the most of the opportunities open to you. More >>
  
  
• The Stress Management Masterclass: This e-book shows you how to tackle the deep structural problems that cause stress in your working life. It introduces you to relaxation techniques, shows you how to win control of your job and career, cope with politics and manage stress effectively. More >>

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A Final Note From James

I hope you share our excitement about the launch of the Design Your Life teleclass program! Even in the event you cannot fit this first one into your busy schedule, I personally encourage you to click on the link we provided to see for yourself how comprehensive and information-filled it will be.

And, you should know that this is the first in a series of teleclasses. The Mind Tools team is already hard-at-work developing future teleclasses. So look for more later this year, all on topics that are important to you and to your success!

In the next newsletter, we'll look at the final article in our four-part Effective Listening series, which will take a different turn by providing you with a clear, concise outline that can be printed out and shared with team members, colleagues, and people who are important to you. Think of this as a “cheat sheet” for effective listening.

We will review an important Communications Tool, looking at techniques for running the most productive meetings possible.

And we’ll take a look at another article in Mind Tools’ upcoming course “How to Lead: Discover the Leader Within You”. In this article, we help you look into your own mind to find out whether you are truly motivated to lead, or whether self-limiting beliefs are holding you back.

Best wishes, and until next time!

James & Kellie

James Manktelow & Kellie Fowler

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