Real stories Archives - Page 7 of 16 - Soft Skills

Is it Better to Be the Fastest in a Slow Group or a Slow one in a Fast Group?

by Lei Han

For the last 5 years, I have been running the 15K hot chocolate run with a friend. We have been late to start the race for the last two years so ended up running with folks that are much slower than our speed. As soon as I crossed the start line, I started passing people left and right. At first, it was a great feeling, but then I started getting blocked to run any faster as there were simply too many walkers. ... read more

Are You Listening to Those Whose Communication Style are Different from Yours?

by Lei Han

are you listening to those whose communication style is different

I realized I am probably not listening well to those whose communication style are opposite that of mine! My 10 year old daughter, Isabel, made me realized this lately. I am a pretty fast talker who will inadvertently interrupt others when I get excited about a subject. Isabel, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. She can pause as long as 30 second or a minute before speaking her next sentence.

Here is one of our latest conversations

Me: So what happened? You don’t look as excited or as happy as I would expect after a first water rafting trip with your friends? How was it?
Isabel: It was okay. [silence]
Me: Did something happen? You look dehydrated. Was it not fun? Did you get hurt? Was it cold?
Isabel [frustrated]: You never listen to me…I don’t want to talk about it..
Me: [complete dumbfounded] But you haven’t said anything….
Isabel [she lets out a ‘ugh”]:I was still thinking about what to say.
Me: [staring … thinking]: How was I supposed to know that? You were completely silent
Isabel: [she lets out a another ugh and stopped talking. ]

I have had about 3 or 4 conversations like this with Isabel in the last few months. Of course, every mother daughter relationship naturally has conflicts as she is getting older and into her rebellious age. The repeat pattern of our conversation however made me realize that perhaps she was right in some respect. Maybe I wasn’t listening, at least not the way she was expecting.

Here is what I learned so far. Hope this will not only help me connect better with Isabel but also improve my ability to listen and communicate with colleagues that communicates differently than me. When it comes to people who are what I consider a more “deliberate, slow” communicator, I need to remember the following.

Let there be silence. Silence to a speaker like Isabel doesn’t mean she is done. She may very well be thinking how to phrase her next sentence. What I tend to do naturally is fill silence with more questions and words. That interrupts her thinking process and to her, I am aggravating her as “I am not listening.” It seems that way to her even though I was speaking after she is silent.

When speaking, keep it short and open ended. I was also peppering Isabel with many version of the same questions. She would receive it better if I just keep it simple – “Are you okay? Can you tell me what happened?” and stop there to let her decide. When I ask more questions, I am just frustrating a slow talker like her and convincing her to say nothing more.

Listen with the intent to understand vs the intent to reply. I think I do have this intent with Isabel. My intend is to understand, but because I am not used to such long pause, I end up coming across more aggressive to her than I realized. To her, any interruption from me or not pausing to wait through a bit of silence meant I wasn’t listening to her.

Aim Low and Get Somewhere – Aiming to Write the Crappiest Article Ever Written :-)

by Lei Han

This video clip motivated me to write and finish this article. It is from a Netflix movie I just watched called “Set it up.” While the movie is so-so, this 1 min clip is funny, practical, and inspiring. It helped me get over the writer’s block I have had for a month. More importantly, it will help you get unstuck if you are feeling overwhelmed at the moment.

I have had trouble finishing any articles in the last month. Partly it’s because work has been all consuming, and partly it’s because I have been putting too much pressure on myself to write the perfect article. I have rewritten the intro to a few articles for a few weeks now. Every week I didn’t publish something just made me pressure myself more to make sure the article I finish is extra insightful and helpful. I was literally over-analyzing every sentence.

I realized now that I was trying too hard to please when in fact the reason I started writing this blog was because it is therapeutic. The reason these articles may help you is because my stories are like yours – fulls of up and downs – mistakes and learnings.

It is exhausting to try to perfect anything. it is never an inspiring goal and actually makes everything we try to do feel like WORK we never want to do. This blog is not supposed to be work for me. It is supposed to heal me and perhaps you if you can relate. So the timing of this movie clip was perfect for me.

Once you see this 1 min clip – you will understand the title of this post. Here is some context.

