This week I will point you to the third of four articles by Mark Goulston and John Ullmen, "How to Really Understand Someone Else's Point of View."
The authors talk about how important it is to start from where the other person is in order to influence him or her to get to where you are. They also talk about three ways to engage others: situational awareness, personal awareness, and solution awareness. I encourage you to read the article in order to find out what these three awareness methods are.
Last week I talked about my own tendency to jump to a solution when someone comes to me for advice. I've been working in IT administration for a long time, so it is easy for me to provide a quick answer. But this strategy does not help the other person develop problem-solving skills. And it results in that person continuing to come to me for answers, increasing the number of interruptions I need to deal with.
Although it may take a bit longer, a better approach is to ask, "What would you do in this situation?" or, "What do you recommend." If I can make myself do this consistently, I might even find that others have better ideas and novel new approaches.
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