Books: Power of Presence Lesson 3

A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

– Warren Berger

To get the best answer―in business, in life―you have to ask the best possible question. Innovation expert Warren Berger shows that ability is both an art and a science.

It may be the most underappreciated tool at our disposal, one we learn to use well in infancy―and then abandon as we grow older. Critical to learning, innovation, success, even to happiness―yet often discouraged in our schools and workplaces―it can unlock new business opportunities and reinvent industries, spark creative insights at many levels, and provide a transformative new outlook on life. It is the ability to question―and to do so deeply, imaginatively, and “beautifully.”

In this fascinating exploration of the surprising power of questioning, innovation expert Warren Berger reveals that powerhouse businesses like Google, Nike, and Netflix, as well as hot Silicon Valley startups like Pandora and Airbnb, are fueled by the ability to ask fundamental, game-changing questions. But Berger also shares human stories of people using questioning to solve everyday problems―from “How can I adapt my career in a time of constant change?” to “How can I step back from the daily rush and figure out what really makes me happy?”

By showing how to approach questioning with an open, curious mind and a willingness to work through a series of “Why,” “What if,” and “How” queries, Berger offers an inspiring framework of how we can all arrive at better solutions, fresh possibilities, and greater success in business and life.

The Power of Curiosity: How to Have Real Conversations that create Collaboration, Innovation and Understanding

– Kathy Taberner, Kirsten Siggins

As leaders or parents (or both), navigating difficult conversations is part of our job description.  How do we keep calm and achieve a productive outcome, all while keeping our relationships intact?

The secret is curiosity.  It is the innovation-driving, emotion-calming skill that comes so naturally to us as kids, but gets buried so easily beneath our busy, multitasking lifestyles.  The good news is that we just have to relearn what we already know!

In “The Power of Curiosity”, mother-daughter executive coaching team Kathy Taberner and Kirsten Taberner-Siggins introduce the Curiosity Skills and a full, step-by-step process to use anytime, even when potentially challenging conversations arise.  In “The Power of Curiosity” you’ll learn:

-How to be fully present in every conversation, even when distractions abound

-The five listening choices you always have available, whether at home, work, or school

-Specific calming strategies to access when negative emotions run high

-A step-by-step process to transform potential conflict into relationship-building opportunities.

Communication the Cleveland Clinic Way: How to Drive a Relationship-Centered Strategy for Exceptional Patient Experience

– Adrienne Boissy, Timothy Gilligan

Put relationship-centered communication at the forefront of care

Today, physicians face a hypercompetitive marketplace in which they must meet unique and complex patient needs as efficiently as possible. But in a culture prioritizing clinical outcomes above all, there can be a tendency to lose sight of one of the most critical aspects of providing effective care: the communication skills that build and foster physician-patient relationships.

Studies have shown that good communication between doctors and patients and among all caregivers who interface with patients directly results in better clinical outcomes, reduced costs, greater patient satisfaction, and lower rates of physician burnout.

In Communication the Cleveland Clinic Way, Dr. Adrienne Boissy and her team tell the story of how Cleveland Clinic created and applied the R.E.D.E. to Communicate: Foundations of Healthcare program, making the world-renowned hospital system a leader in relationship-centered care. They provide a step-by-step guide for healthcare leaders and decision-makers to design, develop, and implement communication skills training in their own institutions. Learn how to:

Craft an effective, colleague-supported communication skills program to include veteran physicians, residents, and medical students
• Leverage creative program design and data transparency to engage and facilitate staff physicians and advanced care providers
• Identify common misperceptions and myths in healthcare communication and respond to them successfully
• Cultivate a true sense of empathy―with patients and fellow caregivers alike―while maintaining professionalism

In a field where difficult conversations and stressful relationships are commonplace, clinicians need a structured approach to enable them to deliver the best care possible. Communication the Cleveland Clinic Way is the blueprint for establishing a relationship-centered program that will improve patient experience, reinvigorate doctors’ passion for their work, and elevate any organization.

The Language of Caring Guide for Physicians: Communication Essentials for Patient-Centered Care

–Wendy Leebov ,  Carla Rotering

Concrete “how-to” guide to exceptional physician-patient communication by nationally recognized experts on healthcare communication. Second edition includes updated references, best practices, and tools. To thrive in this challenging environment, effective communication with patients, families, other physicians, students, and coworkers is pivotal. The quality of your communication has a far-reaching impact on outcomes, public perception, reputation, pay, job satisfaction and much more. Competencies include: 1. Mindful Practice 2. Collaboration and Teamwork 3. Effective Openings and Closings 4. Communicating with Empathy 5. Engaging Patients and Families as Partners 6. Effective Explanations 7. Hard Conversations Includes specific Rules of Thumb for each Competency, as well as a Skill Self-Check, Feedback Devices, a Peer Coaching Tool and more. Spiral bound.

Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling

– Edgar H Schein

Communication is essential in a healthy organization. But all too often when we interact with people—especially those who report to us—we simply tell them what we think they need to know. This shuts them down. To generate bold new ideas, to avoid disastrous mistakes, to develop agility and flexibility, we need to practice Humble Inquiry.

Ed Schein defines Humble Inquiry as “the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.” In this seminal work, Schein contrasts Humble Inquiry with other kinds of inquiry, shows the benefits Humble Inquiry provides in many different settings, and offers advice on overcoming the cultural, organizational, and psychological barriers that keep us from practicing it.

A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

–Parker J. Palmer

In A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer reveals the same compassionate intelligence and informed heart that shaped his best-selling books Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach. Here he speaks to our yearning to live undivided lives—lives that are congruent with our inner truth—in a world filled with the forces of fragmentation.

Mapping an inner journey that we take in solitude and in the company of others, Palmer describes a form of community that fits the limits of our active lives. Defining a “circle of trust” as “a space between us that honors the soul,” he shows how people in settings ranging from friendship to organizational life can support each other on the journey toward living “divided no more.”

This paperback edition includes two new and useful features. Circles of Trust is a DVD containing interviews with Parker J. Palmer and footage from retreats he facilitated for the Center for Courage & Renewal (www.CourageRenewal.org). Bringing the Book to Life, by Caryl Hurtig Casbon and Sally Z. Hare, is a reader’s and leader’s guide to exploring the themes in A Hidden Wholeness. The DVD illuminates and illustrates the principles and practices behind circles of trust. The guide includes questions that connect the DVD to the book, offering “a conversation with the author” as well as an engagement with the text. Together, these features give readers new ways to internalize the themes of A Hidden Wholeness and share with others this approach to sustaining identity and integrity in all the venues of our lives.

Inspired by Palmer’s writing and speaking—and challenged by the conditions of twenty-first century life—people across the country, from many walks of life, have been coming together in circles of trust to reclaim their integrity and help foster wholeness in their workplaces and their world.

For over a decade, the principles and practices in this book have been proven on the ground—by parents and educators, clergy and politicians, community organizers and corporate executives, physicians and attorneys, and many others who seek to rejoin soul and role in their private and public lives.

A Hidden Wholeness weaves together four themes that its author has pursued for forty years: the shape of an integral life, the meaning of community, teaching and learning for transformation, and nonviolent social change. The hundreds of thousands of people who know Parker Palmer’s books will be glad to find the journey continued.