Mike's March review - RI chapters 3 and 4

Before chapter 3 started, the author outlined 6 defining roles of a relational genius, then set a chapter aside for each of these roles. Chapter 3 has to do with being a story collector which means getting to know other people and to do so with a genuine interest. A story collector will focus on three areas to get to know a person better. The person's dreams, life history - exploring the story of their past, and personhood - core identity, personality type, fundamental beliefs, convictions, and values. Story collectors should know how to use the power of questions to steer conversations to a more interesting place in order to draw out distinct facets of people's story. Open ended questions will usually produce a better response. Chapter 4 was titled the Energy Carrier. It started out discussing two types of people, those who can read the tone of a group, and those who can set the tone. The author used the analogy of being a thermometer, which can read the temperature, and a thermostat, which can set the temperature. As a leader, being able to read the tone of a group and then be able to set the tone is very important. We want to be able to do this for the good of the group and not just be doing it to manipulate people. The author later talked about 2 energy killers - the appearance of alertness and distraction. To me, both of these items seemed to be about the same and was somewhat hard to tell apart. I do agree with the author that we do need to work on these areas in order to have better relationships with others. We need to be fully engaged and focused on our relationships and interactions with others.