I love this week's links, so I'm just going to launch right into them:

• Shut the lizard up! Great advice from marketing tribe leader (and author of Tribes) Seth Godin on moving past fear to be creative and PRODUCE.

• Improve Your Team's Progress: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus talks about venture capitalist John Doerr's "OKR" routine, a "simple organizing principle that keeps people focused on the three things that matter — not the 10." We like it and are going to try it out around here.

• The Art of Presentations: I got a lot out of Jon Thomas' free ebook, "10 Techniques for More Effective Presentations" (get it on his blog). In fact, I found myself quoting it on the phone as I gave a freelancer notes on the slides he's creating for me. One tip I especially liked was "Understand the Cognitive Load Theory" - the idea that the amount of information presented to the brain must be at a minimum during the learning process.

Bloggers, send me your best relationship-success related links! Readers, send me the best thing you've read all week. I'd love to share it here.  I'm at sgrace at ferrazzigreenlight dot com.

Also, if you go check out any of the above, I'd like to hear your thoughts and discuss in the comments.

1 comment // In Relationship Trends and Research

Last Tuesday I wrote about poor listening skills, and someone challenged me in the comments to give you guys more about not just recognizing behaviors that need to change, but how to actually CHANGE them. Fair enough!

Here's part of a Tip we sent out a while back address just this question. It's an exercise called "Dial Up/Dial Down" that we use at FG and in corporate engagements. It's effective!

* * *

At my company we have an exercise we call "Dial Up/Dial Down." We use it to push each other to constantly develop our strengths and improve on our weaknesses. We introduce it to clients too. You can use in your own office, in your family, with a buddy, or in any kind of group that cares about each other's success. You can do it alone, of course, but it's not nearly as effective when there's no one to hold you accountable.

Here's how it works: We create a chart on a giant Post-It ® page, with all of our names, plus columns for "Dial Up" and "Dial Down."

The "Dial Up" column is for skills or behaviors an individual wants to put into action more often. These could be strengths the person already has but needs to push more to the fore, or areas where improvement or learning is needed.

The "Dial Down" column is for negative or unconstructive habits and personality traits that someone wants to cut back.

We go around the room and team members each volunteer a dial-up and a dial-down that they plan to work on. If they have trouble deciding, they can call on the group for help. Sometimes examples help inform people's thinking, so at the bottom of this email I've listed some common dial ups and downs.

Everyone's commitments go in writing on the chart, which hangs in our conference room as a reminder to the person, and to everyone else, of the change they plan to make.

At the next staff meeting, we self-evaluate on a 0-5 scale how well we each did. If your team's relationships are strong enough -- and that should certainly be a goal to work toward -- you can also have peers offer up their evaluations. Believe me, opening the floor to that feedback keeps the process honest like nothing else. But it requires that your team is tight enough to feel safe giving and receiving candor.

Does your office have any weekly accountability in place around behavioral change?

1 comment // In Coaching

When I first read Keith’s books, I intuitively agreed with his advice to lead with generosity when meeting new people or with coworkers. I thought it meant remembering birthdays, asking people how I could help, and generally being a nice person – but recently, trying to connect with clients and friends in a new way, I see leading with generosity as a much more complex practice.

I’ve been feeling much more joyful about all of my relationships - personal and business relationships - since I started using the following 4 guidelines.

1. Listen for what the person you are talking with really wants. It’s not about just being friendly at this stage – but being present to what the person is saying and not saying, probing to understand what is driving the person at this moment. Surprisingly most people share this information, what they really want, in the first 3-5 minutes if you listen and ask thoughtful questions.

2. Make the decision to help with no expectation of payback or attachment to outcome. For me, I see a vision of that person having actually achieved what they want and then I make a truthful decision about whether or not I can help them.

3. Follow through and send the article, make the introduction, or set up the meeting that naturally follows from the offer of help.

4. And finally, commit to not let the person fail in achieving what they want – whether or not they accept your offer to help. This may mean checking in after a few weeks or simply listening, without saying “I told you so,” as they make their own way.

How do you lead with generosity?

4 comments // In Business Networking

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.  ~William Wordsworth

Never ever, walk into a meeting cold. Because cold is how you'll leave it.

Instead, walk in ready to spread around what I call “universal currency” – ways to be generous and spread goodwill to anyone that we meet. Generosity is the first step to warming up to a relationship.

Universal currency is particularly important at first meetings and interviews, where even if you do your homework, you may be limited in your background knowledge.

Here are five forms of universal currency and suggestions for how to put them into play. Read more →

46 comments // In Uncategorized

What a week: We are working like maniacs around here, pulling together material for Keith's online Relationship Masters Academy that you'll be hearing about more soon! It's going to be a crazy few months. Otherwise put, employee engagement will be high, very high.

Now, links:

• Special Needs, Special Kids: First if you haven't seen Keith's video from the orphanage he visited in Shanghai, you've got to. It'll bring a smile to your face, but also conveys a serious message: These kids need help!

