• Do you feel comfortable delivering bad news?
• Do you look forward to speaking in public?
• Do you enjoy networking?
• Is it easy for you to speak your mind and be assertive with friends and colleagues?
A professor of organizational behaviour at Brandeis University's International Business School, Andy Molinsky, Ph.D., specialises in behaviour change and cross-cultural interaction in business settings. He regularly writes for the Harvard Business Review and his work has been featured in The Economist, Fast Company, Fortune, Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The New York Times and NPR.
According to Andy Molinsky, there are five key challenges underlying our avoidance tendencies:
1. authenticity,
2. competence,
3. resentment,
4. likability, and
5. morality.
Does the new behaviour you’re attempting feel authentic to you? Is it the right thing to do? Answering these questions will help identify the “gap” in our behavioural style that we can then bridge by using the three C’s:
• Clarity,
• Conviction, and
• Customisation.
Perhaps most interesting, Molinsky has discovered that many people who confront what they were avoiding come to realise that they actually enjoy it, and can even be good at it.
Short, prescriptive, and based not only on the author’s ground-breaking research but on his own quest to get out of his comfort zone, ‘Reach’ will help you take the thing you are most afraid of doing and make it a proud part of your personal repertoire.
In his new book REACH, Molinsky explains why what often sets successful people apart is their willingness to do the things others fear. What's more, we have the false notion that successful people like to do these things, when the truth is they have simply found their own way to do them.
With another year drawing to a close, and the new year approaching, it may be the right time to consider your successes for the year and start planning new endeavours, opportunities and ‘stretch learnings’ for the new year ahead. Why not Reach and step outside of your comfort zone?
Source: Andy Molinsky: ‘Reach: A New Strategy to Help You Step Outside Your Comfort Zone, Rise to the Challenge and Build Confidence’.
