Entries tagged as ‘Listening’
I think that everyone has heard the tale of the frog and the pot. If you put a frog into a pot of cold water and place it on the stove, the frog will happily sit there until it is cooked. If you attempt to put a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will do its best to jump out.
I recently read a blog post entitled “Why Newcomers Often See Things More Clearly Than Old Hands” by Bob Sutton. FYI – he’s also the author of “The No Asshole Rule” which is an entertaining read.
I liken the newcomer to the frog placed into a pot of boiling water – the newcomer will have a reaction (either good or bad) to the host of interesting things that don’t even phase the long term employees. I know that I’m still in that place right now. I’m about 6.5 weeks into my employment now. There are things about my new place that still leave me starstruck. My goodness, the walking trails and rec center are amazing! I work with some people who are totally passionate about what they are working on. Now, on the dark side… it’s been a very long time since I’ve worked for a big company. Small companies are very nimble. I’m used to grabbing a few stakeholders and making important decisions quickly. These days I am feeling my way around – trying to understand which groups need to be included in what decisions. I’m learning all sorts of new processes – and some of them leave me scratching my head.
I think that a manager can always benefit from listening to what is causing a new person concern. So far my new manager has been pretty open to my comments, and I’m thankful for that.
Categories: Leadership · Tactical
Tagged: Culture, Empowerment, Innovation, Leadership, Listening
I thought that a great way to finish out the year would be to talk about my top 10 really important things in more detail. Today I’m going to hit on transparency. Some of the key concepts required to be a transparent leadership team include the following:
- Regular, consistent dissemination of information. Create a schedule of all hands or team meetings and stick to it! This needs to be done in good times as well as in bad. One of the worst things a management team can do is disappear when times get tough.
- Share the good news as well as the bad. It’s ok, people can take it, especially if you hire “grownups” and treat them that way. Don’t overhype the good news and don’t spin or omit the bad news. People are smart and they will see right through your attempt to obfuscate the truth.
- Clearly articulate what is confidential. There’s two points here. The first is to make sure people know what part of the information that you are sharing must not be repeated outside the walls of the company. The second is to trust the team enough to actually share that confidential information with them. Giving people your trust in a straightforward manner almost guarantees that they will not break it.
- Be willing to address less than positive feedback. There are times when leaders do things that don’t seem to make sense to the rank and file. Sometimes these things make everyone’s job tougher and can hurt morale. Make sure to address why painful decisions have been made. Talk about the alternatives and how the leadership team came to the decision. Just understanding why a decision was made will lead to a much greater acceptance of it.
- Let people share their accomplishments. It is wonderful to have a team member be able to demonstrate or talk about a significant achievement that has occurred. This is a morale booster across the entire organization. For example – demo new product capabilities, talk about a new marketing campaign, share a story about closing a major customer. Knowing that the company recognizes and appreciates these milestones is key.
For more reading about transparency see Transparency and Open Communication by Beth Steinberg on Rypple. Beth and I worked together a few years back and she’s got some great thoughts on leadership.
Categories: Corporate Strategy · Personal
Tagged: Communication, Listening, Transparency, Trust
September 21, 2009 · 2 Comments
“The ability to make a person feel that, when you’re with that person, he or she is the most important (and the only) person in the room is that skill that separates the great from the near-great.” from What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
I have to say that this quote is what really made an impression on me in this book. I can see so many applications of this in my day to day life – both at work and in my personal life. For the curious – the workplace habit to break in this instance is Habit #16 – Not Listening.
I think that many people are attentive only when they think it is in their best interest. Who wouldn’t pay close attention to the CEO or to a key interviewer? The power of a conversational partner will make a lot of people turn up their skills a notch. I think what is really impressive is when someone does that regardless of who they are talking to. This is clearly a way to make everyone, from a receptionist, to a new hire, to a difficult customer feel valued and respected.
A key aspect of this skill is the ability to focus and really hear what a person is saying. This includes both verbal and non-verbal communication. Sometimes reading the non-verbal is much more important because it will provide clues to what the person is really thinking.
This level of focus can be very difficult. Most of us have a running dialogue in our heads – formulating what our response will be. Many times we are concentrating so hard on what we should say next that we stop listening to the other person. Other times we are worried about something else entirely and we just want the conversation to end quickly. I don’t know about you, but I can tell if someone is not really listening to me. It doesn’t encourage me to continue sharing information.
The next time you’re talking to someone try this. Ask a question – and really listen to their answer. It might surprise you. Stay engaged.
On the whole – I enjoyed this book. I was surprised by how much the author suggested that to become more successful as a leader that you need to talk less and listen more. I tend to agree.
