Archive for May, 2013
Listening Skills Notes from the Field: Silence during chaos
My last 24 hours was chaotic. The events made me think about how bombarded we are with noise and activity, all demanding our attention. At the same time, I was reading Breakfast with Buddha, a book that touts silent presence.
Thankfully, the lessons from the book’s guru, Volya Rinpoche helped me through the disconcerting events. After two weeks away from home, I was to depart from Newark Airport, only to have my flight to Denver cancelled because of weather. I stood in line with hundreds of travelers in similar circumstances. By the time I got to the airline agent it was clear that every airline was experiencing the same problem. Flights were severely delayed, cancelled or oversold. Triumphantly, the agent found a seat to Chicago with a connection to Denver. Alas, as he was completing it, that flight was cancelled. I stood in front of him, not making a peep while he continued to search and thanked him profusely when he secured seats to Houston Hobby that would arrive around midnight, and on another flight at 6:00 AM to Denver. How expectations lower.
I remained calm in the gate area as I sat and read my book, reflected on the lessons, and waited while the Houston flight was delayed further, then cancelled, then re-instated, and finally departed.
Not everyone had that kind of experience. Airport police were called to handle a confrontation between an airline employee and a passenger. I didn’t look up, ignored the din, and took even more deep breaths.
My quiet calm helped me think through a plan once we landed in Houston. I found a Motel 6, the only place near the airport with a room, slept for almost four hours, was taken by an employee in the shuttle, even though shuttle service didn’t start for another hour, made my flight, and had a lovely cup of tea without any awareness of people talking nearby or even airplane noise.
I am grateful for the opportunity to observe how a change in my behavior made what would ordinarily have been a very stressful situation, into just another trip—one that didn’t harm me and turned out all right. There was so much noise at every turn that I couldn’t control, but when I chose to ride through the situations with as much silence as possible, the noise, confusion and stress abated.
I’m not a guru, yet I invite you to try to remain quiet and within yourself during a situation when you would normally add to the noise.
Listening Skills: Habit versus Style
Someone sent me a Job Aid on listening. The gesture was thoughtful because I like to know what’s going on in the field.
The Job Aid is well designed, has a model of different forms of listening styles and how they should be used. At first blush, I thought it was worth the $1.95 per card. Then I looked closely at the content, and once again bridled at the assumptions about listening as a style that governs how we pay attention. My goal here is not to discredit the Job Aid, but it is to surface the differences between Listening as a Habit and as a Style.
Our research indicates that Listening is a Habit formed in our brain, body and emotions. Our brain develops neuropathways around repeated patterns. For example, for self-preservation we’ve learned to look both ways when crossing the street, nod when we agree, and shrink from people who scare us. Situations trigger us to respond; and it’s the formation of those responses that is defined as a habit or a style.
Psychologists define Habit and Style as:
Habit is any regularly repeated behavior that requires little or no thought and is learned rather than innate. A habit is developed through reinforcement and repetition.
Style has been defined as an individual’s relatively consistent inclinations and preferences across contexts. It is a dynamic and organized set of personal traits and patterns of innate behavior.
The stronger the habit, the more we rely upon it, but the good news is a habit can be changed or modified with intention and practice. Whereas, our style is a distinctive pattern that is an organizing principle that changes very little, regardless of context. For example, an Extrovert may seek less stimuli with age, but probably will not become an Introvert.
The beauty of thinking of listening as a habit instead of as a style is that we can learn techniques to modify habits we overuse, and gain access to ways of listening we under-use. For example, a person who listens mainly for facts and ignores feelings misses a large portion of an interaction. By learning to observe body language and tone-of-voice that person will increase awareness of what lies beneath words and data, and alter a habit.
You’ve heard me say so many times that the Listening Golden Rule is: Listen to Others as They Want to Be Heard. That requires us to identify the listening habits we’ve formed, ask if they serve us well, then revise as needed to become a master listener.
