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      KEYZINE: An e-zine for LEADERS:
     ABOUT THE PEOPLE PART OF BUSINESS
                 Volume 53, August 2005
    Publisher: © Key Associates, 2005
              ISSN # 1545-8873
           http://www.mkkey.com

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This Issue: On "Relationship Building"

This is a monthly electronic magazine for anyone 
who wants to be a better leader, coach, facilitator, 
or simply, to tune up their people skills.  It is a 
complimentary publication, devoted to the next
evolution of Quality Thinking.

View Earlier Issues --See our new website (http://www.mkkey.com) 

Contents:

• What's Hot in Leadership
• Maintaining Yourself as a Leader
• Frequently Asked Questions from Leaders
• Educational Opportunities
• Useful Websites
• Articles/Publications
  

"To attain your own potential, be mindful of everyone else's. "
           -- Marc Ian Barasch rephrasing the Bodhisattva

"The best thing to do behind a friend's back is to pat it ."
           -- Ruth Brillhart

"The best way to forget your own problems is to help 
someone else solve theirs."
           -- Conventional Wisdom

"Getting people to like you is simply the other side 
of liking people."
           -- Mark Twain

"Human conversation is the most ancient and the 
easiest way to cultivate the conditions for change
--personal change, community and organizational 
change, planetary change."
           -- Margaret Wheatley

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WHAT'S HOT IN LEADERSHIP
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LEADING AS A "PROCESS FACILITATOR"
WOULD LEAD.

ATTENDING TO BOTH TASK AND 
INTERPERSONAL DYNAMICS.

ACQUIRING SKILLS FOR INTERCULTURAL 
AND INTER-GROUP COMMUNICATION.

DEVELOPING A COMPASSIONATE 
INTEREST IN OTHERS.

DEPERSONALIZING FAULT.

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MAINTAINING YOURSELF AS A LEADER
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As a leader, you are in the "communication" 
business.  Communication begins and ends with 
"relationship-building." A successful communicator 
gains benefit from social interaction, and is able to 
harvest  both emotional and  intellectual information 
from communication.

We have all, hopefully, been in the aura of a leader 
who made us feel special--as if we were vitally 
important.  Here is magic and talent at work.  
Notice they attend first to the person, then to 
the task at hand.  They have learned that 
greetings are important; partings are equally so.  
And their dialogue is laced with human interest.

Hone your listening skills and shift the center 
of your attention to the other(s).  Ask how they 
are--really.  Understand more deeply than you 
think you need to.  The pay-off is revealing a 
"whole person" not a "role person" to the 
workplace.

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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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"Employees are always bringing problems to my door.  
They are usually complaints, upsets, or something that 
angers them.  Suggestions?"

Know what is expected of you as a listener.  Dorothy 
Leeds (2000) suggests that you ask three questions:

1.  Do you want me just to listen? 
2.  Do you want me to ask questions and interact with you?
3.  Do you want me to give you advice?

This targets your listening, and better meets the needs 
of the associate.  I also recommend that you ask them for 
creative solutions and how they will contribute to the
resolution.

"I have trouble getting people to participate in meetings.  
I end up doing most, if not all, of the talking."

Good meetings require design.  The crafting of an agenda 
needs to incorporate principles that draw people out.  
Juanita Brown (2005) describes this as the World Cafe: 

* Set the context - Clarify the purpose and parameters 
of the conversation and its place in the larger environment 
in which it will happen.
* Create hospitable space - Provide a welcoming, safe, 
life-serving environment.
* Explore questions that matter - Invite collective 
attention to what's important for the participants.
* Encourage everyone's contribution - Engage meaningful 
participation by each person, with true respect.
* Cross-pollinate and connect diverse perspectives - 
Facilitate juicy diversity and equally juicy interconnectedness.
* Listen together for patterns, insights, and deeper questions - 
Help coherent group insight emerge naturally from the 
play of individual perspectives and passions.
* Harvest and share collective discoveries - Make 
the group's collective intelligence visible to itself.

"Do we have to do warm-ups at every meeting? 

If you want to build relationships, yes.  Something 
that brings people into the community (combine communication 
and unity).   Craig and Patricia Neal of The Heartland Institute 
refer to this as Opening the Circle by "Stringing the Beads."  
Who is present and accounted for?  Each person may say 
something in response to a question.

The Circle must also be Closed, perhaps with a 
Learning or a Commitment.  These can be referred to 
as "Pearls."  Openers and Closings are the bookends 
of a meeting.

"Doesn't all this human relations stuff must eat into our 
productive time?"

Hofner Saphiere studied 12 global business teams 
over 9 months, and found that "productive teams" 
(vs. non-productive ones):

* Engaged in 2 1/2 times more productive behavior 
and 4 times more process behavior.
* Communicated 53% more frequently.
* Placed a higher value on social interaction.
* Engaged in frequent informal conversation.
* Felt understood and respected.
* Expressed differences of opinion more frequently.
* Disagreed in a depersonalized manner 50% more often.
* In face-to-face meetings, spent significant time on relationship-building.
* Used several communication media to balance affect and task.
* Even in written communication, began and ended with relationship-building information.
* Rotated leadership, in a process leadership manner.
* Unanimously wanted to work together again.