Categories: Book Reviews · Leadership
Tagged: Communication, Leadership, Listening
I love it. The New York Times article “In Praise of Dullness” talks about the skills needed to be a successful CEO. (thanks to the lead to this article from Bill Warner at http://www.paladinandassociates.com/)
They relied on detailed personality assessments of 316 C.E.O.’s and measured their companies’ performances. They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.
What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.
In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.’s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.
These results are consistent with a lot of work that’s been done over the past few decades. In 2001, Jim Collins published a best-selling study called “Good to Great.” He found that the best C.E.O.’s were not the flamboyant visionaries. They were humble, self-effacing, diligent and resolute souls who found one thing they were really good at and did it over and over again.
That same year Murray Barrick, Michael Mount and Timothy Judge surveyed a century’s worth of research into business leadership. They, too, found that extroversion, agreeableness and openness to new experience did not correlate well with C.E.O. success. Instead, what mattered was emotional stability and, most of all, conscientiousness — which means being dependable, making plans and following through on them.
Categories: Leadership
Tagged: Communication, Leadership Types, Listening, Team Building
Thought that title would catch your attention. I found it in this New York Times article about learning how to think. The basic gist of the article is that we listen too much to “experts” and those experts are all to often wrong. The author supposes that is why financial experts were able to lead the US into the state of affairs we are now in. The funny thing is that studies show that there actually is an inverse correlation between the amount of fame that an expert has garnered and how often they are right. Experts that are more famous are ones that journalists can count on to have strong opinions and clear coherent presentation of those very black and white opinions. They are great for a sound bite.
The article references a professor at the University of California, Berkeley – Dr. Philip Tetlock. Full disclosure, I haven’t read his book that was referenced in this article.
“Mr. Tetlock called experts such as these the “hedgehogs,” after a famous distinction by the late Sir Isaiah Berlin (my favorite philosopher) between hedgehogs and foxes. Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.
This was the distinction that mattered most among the forecasters, not whether they had expertise. Over all, the foxes did significantly better, both in areas they knew well and in areas they didn’t. “
This resonated with me because in engineering there are a lot of people that believe in logic and believe in black and white thinking as the way to solve problems. For many years I was one of those engineers. You were RIGHT or you were WRONG. You got it or you didn’t. It was important to be opinionated in order to be respected. Debates turned into religious wars. Those who were confident and had the ability to fluently articulate their point of view could bully the less confident into decisions that often turned out to be bad ones.
I’ve been in the industry for a long time. The funny thing is that the longer I am in engineering the more I doubt my ability to make those snap decisions. I haven’t gotten into a flame war in a very long time. I want to make sure to listen to the voices that are normally silenced by the louder and more confident. Sometimes it take a lot of effort to get those opinions out. They do take much longer for the owner to synthesize and rationalize. Just because someone isn’t fast on their feet and isn’t able to pin down what is bothering them right there on the spot doesn’t mean that their gut feeling isn’t valid. Many times it is really important. Without that perspective bad decisions can be made.
Categories: Tactical
Tagged: Confidence, Listening
In the last two weeks I had two of my direct reports say some things to me that took a lot of courage. One of them told me that there were things that I could do better to improve the way I was running my organization. The other told me that I was steamrolling them with my experience and not listening to their ideas. (albeit in a more tactful way) Neither one of them felt all that comfortable doing these things, but I am really proud that they showed the courage to do so. I know that I thanked one of them. The other, I talked through why I was doing what I was doing and I think we got to an understanding, though I regret not saying thank you. In any event I didn’t get mad. I didn’t stonewall. I really tried my best to understand and empathize with their positions. I put my feelings on the back burner and listened.
Looking back, I recognized a few things. I never would have said what they said to me to a manager that I didn’t respect. There wouldn’t have been any point to it. I also wouldn’t have said what they said to me to a manager that I didn’t trust to take the comments as a desire to work together better. There have only been a few managers in my career that I would have felt comfortable enough to talk to frankly. Most of my managers didn’t really make constructive feedback feel like a welcome experience. I probably should have stepped into that uncomfortable place more often and tried it out. Who knows – it might have really improved our relationship.
Do you trust your manager? Would you sit them down and tell them exactly what you are feeling and how they are impacting you or how they could improve? Do you think that your direct reports would do the same for you? If not, what can you do to change that?
Categories: Leadership
Tagged: Listening, Relationships, Trust
As I’ve been writing posts lately I’ve realized that the issue that I have really been skirting around is the ability to show empathy for others. One of the hardest things for me to do is to show empathy for someone who is really ticking me off. That is likely true for you as well.
Frequently, people talk about having empathy in their personal lives, but you don’t hear much about it at work. Having empathy for your spouse or your child can help create a bridge that keeps your relationship strong. Having empathy for someone at work can help create a good working relationship. Empathy can also provide a means to take a dysfunctional relationship and improve it. I think that most people shy away from using empathy when they are in a power struggle with someone else because they are afraid that it will make them appear weak. If the person you are dealing with is that concerned with power, you might have some issues, but it is better to figure that out sooner rather than later.
