A few mentors and I had the luck to be asked by a mentee what skills we would consider most important and why. Her question allowed for a rich conversation bringing ideas together.

One of the mentors shared how listening was most important to him. He described how his career changed when he shifted away from seeing himself as the one knowing the answers and having to lead to someone putting listening first.

The second mentor suggested that to make listening complete asking questions would be essential. Being curious and willing to step in with questions allows the person who asks to understand the context, the story, and maybe the missing details. And for the person who is sharing, questions become a path to gaining a better understanding of his idea.

Listening to the other mentors my suggestion was awareness. The ability to listen as well as to ask questions is building one’s ability to be fully present to what is being shared and what is happening. Awareness then is the skill that enables presence, for example by realizing that one’s inner dialogue is intervening with one’s presence. People are so used to the inner dialogue, that they let it take the place of awareness. The inner dialogue is part of a system we use to confirm our experience, we like it as it seems to generate certainty, but it prevents awareness of the new experience.

With her life experience, the mentee came up with some very pragmatic fundamentals. Her most effective learning until now had been that “she is not alone” and that “she isn’t responsible for everything”.

Her wisdom had brought up two of the most important aspects of teamwork.

The sense of being responsible for everything often pushes people to take up tasks just because it seems that have to be done and no one is taking them up. But that’s a belief that results from feeling to having to do the work alone.

Once it becomes clear to team members, that there is no need for them to do the work alone, they also realize that they have to ask if a left-alone-task needs to be done and who will do it. Asking makes others aware of a possible problem and invites them to listen to how the work can be distributed.

It’s sometimes simpler than it seems.