Harper, the one crying in the clip, wants to become a sports journalist.

She has been working day and night for 3 years as an executive assistant for Kirsten, the most accomplished sports writer in the industry.

Harper wants Kirsten to help her with her writing but Harper hasn’t written a single article since she started work there.

Now that she has time, she still cannot finish her first article

Becka in the clip is Harper’s best friend who gives her some very sound advice to get Harper unstuck.

How to Become an Extraordinary Leader – 3 Unexpected Lessons

by Lei Han

When I was nominated for a leadership training at work, I was honored but skeptical I would learn anything substantial. I am glad however to be proven wrong. In the last five months, I have learned more about my leadership style and leadership brand than I had ever expected. Even better, I am already applying what I learned at work and seeing results. Here are the three unexpected leadership lessons I learned about how to become an extraordinary leader.

Lesson #1: Extraordinary leadership is about strengthening our strengths vs. fixing weaknesses

Growing up Asian, I always thought to become extraordinary I must eliminate all weaknesses – i.e. score 100 on tests, get all As, and be a perfectionist at work. In the last 20 years of work, I learned to stop being a perfectionist. However, I still heavily focus on learning what I am not good at as a leader and put a lot of energy into fixing those.

It was refreshing to learn at this training from Zenger Folkman that becoming an extraordinary leader is about strengthening my strengths vs fixing weaknesses. There is no perfect leader. Steve Jobs is a great example of this – a dynamic, visionary leader and a terrible people manager. The whole concept actually makes a lot of sense, as no one really can be good at every aspect of leadership. Just like a company must focus on its core strength vs trying to be all things to all people, a leader also needs to follow the same concept. It’s better for me to pick a few leadership qualities that I am already strong at and make that stand out above all else. That’s what will differentiate me as a leader.

This leadership lesson is quite freeing for me. I realized I don’t have to change who I am or overwhelmed myself with “fixing everything.” All I have to do is tweak a few things in my leadership style to make it even better. For example, I am already a high achiever and gets results wherever I work. I also collaborate well with teams and partners. What I need to tweak is my communication style in some difficult situations. I know how to do this in some circumstances but not all. Selecting this as something to focus on is both achievable and will make a significant difference in my leadership effectiveness

Lesson #2: It’s okay for an extraordinary leader to announce ourselves and show vulnerability

I learned this from one of the leadership speakers at our training. I really appreciated her direct communication style, confidence, and simple wisdom. She shared that it’s okay to announce yourself to your team and partners. For example,

Let them know what I expect from them as they newly join my team (e.g., I expect you to ask questions if you don’t understand something. Otherwise, I will assume we are on the same page)

Let them know If i am having a challenging day (e.g., I am feeling impatient today)

Happy 2017 – Say Yes

by Lei Han

Happy New Year! Sunday was my annual Hot Chocolate 15K race. My friend Agnes got me into it 3 years ago. It’s a great way to start off the year – a long run (9.4 miles) followed by a nice cup of hot chocolate and an amazing natural high all day.

Well, I didn’t go this year. I woke up at 6:30am and it was POURING. San Francisco had flood warning all weekend. While the race was still on (I couldn’t believe it), I have never ran in pouring rain before and couldn’t imagine being drenched for an hour and half. I was packed but at 7am I decided not to go.

Instead I decided to drive my friend to the race and do the 15K at a gym nearby. When I pulled up into Golden Gate Park to drop her, I started to question my decision. There were thousands of runners, even kids with rain gear, bibs, ready to face the rain.

Was I chickening out?
Should I have gone in the rain?
Will I feel just as good if I did it at the gym?

For the next 20 minutes, I beat myself up for not daring to run in the rain. It was not fun in my head. It was my sister in law that pulled me out of it. She texted us to see if we went to the race. I said Agnes went but I will do it in the gym. She wrote back, “Both of you are rock stars! I am still in my pjs.” Her text made me smile and I realized how silly I was being.