The definition of empathy that I work with is “put yourself in the other person’s position”. I mean really do it. Don’t give it lip service. Use those listening skills and get inside their head. Figure out why they are being intractable. Maybe they think this is just how they are supposed to act. Maybe they don’t feel like you are giving them any options and you are steam rolling them. Maybe their self-confidence isn’t that great and they are trying to look strong.
I was once in a meeting with someone who by all measurable corporate standards had failed to deliver what they were supposed to do. In reality they were setup to fail. They were inexperienced and didn’t get the resources they needed to do their job. There wasn’t a clear set of requirements for what they were tasked to do. The executive committee gave them conflicting direction. It was a very bad situation. One of the other participants in the meeting was bent on punishing them for failing and the meeting quickly was heading down a bad path. It definitely wasn’t very productive, and the person who didn’t deliver became extremely defensive. If I was in his situation I would have as well.
During this meeting I decided to reach out to him with empathy. I echoed his disappointment with the way things had worked out and made him realize that others recognized what really had happened. I also gave value to the things that he did accomplish. This really turned around the meeting and made it much more collaborative. It turned from a witch hunt with a defendant on the witness stand to a discussion about what we learned from the experience.
By showing empathy to someone, you are showing that you are listening to them. This makes them much more likely to really listen to you in return.
If you are interested in reading more about empathy as a piece of emotional intelligence see eqi.org .
Categories: Tactical
Tagged: Listening, Relationships
One of the most consistently underrated skills in the workplace – and beyond it – is the ability to really listen and comprehend what someone is trying to say to you. I probably fall pretty far down the spectrum of listener vs talker. I actually need to talk more. That said, I’ve found that you can learn so much about someone by listening to them and observing their body language. The less you talk about your point of view and the more questions you ask about their view on the world, the more you can connect with someone. Unfortunately this skill is frequently questioned at work. People are considered to be disengaged if they aren’t babbling away.
On my recent trip (you’re probably getting sick of this by now – but…) I was subjected to a couple of talkers who weren’t listeners. It was a painfully frustrating experience for me. I guess being in the engineering field spares me from a lot of this behavior on a day to day basis. Most engineers are pretty precise in their method of communication. They also are usually introverted thinkers. There isn’t a lot of extraneous fluff.
During my trip, if there was even a little bit of silence, it had to be filled. Generally it was filled with drivel. I didn’t need to hear about long forgotten pet turtles riding in barbie doll cars when when our naturalist on the trip was trying to explain the differences between turtles and tortoises. This wasn’t coming from a young child – it was coming from a woman who was nearly 50! She would talk and talk and talk, interspersing questions along the way, continuing to talk over any attempts to answer them. At one point earlier in the week I tried to answer a question that she repeatedly asked – and got talked over three times. Three strikes and you’re out – from that point I didn’t bother trying to answer her at all. I guess the answer wasn’t important or interesting to her, what was important was filling all the available airtime.
Lest you think that I am picking on the female half of the species, I’d also like to introduce another offender that I call “captain obvious”. Pick the most inane obvious observation that one can possibly make, and state it. Repeat. Don’t bother asking interesting or thoughtful questions. Take the information that someone just told you, and ask something about it that was clearly stated in the first place, proving time and time again that you weren’t listening one iota. Every evening at dinner we went over the next day’s itinerary and what we should look for. Almost every morning he would ask “what island are we going to today?” Huh? During the evening we sometimes had quizzes to pass the time after dark. Our guide would ask us questions about what we learned during the day. The big talkers in the group weren’t able to recall much of anything. In one ear, out the other. After a while our guide gave up. He didn’t provide us with lectures or videos at night because it was clear that some folks couldn’t handle the information overload. That made me sad. I would have liked to learn more.
Unfortunately, I have seen this behavior at work as well. I can’t tell you how many times a big talker assumes that everyone is in agreement with him (or her) because he never bothered to listen or watch body language. Keep on talking and the rest of the room starts to get restless. No one is making eye contact, and guess what – you’ve been tuned out. Feeling the need to talk without soliciting feedback pretty much guarantees that the other participant in the conversation will disengage. Notice when eyes start to glaze over. Stop. Listen. Who knows what you might actually learn when you give the other person an opening. Yes, it might not be what you want to hear, but at least you will know where the other party stands on a topic. Talking at them won’t change their mind, you’ll just come across as pushy.
This is where real creativity comes can occur. When you know what is important to someone else it is a lot easier to come to an agreement that is mutually acceptable. When brianstorming together you invariably can come up with a much better solution than either one of you could devise independently.
Categories: Personal · Tactical
Tagged: Creativity, Listening, Relationships
