Really Good Advice About Things I'm Really Bad At

I tend to raise an eyebrow at much of what appears in Harvard Business Review, as I find it often descends into jargon-filled attempts to avoid saying anything concrete.

These two columns by Ed Batista and Mark Goulston are spot-on, jargon-free, and give some specifically useful advice. Now if I just didn't find it so (emotionally) hard to put this advice into practice:

How to Listen When Your Communication Styles Don’t Match, by Goulston talks about how to work with people who have extreme communication styles such as people who vent/scream or people who (over)explain/belabor.

This is hard for me in part because I am myself an over-explainer and having grown up with my mother's verbal and emotional abuse I have deep-rooted instinctual reactions to people yelling at me.

Don’t Inflict Help, Provide It by Batista talks about ways in which we think we are being helpful but in fact are not. Guilty as charged, your honor.

(Links from Alison Green's "Ask a Manager" blog and thanks to hammercock who pointed me to the blog some months ago.)