How to be tough, tell the truth, and still build trust

How to be tough, tell the truth, and still build trust

This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.

Galvanized heart

“Tough love” is a phrase that comes to mind when I think about trusted advisorship. There’s the love part: traits like compassion, sensitivity, understanding, curiosity, empathy. And there’s bringing a certain toughness, too: a willingness to ask a really provocative question, put a stake in the ground, or put hard truths on the table. Today’s tip focuses on how to do the latter in a way that actually builds trust, rather than breaks it.
A hidden addiction that fells most SMEs

A hidden addiction that fells most SMEs

This post is part of our Weekly Tips series.

Gold fishes around a big hook

I lead workshops to a lot of really smart subject matter experts, most of whom are right a lot of the time—and like others to see it that way. I help them begin to see why this is a problem, which I’ll bottom-line for you with a favorite quote from my co-author Charlie Green: “Being right is vastly overrated. Being right too soon just pisses people off.”