Just like last year, this year’s 15K race was another great learning experience. Here are 4 things I learned

There are no perfect decisions. Questioning my own decision was counter-productive and demotivating. It’s better to appreciate that I made a decision with imperfect information and just stick to it. Any decision and action is better than no decision and no action. As I snapped out of my 20 minutes of negative thoughts, I realized this decision was a great learning opportunity. While I am not running in the race, I learned what I could do next time, by seeing my friend and all these runners show up for the race. I was sure my friend was crazy to run in it, but I was amazed at the turn out – about 5K+ runners showed up for the race.. I now have experience to make a different decision next time. I also plan to do a practice run in the rain this year to see how to deal with it first hand before I have to do it in a race.

Stop comparing. Just do it & learn. As an overachiever, I have a bad habit of comparing myself to others, especially those more experienced or more “accomplished.” It’s unproductive and demotivating. My friend has ran in the rain before. I have not. Yet, I instinctively put myself down for not willing to go. It sounds silly now as I write it, but it happens often to many of us. How many times have you not done something because you are worried that you won’t do it as well? Everyone has to start somewhere and work their way toward their own goal. By comparing, I was not enjoying my journey at the gym initially. I am thankful my sister in law snapped me out of it quickly. This year, I will continue to work on catching myself when I compare and stop doing it.

Say Yes in my own way. There isn’t one right way to say yes to opportunities. In the case of this race, my friend, said yes, by going to the race and I said yes, by going to the gym and run the 15K there. I can choose to value my own decision and appreciate my own effort for committing to the 15K race. I could have easily dropped her off and went home to sleep, given bad weather :-). I love to sleep when it’s pouring rain. Happiness is often about perspective. One person may be super happy by finishing last in a race just because he showed up and had the guts to do it. Another person can be disappointed in the same race by coming in second instead of first place. We always have a choice on how we view ourselves. Why not choose a perspective that motivates us to take more action.

Whatever I commit to, I can do. Time and time again, I am learning that I can do so much more than I think I can. For this race, I didn’t train very much. I barely worked out over the holidays and my left leg was feeling off all last week. I wasn’t sure I can even last the whole 15K. I told myself, speed is not the goal. All I need to do is stay on the treadmill for 15K. If I had to walk some of it, so be it. What I was sure was I was committed to doing the full 15K at the gym. I have never ran that long on a treadmill before either. I was amazed at my body’s capacity to push me through the run. We often under-estimate our own strengths, both mentally and physically. I was so pumped by the last 5K, I even did speed runs for 30 seconds intervals at 7.5min per mile (that’s super fast for me). It was exhilarating to witness at my own physical strengths. And I was rewarded still with a great natural high the rest of the day 🙂

How to Get Promoted as a Generalist in a Company Full of Specialists

by Lei Han

Are you a “Generalist” or “Specialist” at your company? Both exists in most companies and serve distinct purposes. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary

Generalist is defined as “a person who knows something about a lot of subjects.” – a Partner in a consulting firm is a generalist as he or she would sell work, build relationships, and lead execution teams.

Specialist is defined as “a person who has special knowledge and skill relating to a particular job, area of study” – a Director in a consulting firm is a specialist who usually go deep on a topic but focus on a specific set of tasks (e.g., Lead execution or serve as SME for all Salesforce implementation for financial service industries)

Interpersonal Skills Example – Can You Let It Go?

by Lei Han

This interpersonal skills example can happen any day at work or in life. It was our second day in Beijing. My cousin, my mom, and Isabel went to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was majestic, fun, but a super long walk. By 1pm, we were all exhausted, hungry and decided to Uber back to the hotel.

Yes, there was Uber in China and very reasonably priced. 🙂 My cousin requested one on her phone. After 10 min, he was still not there, so she called the driver only to find out that he was on the wrong side of the road. The driver asked us to cross the road to meet him. It wasn’t feasible as we were far away from any cross walk and it was about 8 lanes across, illegal and unsafe to jaywalk across. We asked him to circle to pick us up where we originally said.

Another 15 minutes went by, he finally picked us up. As soon as we got into the car, the driver started complaining, how difficult it was to pick us up, what a tough day he has had, and how badly the uber app sucked. I was going to say something as it was inappropriate for him to unleash his irritation on us. We were in the right.

We patiently waited for him for 25 minutes.

He was clearly lost and didn’t know his way which was why it took him so long.

We didn’t cancel on him even though we could have to opt for a cab instead.

My cousin was also feeling stressed as she knew my mom was tired.