Remember that our students are often surprised when they write down their experiences with each chapter’s credo. You might try the same thing each week. The discipline of analyzing your experiences brings new light.

Think of the best feedback you’ve ever received. Why was it so meaningful to you?

I’m willing to bet that the reason you remember it is because the feedback inspired you to change your behavior, which resulted in your life getting better.

It’s not always comfortable to interrupt others and manage the flow of conversation in this manner, but it sends a strong signal that you believe better outcomes come from hearing a diversity of perspectives.

We are limited by our perspective and frequently wrong. Therefore, it is useful to practice being attentive and curious in order to increase our understanding of others. Usually, the more familiar we become with others, the more we assume we “know” them. We risk believing we are “relationship experts.

One of the advantages of having pairs to study is that we can see how two people engaged in similar activities can differ radically in how they operate. This shows that their successful practices are only partly a function of the type of work they do, and largely a reflection of how the individual is encoded. To illustrate, let's look at the other writer in our study, Barbara Tuchman.