Manage To Engage | Businesses Grow When People Do

We’ve lost the art of asking great questions, but over this four-part series we’re going to get back into practice.   Why is the art of asking questions important? Asking great questions is an expression of curiosity and the desire to learn. You don’t grow without being deeply curious. And you’ll find that your curiosity elicits curiosity in others and inspires them to grow as well. For managers, this is absolutely key to developing people. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Our workforce and society is in the process of revolution: casting off the archaic slave labor mentality that has been chained to work throughout most of human history.   And this cycle of conditioning only breaks when the manager says no, instead offering the deeply-craved but seldom-asked-for salve of accountability to their people.   Today we’re going to wrap up this series on what people really want by asking a bigger question – what is something your people really need to grow, even if they don’t want it, and how can you give it to them? I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

As managers, it’s important to get a little insight into what the people you are managing want, whether those people happen to be employees or yourself.   And right now, I can tell you one thing that people don’t actually want: to stay the same and be complacent. So today I want to talk about the manager’s role in giving people what they really want, even if they don’t know it themselves. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

I offer weekly member webcasts, online courses, and mentorship at Clear And Open.com because it’s my truth that, with the right tools, anyone can eliminate the people, money, and time problems holding them back in business. And I share parts of these webcasts and courses on this show because I want to help you, too. If you’re enjoying the show and learning from it, I’d love your feedback. If you are listening to the show on an Apple device, all you have to do is open the podcast app, view the full description of this episode, and click the link to leave a Rating & Review for the show. Thanks for listening. Let’s start the show.

Marketers know a lot about how human beings think and operate, some of which you may not even know about yourself. For example, most people have no idea what they really want – or, more accurately, most people have some ideas about what they want, but they don’t really know.   Marketers also know that humans make purchasing decisions emotionally and then rationalize them afterwards – but, for some reason, we rarely talk about how to apply that knowledge to any area of life outside of commerce.   Today I want to talk more about the insight that marketers have on human behavior, especially when it comes to what people really want, and how we can apply that knowledge to managing ourselves and others. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Over the past three episodes, we’ve established how the cycle of disengagement leads to supervision and why supervision is a completely unnecessary waste of resources that enables mediocrity.   To conclude this series, I want to offer you the antidote to this problem – meta-supervision – and discuss how it will help you better manage yourself and others. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

We internalize our points of view on the world, turning perception into identity. So when we hate working for the man and think work sucks, we become a person who works for the man and resents it.   That’s the context I want you to understand as we start defining what supervision really is and creating more awareness around how it negatively impacts our lives. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, I shared my theory on the cycle of disengagement. Today we’re going to go over the unique ways disengagement manifests in our lives and how we can start creating a new, more productive dynamic to disrupt that cycle. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

Society conditions us to crave supervision… and hate it. School, work, authority figures – they all contribute to disengagement in various forms, priming us to both invite and resent “the man” for watching over us.   So to start this four-part series on management, supervision, and meta-supervision, I want to share my theory about how disengagement works, and why I think this cycle of disengagement is a multi-billion dollar worldwide problem. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To conclude this series, I want to talk about the gradual and constant nature of learning – even for teachers. You can know a heck of a lot about something, even be considered an expert on a subject, and still be learning it.   Learning is not binary, and it doesn’t serve us to think about it that way. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

We’re conditioned to believe that knowing equals change. However, knowing is just the first step towards change. In this episode, I deconstruct this conditioning so that we can build a better understanding of the learning process. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, we established that learning is not just about memorizing knowledge – it’s also about developing new skills and achieving greater awareness, and this kind of learning, this personal development, is much more effective at preparing us to overcome life’s challenges.   But over the last few decades, personal development has pretty much become mainstream, and as a result, a huge industry has grown around it… and not everything being sold by the industry will actually help you. Today I want to get into these problems, and how you can avoid them. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

As children, we are taught that schooling is learning – all memorization and regurgitation. But when we grow up, we find out that there’s a lot more to learn if we want to develop relationships and succeed in business.   Today, I want to untangle this confusing mess and separate the process of memorization from the concept of learning – and discuss the consequences of conflating the two. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

If you’ve listened to the past three episodes, one thing should be painfully clear: annual plans don’t work, and we’re wasting our time and energy when we try to make them work. But we have big goals and big things we want to accomplish, so we do need some sort of plan!   To conclude this series, let’s take a look at plans that do work – and the prices you will have to pay to make them happen. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

For part three of this four-part series on why annual plans don’t work, we’re looking at the difference between a goal and a plan (and, really, why successfully executing a plan as it was planned isn’t the most important thing). I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, we discussed why it’s more effective to plan using the “12-week year,” as opposed to the 52-week year. 365 days is just too much time, and your plans will get lost. 12 weeks, however, creates pressure for you to do something.   Today, we get into some of the tactics that a good manager can use, every single day, to keep themselves accountable and turn their plans into a reality. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

When it comes to the passage of time, the beginnings and endings are all made up. The weekend, the New Year: these things don’t REALLY exist. Human society, however, is hyper annualized. Memberships, resolutions, taxes – almost everything is constructed around a 365-day cycle.   But when we try to plan our lives around a 365-day cycle, it just doesn’t work. So, to start this series on Annual Planning, we’re going to explore why the structure really doesn’t serve us in the planning process. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

To conclude this series, I want to share an active meditation that is designed to make you more aware of your experience and help you surrender. After the meditation, we will look closely at what that experience reveals about our relationship with addiction, craving, and desire. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

For part three of our four-part series on Surrendering to Change, we explore how choosing to surrender to the practice and making one small change can result in a domino effect that produces profound change in other areas of your life. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)

In the last episode, we discussed the two orientations of change. You can either choose to stay who you are and change your behavior – like eliminating your morning cup of coffee – or you can choose to surrender to the process of changing, allowing it to teach you something about yourself – like discovering the reason you keep telling yourself that you can’t do anything in the morning until you’ve had caffeine.   Today we’re going to go even deeper into that second orientation, which allows us to not just change what we’re doing, but change ourselves and, ultimately, evolve from one stage of engagement to the next. I’d love your feedback. http://getpodcast.reviews/id/1234688298 (Click here to leave a rating & review for the show on iTunes.)