When I owned the magazine I published for 10 years, I was looking to hire an assistant.
One of the test assignments I gave to the applicant is to sort the stuff in a junk drawer. I gave them no pointers… it was a big drawer, a lot of things to sort.
Every single applicant failed to find something relevant to sort by. I finally hired a girl who was nice, but useless…
Sorting is a life skill. Deciding on a relevant criteria to sort by is a life skill.
I learned life-skills in Landmark Education.
Previously I was like a nerd, an idiot savant.
One of the life-skill I learned is to be able to keep to what is relevant, to what belongs to the conversation.
In meetings at Landmark Education, they choose a “conversation manager”.
The two jobs of the conversation manager is to
- keep people to say only what belongs to the conversation
- to make sure that everything said forwards the conversation towards resolution.
I am always dumbfounded by people’s inability to see what belongs to a conversation.
Continue reading “Hijacking the conversation… inside and outside”