Words Matter. It Is Not What But How We Say It.

Choosing words wisely increases our chances to get heard and foster an environment in which our colleagues will feel safe to speak their mind – bring new ideas and suggestions etc. We will get their attention!

It’s been a while but today I am gladly resuming my publications. Today I will share something about feedback and how the selection of our words is important.

I once read somewhere that around 250k people die in the US every year as result of medical mistakes. Investigations found that more than a third of these fatalities could have been avoided if doctor’s assistants had spoken when noticing that something in the procedure was incorrect. The fact, apparently, was that most of these assistants don’t speak because of the negative reaction (even aggressive) from doctors.

Have you ever experience a situation in which you were in doubt whether you should speak or remain quiet afraid of being shut by someone who believe to ‘know-it-better’?

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Leadership Interview: Caroline Wu ‘My Coaching Journey’

We follow the fortunes of a senior leader in China over a four year period as she learns and applies her coaching skills in three different and progressively more senior job roles and ends up Managing Director of a significant business unit with full P&L responsibility.

I first started working with the Top Team at Maersk Line East China Cluster (PRE) in Shanghai when I visited them in April 2011 to kick off the Coaching Master Class program. Caroline Wu was a member of the senior management team and starting out on her coaching journey.

I was very fortunate to be working with Caroline at that time. She translated my facilitator guide into Mandarin for the train-the-train roll out of the program. She also co-facilitated the program with me the following year for the North China Cluster (PRN) in Qingdao.

Here she reflects on that journey four years on. Caroline has been promoted twice in that period. I was lucky enough to capture her thoughts on her coaching journey at each stage. What has she learned along the way? What can we learn from her experiences?

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