Chris Brady: Learning The Science Of People

“You’ve got to look for the common ground. You have to look for the good stuff. You’ve got to become a good finder. – Chris Brady

“The first thing that learners or leaders at the Learning Step understand is that they have to learn about people. There’s no way around this in life. There is especially no place around this for a leader. We have to learn about people. Now, I’ll put it to you. Have you seen them? People? I mean, people are the most interesting--interesting creatures!"

“You can just go to an airport and sit a bench and just watch folks and you’d never get bored. The problem is to observe people without them observing you’re observing them. Like I’d love to be invisible sometime and observe people because then you can really see. You automatically impact their behavior just by just being around. "

Chris Brady Leadership Learning Tip

“Like falling for instance. When kids fall it’s not a big deal. They’ll fall and be like “HA! HA! HA!” But when adults fall what do they do? Even if it’s a horrendous fall, they just pop back up and then they look around.

“I know! I was at a Subway restaurant one time at night and I was sitting in a little booth eating my sandwich right by the glass. My company car is parked right there on the sidewalk and its kind of snowing a little bit. And I’m eating my sandwich and see this guy in the corner of my eye. He’s all gussied up with a topcoat and everything. And he slips. His topcoat go flying open, his briefcase goes shooting off to the side and he spins around and he lands face down on the hood of my company car! In the snow! And he’s like this and he’s trying to grab and he’s kind of sliding of down one of the wheels and flops like this and all the snow comes with him and lands on his back next to my car.

“I know he had to be hurting. I mean he had to have had broken bones. That didn’t stop him from popping up and he’s got snow caked in everywhere. And he thinks he’s safe because it’s at night and there’s not that many people out but I was around. I’m having sandwich. And I’m just a deer in the headlights man. He’s looking this way, and he’s looking that way. And you can see the relief just going “Phew!” And then looks at me sitting right here.

“He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He never did come into Subway. That’s people!

I sometimes read Mark Twain. I know he’s not a very good writer according to today’s modern literary criticism. But he had to have been the best noticers of people - ever. I’d hate to be a friend of his! You’d end up in some book. I think being a big leader means you got to get to the point where you notice and understand things about people. There are all kinds of things to know and understand about people.

“Here’s the important part about people. Yes, they all these flaws and foibles and funny things we can point to. But we all have our own share of them.

“So we all go those little things right? And I probably have more than most people. But here’s the point: most people are similar, more than you might think, in some of the most important ways.

“And as you learn how to be a leader you learn how to deal with people you got to tune yourself in to those important ways. You’ve got to look for the common ground. You have to look for the good stuff. You’ve got to become a good finder.

About Christopher (Chris) James Brady

Chris Brady with Orrin Woodward author best selling business leadership book

Chris Brady with Orrin Woodward author best selling business leadership book

Chris Brady is a businessman, author, speaker, humorist, father, and mentor. Combining passion and clean humor, his entertaining communication style has won him fans across age groups and genres.

Chris Brady is co-author of four books with friend and business partner Orrin Woodward; the latest, Launching a Leadership Revolution, was re-released in October 2007 by Hachette Book Group USA's Business Plus (originally Time Warner), and has already reached the best seller lists of the Wall Street Journal and Business Weekly.

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