• Brilliant productivity tip: Make NOT-to-do lists. Thank you Life Hacker. Disguised procrastination and time-sucks, be gone!

• Facebook Fail: The Desperate Marketer, The Event Coordinator, The Horrible Photo Tagger... any avid Facebooker will recognize these unpleasant behavioral profiles immediately. Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem! Hat tip to @jsupermurray for the link.

• DIY Overload: Copyblogger reminds entrepreneurs not to shoot themselves in the foot by thinking they have to go it alone. Think bigger, think abundance, and cultivate great partnerships!

And so I leave you with Keith's favorite motto: "Let others help!"

3 comments // In Relationship Trends and Research

Where to start from my trip to China? Orphanages, learnings from the meeting of a huge global company meeting, walking the streets in a not-so-strange city... Let's start with the kids.

Special Needs, Special Kids

We visited two orphanages.  It's orphanage two I'd like to focus on (video below!) -- a child care center for mentally disabled children, under-funded compared to its fancy counterpart across town (and in Shanghai, across town is at least an hour drive or more).  My friend Tim Shriver has lead the Special Olympics and spoken to me for years about both the need for and the joy volunteers get from working with these kids.

Read more →

9 comments // In Uncategorized

I used to think mentors had all the answers. If I just found the right one, my life would become so much easier. That all changed last year, when I went through a long job search looking for the “right fit” (and happily landed at Ferrazzi Greenlight!).

I had many people help me in unexpected ways: an Intel executive I met in business school, the managing partner of my old firm, and even a couple of ex-clients. They didn’t offer me answers, instead they shared knowledge and gave input based on their experience. They didn’t have a magical key to unlock the door to my next job …but they felt along the wall with me, until I found the right door and unlocked it myself.

From this experience, I learned the following lessons:

1.    Mentorship starts with generosity…and vulnerability. Yes, there is the gift of time from the mentor, but equally important is being vulnerable and sharing where you really need help.

2.   Be specific about the feedback and input you want. Don’t just ask the mentor to “help” you, share the specific questions you are struggling with so that the advice you receive is immediately useful.

3.   Stay in touch. Let your mentor know how things are going from time to time. I try to stay in touch every with an e-mail or hand-written card every 2-3 months – this way, if you need their help again, you won’t feel awkward or have to catch them up on everything!

Any tips you’ve found helpful for finding and keeping mentors?

6 comments // In Coaching

Failing to listen well is rude. I don't care whether you're talking to the Queen of England or your intern. It very loudly communicates, Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. And as a master relationship builder, it's your job to care.

Ready to assess how well you listen? My colleague Dr. Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, has four categories for how we listen, the Four R’s: removed, reactive, responsible, and receptive listening.

Here's the breakdown:

1.   Removed listening is just what it sounds like: removed.   It’s the kind of listening you do when you’re actually engaged in something else, like using your BlackBerry.  You may parrot back what I’ve said, but you aren’t really paying attention.  You’re mind is elsewhere and you risk letting me feel like I’m being ignored or like what I say doesn’t mean anything to you.  It’s a lot like talking over someone else’s words in a conversation—but in this case you’re “listening over” my words. Read more →

39 comments // In Communication

Hello all. I've been working out of New York this week and watching all the usual tropes about LA vs. NYC etiquette come to life. It's definitely time for me to go home when I roll over some woman's foot with my suitcase and instead of apologizing, feel irritated that she didn't move her foot out of my way.

Now, on to today's links....

Hope 2.0: Can our nation thrive without empathy? Arianna Huffington says no; empathy is how we create the conditions for change. We at Ferrazzi Greenlight wholeheartedly agree. Thanks to FG's CEO Bo Manning for circulating this link.

Pursue the Passion: Brett Farmiloe blogs on the creative process behind his book, Pursue the Passion, which grew out of a 16,ooo mile bus trip to interview people who were passionate about their work.

From Volunteer to Employee: Read how others have done it. Hat tip to career columnist @heymarci for the link.

Dealing with the Silent Treatment: Sound advice from HBR - reach out once then let it go.

Anger Management: Psychology Today thin slices anger so you can identify its source and deal with it appropriately.

Finally, an announcement: Next week we'll be introducing a regular Wednesday guest to Keith's blog, Meghna Majmudar, who runs Keith's team cohesion consultancy in NY. Tune in!

2 comments // In Relationship Trends and Research

In the Stones documentary Shine the Light, Martin Scorsese asks Keith Richards who he thinks is the better guitarist, himself or Ronnie Wood. The question was tongue-in-cheek, but Keith answers in kind:

"The truth is we are both sh*t - but together - we are better than any ten…"

Thanks to Jason Jon for sending this anecdote my way. Forward it to your favorite colleagues!

Who's the Ronnie Wood to your Keith Richards, and what makes the relationship/collaboration so effective?

1 comment // In Team Building, Uncategorized