The Focus 3 Blog

It is no secret that communication is essential to a healthy relationship. Nevertheless, we engage in behavior that creates communication barriers. We often act in ways that undermine our relationships and disconnect us from the people we work with and care about. Here are some common barriers to communication to watch out for. We call them The 10 Disconnectors:

BCD is a serious problem. It afflicts millions of people every day, and is often triggered by work stress. BCD is also known as Blaming, Complaining, & Defending. Sadly, BCD is the standard response for many people when they encounter challenges or difficulties in life. But blaming others, complaining about circumstances, and defending yourself is a bad investment of time & energy. Here are 7 reasons why...

An Arizona Chick-fil-A employee known only by her first name, Rachel, gave the world an astonishing example of how to manage The R Factor.

In honor of the victims,
please make a donation to one of "America's Best 100 Charities" at www.rainn.org.

I recently read Sam Sommers new book Situations Matter and was struck by how much of what he wrote directly applied to The R Factor. So I asked him to write a guest blog sharing some of his insights. Sam is an award winning professor of psychology at Tufts University in Boston and his latest work tells us how the context of a situation can, and often does, significantly influence our behavior. No one is exempt from this. As you'll read below, every one of us can unintentionally fall victim to the power of context. Luckily we've brought Sam in to help us understand how context works and what we can do to respond more effectively.

Post by Tim Kight

Much of our work entails speaking at conferences and teaching in workshops. At least half our time is devoted to these kinds of events. We speak to large groups and small groups, entire organizations and departments, associations and focus groups. We talk about leadership, organizational culture, behavior, and every other training and development hot button issue. But there is a problem with these kinds of events. They aren't a substitute for real learning. They sound good. They provide useful information. Sometimes they even inspire us . . . for a few days.

Recently I was at Starbucks and overheard two people having an animated conversation about their leader.  Given the proximity of their table and the volume of their conversation, I could not help but hear everything they said.

In The R Factor workshop we challenge people to answer several very important questions: What do you want to accomplish with your life?  What impact do you want your life to have?  What do you want to be remembered for?  What legacy do you want to leave?  To help people answer these essential questions, we ask them to engage in the following exercise. 

If people are the ultimate source of competitive advantage (and they are!), then it follows that leadership is an essential skill that organizations must master. The performance of a company and its people is directly connected to the effectiveness of its leaders and their leadership skills.  Here are eight principles that every leader at every level should remember.