Lead with a Story: EDUCATE others [ARR]

(To refresh yourself with the previous chapter, click here)

In addition to motivating people, your stories will provide an added bonus if the listener can learn something new and useful in the process. To EDUCATE, the second to last section of Lead with a Story, you must:

EDUCATE others

Teach important lessons

Provide Coaching and Feedback

Demonstrate Problem Solving

Help Everyone Understand the Customer

and use Metaphors and Analogies

Some key takeaways from these chapters were:

• You can’t tell people how to handle every situation that might confront them. “Two roads” stories, or in other words, stories wherein the protagonist had two options and chose one over the other, give your listeners a picture of what success and failure can look like.
• We generally learn more from our failures than from our successes. Unfortunately, people are generally hesitant to talk about their failures. Don’t be. Share your greatest failures so others can avoid them. They’ll respect and appreciate you for it.
• If you want to get better at something, find someone who does it exceptionally well and watch what he or she does.
• Celebrate your successes. Even if only in small ways.
• Feedback is one of a few gifts often unwelcome by the recipient. You can deliver feedback that will be received in a better way if you a) start with positive feedback, b) confirm they agree there is a problem, c) ask what they are already doing about it, d) include an offer to help, e) reassure them they are too valuable to continue along this path.
• When you are asking for feedback, make sure you are asking the right question. For example, if you are concerned about your participation in a meeting, you might not ask, “Did I speak up enough?” but instead, “Did I add value to the topic?”

The final chapter of this book covers how to EMPOWER others. After that, we are onto our next book, The 2 Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton.