Have you noticed that when it comes to important situations or events, most people are concerned with what to say?

While it's important to have an idea of what you'll say, I believe it's far more important to consider how you'll listen. What makes the art of listening so important is that it isn't obvious to most people. It's either treated as a passive phenomenon, or it sits completely in the blind spot.

Listening is not the same as hearing. Hearing is physiological — a knock at the door, the sound of a voice. Listening is hearing coupled with interpretation and meaning.

The interpretation added to what's said can make or break you. In a simple sales situation, if a prospect says "not right now," a rookie may hear "I'm not good at selling" or "I'm being rejected." A superstar hears something else entirely: "Good — I need more names in my pipeline for later."

Speaking is far overrated when it comes to communication.

A well-prepared message can fall completely flat if no attention is paid to how you're listening — and to how the people in your audience are listening.

When the way you're listening is off, everything said in the conversation is thrown off. Picture typing on a keyboard: if your fingers are one key off, everything on the screen is off.

I'm most interested in training clients in every dimension of communication — especially listening — because I'm convinced it is the ultimate competitive advantage.

So here's a place to begin. Before your next important conversation, ask: What does the person I'm speaking to care about? What matters to them?

The results are simply a read-out. Don't argue with the scoreboard.

I've spent a lot of time looking at — and worrying about — results. Personal, professional, all of it. In the process, one thing has become very clear: you can't actually work on the results. Results are an after-the-fact phenomenon, a read-out of your activity — good, bad, or mediocre.

I know people, myself included, who have argued with the scoreboard, who wanted it to be different than it was. A simple example: stepping on the scale to weigh yourself. I've argued with that one for sure.

But there's no point. The results are the results. The place to go to work is in the activity itself. Get better at the activity. Practise more. Learn more. Deal with yourself and your interactions with the environment you're in. The results will simply reflect the degree to which you're performing.

The menu is not the meal. The scoreboard is not the game.

Many of us obsess over the scoreboard and try to change it. But it's impossible to act on something that is merely a read-out of something else. The menu is a description of the meal, not the meal itself. The scoreboard is not the game you're playing.

Put your energy on the game itself — that's where the action is. That's where the life is. That's where the impact happens. So ask the right question: what are the activities that impact the scoreboard? The practising, the studying, the learning, the inquiry. Some of it is fun and enlivening. Some of it is brutal, boring, repetitive work.

The reason to endure the pain and the boredom is to impact the results. I say it's a game worth playing.

"When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower."— Alexander Den Heijer

This quote captures something powerful. In my consulting work, I've seen many leaders try to fix "problem employees." It rarely works — unless there's a genuine transformation of the environment in which that employee is functioning.

This isn't to say people never need to be reprimanded, reformed, or removed. But I can think of many cases where the individual was just fine — even great — and it was the company or team that wasn't operating optimally.

The most effective way to have employees thrive is to create environments that are conducive to it. And to create those environments, leaders often have to do the painful work of dealing with themselves first.

The environment is remarkably important to the health, growth, and effectiveness of most living things.

It takes work to create optimal environments, but it's the kind of work that gets right to the heart of whatever isn't working. It also takes courage for leaders to take a hard look at themselves and their leadership teams. There's only so much "pushing on people" that can be tolerated.

Some questions worth sitting with: How am I contributing to this person's behaviour? What am I unwilling to hear? What am I not providing?

I once had potted impatiens that weren't doing well — plastic pots, a particular corner of the backyard. I decided to test this theory. I moved them into larger clay pots and to a different spot in the garden. They bloomed and bloomed all summer. They were completely at home in their new environment.

We all get forceful from time to time. With some people it's obvious and overt: "You need to work late today — we have a deadline." With others it's subtle and covert: "I can just finish the work myself, even if it means staying until 9 p.m. and missing my son's soccer game."

The second example might not look like force, because it's covert. I don't think it's possible to eliminate force completely, but I do think we can learn to recognize it — and then minimize it.

Fear and force go hand in hand.

In examining myself, my clients, and the people in my life, I've noticed that fear and force go hand in hand. To reduce the moments when you get forceful, start tracking what triggers fear in you. It might be the fear of missing a flight or being late. The fear of presenting to your peers or clients. Financial fear.

If you can identify and dissolve the fear, the force tends to go with it. The absence of fear makes room for something else — a peacefulness, a "can-do" attitude, a sense of creativity. I call that power.

When power is present, there's nothing you're pushing against or fighting. In his book Power vs. Force, the late David Hawkins outlines a Scale of Human Consciousness. Anything below 200 is force; 200 and above is power. The word at 200 is Courage — the beginning of power.

I've seen this in my own life and in others'. The courage to leave a dysfunctional workplace or an unhappy relationship leaves people in a place of power. The courage to speak in front of an audience, or to start a business while afraid, is tremendously powerful.

A useful practice: ask yourself, "What is zapping my power?" More often than not it's a frightening or disempowering thought. Spot it, weed it out, and you're free.

In the background of force is usually a belief that "it's not going to turn out for me," or "I'm not going to get what I want." Given that, I feel I now have to force my way through the obstacle — an object, a person, a situation. The clearest example is a jammed drawer: forcing it usually makes it worse. And forcing a person to behave the way you dictate leads to distrust and alienation. At best you'll have a disengaged person in your life; at worst, real dysfunction.

Force forces. Power allows. Being forceful seems faster and easier, but it creates far more effort and suffering. Something to ponder: if we've been given free will, who are we to impose our will on another?

Many people talk about pressure like it's a bad thing. Too much pressure might be — though "too much" is quite subjective.

What I've noticed is that high performers put pressure on themselves. In fact, they put more pressure on themselves than anyone else puts on them. I believe that's precisely why they're high performers. Low performers don't seem to feel the same thing — it's as if they're going with the flow, waiting, hoping.

I recently watched a Netflix series about three football quarterbacks. I have very little interest in football, but I watched it with my husband as a way of engaging with something he loves. What struck me was the intense pressure these quarterbacks carry in their roles — and the even more intense pressure they put on themselves.

It's the internal pressure that drives them to excel.

High performers become high performers because of the pressure they put on themselves. External pressures come with being a high-profile athlete, but they only motivate to a point. It's the internal pressure — the proverbial gun at their own head — that drives them to demand the most of their bodies and minds, to push harder, to put in the time, to exert the effort even when it's excruciating.

There's a reward driving them, and that reward is the joy of winning.