Tag: communication

Language as a Bridge: The power of communication over perfection

Piotr, you speak seven languages. How did you do it? I usually say "hold my beer" and then I tell a long story :) The story is indeed a long one and it began nearly 25 years ago. At that time, I failed one of the two university entrance exams. In order to retake it, I decided to study German philology, just for a year, to improve my German, which by the way, I had already been studying for nearly a decade. A year later, I passed the exam, but unfortunately, I did not succeed in the second one. As a result, I remained in the German philology program with the intention of leveraging later my German language skills in my career. This path eventually led me to my first role in the industry. In my second company I was quickly promoted (at just 27 years old) and became Sales Director for Central and Eastern Europe. My responsibilities included building the company’s operations from scratch in over 20 countries, participating in international trade fairs and negotiating contracts. Soon I realized that in addition to improve my English, which was at the time truly indispensable at the time, I also need to learn Russian as quickly as possible. This was the last language I studied with a teacher and even though the process took less than two years. Learning subsequent languages became significantly faster, I could reach a level of comfortable in just a few weeks for each of one. What truly accelerated my progress were the frequent opportunities to apply my skills and the conclusion that foreign languages are, in essence, tools for building relationships. The stronger the relationships I wanted to cultivate, the faster I needed to master a particular language. I fully immersed myself in each language and sought ways to enhance my productivity, tailoring the learning process to fit my daily routine and lifestyle. This approach proved to be a real game changer.

Communicate As If You Were Deaf – interview with Bruno Kahne

An interview with Dr. Bruno Paul Kahne, trainer, facilitator and responsible of the strategy of Airbus Leadership University. By Paulina Szczepaniak and Łukasz Paluszkiewicz Bruno, you’re talking on communication, and what project managers can learn from the Deaf community. It is a very unusual idea. Could you tell us, where it came from? I am a trainer on different topics, including communication. I’ve developed a course on communication using communication models, theories, some games and experimentations. And it was good. People were coming to the course, and they were happy, they were progressing. But one day the sponsor of this course approached me and said he was not happy with the training. I asked him “Why?” He replied that it was not fun enough. Well, I’m not entertainer, I’m a trainer. I am ready to make some efforts, but then the people coming to the course also need to make some efforts. I asked him if he had any concrete recommendation, but he was just critical for the sake of it. So we left in total disagreement. This is the first part of the story.

Biznes pełen emocji – wywiad z dr Magdaleną Kępińską-Jasny

Z dr Magdaleną Kępińską-Jasny, trenerką biznesu, badającą użyteczność emocji w zarządzaniu rozmawia Kornelia Trzęsowska. Czy da się zarządzać emocjami? Jeśli przyjmiemy, że zarządzanie nie jest manipulowaniem, a działaniem zgodnym z etyką i że zarządzanie polega na regulowaniu, a nie kontrolowaniu, to tak. Regulowanie to polega na dostosowaniu naszych emocji do sytuacji, aby osiągnięcie celu nie odbywało się za wszelką cenę, lecz w ramach norm etycznych. Pewnie łatwo wyobrazić sobie zarządzanie własnymi emocjami, choćby po to, by radzić sobie ze stresem. Zarządzanie emocjami innych jest bardziej złożone, bo można na przykład chcieć wzbudzić zaskoczenie, aby przykuć czyjąś uwagę do ważnych kwestii, albo wzmocnić radość po tym, jak zespół osiągnął sukces.