Communicate, Lead, and Transform Behaviors to Break Free from Your Mental Wheel Ruts

There are numerous books on how to improve your communication and leadership skills that are based solely on theory. This is not one of them. This how-to guide employs an empirical approach to meaningful improvement and aims to help you to leverage your own observations, assessments, experiences, and learning experiments, not just ours as the authors.

The first section deals with building better behavior-based communication skills, while working on fixing your mental wheel ruts (reinforcing negative behaviors that you find yourself performing over and over again). The communications section details how to listen better, build relationships, give and receive feedback, and mine disagreements for value, among other topics. The second section on leadership describes effective leadership in the virtual environment, building great work teams, and coaching for success. The final section combines your communication and leadership improvement areas into a focused transformation plan.

Eddie Merla, PMI-ACP, PMP is the owner and founder of Duende Project Management Services, a training and consulting company. Over his many decades of experience, Eddie has implemented project management programs, strategies, and best practices for multiple organizations and in multiple industries. His project management engagements have included North America, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. He has also implemented organizational structures to support large projects and improve the delivery of project and program results. William J. Murray has over 45 years of industry experience including senior management at a large multinational chemical company; owner and Managing Director of WJ Murray & Associates, a strategic management consulting organization; and as a senior consulting manager at Expressworks International, LLC, a change management consulting organization. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Rice University and the University of Houston. Bill’s consulting focus is on assisting leaders in the development and, more importantly, the execution of strategic plans.

Chapter 1: Communicate, Lead and Transform Chapter 2: Failing to Communicate Is Not an Option Chapter 3: Who Are You? Your Personality Traits Chapter 4: Listen Better to Succeed Chapter 5: Receiving and Giving Feedback — Are You Ready? Chapter 6: Every Relationship Has Value Chapter 7: Consequential Communication Chapter 8: Mining Disagreements for Value Chapter 9: Presenting Is Leading Chapter 10: Lead to Succeed Chapter 11: Team Dynamics Chapter 12: Coaching for Success Chapter 13: Good Teams to Great Teams Chapter 14: Transformation: Develop Your Plan—Make It Happen Appendix A: The Johari Window Appendix B: Relationship-Building Tool Appendix C: Multi-Criteria Decision Tool Appendix D: Goals, Planning, and Metrics Templates Appendix E: Example: Team Ground Rules Appendix F: Facilitation Guide Index