How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

B
RINGING THE
 B
EST
 O
UT OF
 O
THERS
Think about someone who’s doing some work for you—or someone you
want to help. Experiment with these techniques:
Extreme listening.
Improve the quality of the other person’s thinking
by listening to him or her unusually closely, without interrupting.
Coach, don’t tell.
Use the GROW questions to guide the other person
through clarity on the 
goal
, the current 
reality
, the 
options
they see (add
yours only after they share theirs), and the 
way forward
.
Give brain-friendly feedback.
Use one or more of these three
techniques next time you want to provide input or challenge someone’s
ideas:
• “What I like(d) about that is…” and “What would make me like it
even more is…”
• “Yes, and…” (rather than “Yes, but…”).
• “What would need to be true to make that work?”
Be fair.
Be as transparent as you can in explaining the process for
making tough decisions. Be alert to anything the other person might
perceive as unfair, even if you don’t see it as such.

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PART IV
Thinking
Being Your Smartest, Wisest, Most Creative Self
The difficulty lies not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old
ones.
—
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES
Sometimes we have days when we just nail it: we have great ideas, make
smart comments, and maybe even make people laugh with our searing wit.
But on other days our mental engine is running more slowly than we’d like.
We get bogged down in a task, pushing hard but failing to make much
headway. We think of something clever to say in a conversation, but it
comes to us hours after the moment has passed. We might even find
ourselves making a dumb mistake, whether it’s one that prompts an
immediate cringe or one that comes back to bite us later.
Of course, all sorts of things can block our brilliance from shining
through on occasion. Our work might be harder than usual—or perhaps
we’re just not firing on all cylinders after being up late the night before.
Whatever the cause,