Listening Skills Notes from the Field: Talking Stick, a Tool for Introverts in Meetings
Last week during a coaching session the person wanted to know how to deal better in meetings as an introvert. She said it’s very challenging for her when she is expected to participate and just can’t find a way to jump into the interaction. “By the time I gather my thoughts they’ve moved on and I never said what I was thinking.”
I find that it’s torture for others like her to sit in meetings with either expectant eyes on them or being ignored and overlooked. This particular person functions just fine in interactions with just one or two people, it’s in a group where she’s overwhelmed.
We discussed trying a couple of practical tools to make it easier for her to speak up and discourage others from interrupting so often. One of the tools is a Talking Stick. The beauty of it is that the stick controls speaking and listening and allows for more equal participation among everyone—introverts and extroverts.
At the start of the meeting, the host picks up the stick from the center of the participants, reviews the issue at hand and the agenda. The host turns the stick towards the group and someone else picks it up and begins to talk. As long as the person with the stick is talking, everyone else listens. There are no interruptions.
The entire interaction continues with the speaker holding the stick, and then turning it back to the group for another person to speak. At first it’s awkward and artificial to use because most people are used to grabbing the floor by having the loudest voice, strongest opinion, highest rank. Gradually, the group learns to listen patiently until the talking stick is free to pick up. Turn-taking behavior emerges with time and practice.
Back to the introverted client. She really liked the idea of having the stick slow the pace of the interactions. “People speak so fast and about so many different topics that we don’t get a chance to chase down one idea before jumping to something else. We rarely have substantive conversations, and I think we make a lot of mistakes that way.”
I’ve used many variations from creating a ceremony in which everyone on a team is involved in making an actual Talking Stick, much like Native Americans do, to putting everyone’s work-badge in the center for others to pull out when they want to hear from the owner of the badge. Frankly, I’m not sure how it happens, but when a group uses a Talking Stick, their interactions become more measured and thoughtful, participation is more inclusive, and the output is more intelligent and creative.
Organizational Entropy and Listening Skills
Cultural entropy is the amount of energy in an organisation that is consumed in unproductive work. It is a measure of the conflict, friction and frustration that exists within an organisation. Barrett Values Centre
We don’t usually link the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy, a fundamental law of physics, with Listening. That is, until we try to understand why billions of dollars are lost as a result of unproductive work.
The natural state of the world is disorder or entropy, but “entropy can only be overcome by an organizing energy from an external force…We are fighting to show a chaotic world a glimpse of that which provides the only hope for stifling her natural and powerful spiral into disorder.” J. Matthew Brunson, M.D.
That’s where listening comes in to play. It is the vital skill to stem the tide of counterproductive noise in the system.
Let’s take a very common example: selecting an item to be included in a budget.
Manager: We have some money remaining in the budget. It’s just enough to purchase the project management software we’ve wanted.
Direct Report: That would be great. I’ll talk to the vendor about costs and timing.
At that point it seems as though there’s order. But wait.
Another direct report says the money should go for additional headcount to ease burden on employees, customers lobby for price reduction, and the CFO wants to use the funds elsewhere.
Disorder. There’s no decision, players are frustrated, time has been wasted, and the issue has gotten complex.
Heeding Dr. Brunson’s advice, listening would have supplied sufficient energy to overcome the chaos that arose. The interaction devolved into a Ping-Pong match without any attempt to learn from one another to create shared meaning, the very essence of communication.
Similar scenarios occur constantly throughout a business day, pushing an organization towards chaos instead of pulling it towards sensible order. Following are three pointers to control entropy:
1. Listen to your stakeholders. Look beyond analytics and talk to real people to get at what’s behind the numbers. If you observe demoralized people, don’t hide in your office or ask their manager what’s wrong, talk to the people with the problems. If you’re losing customers, don’t send a survey, go and spend time with them. If the players in the budget item case would have asked some good questions and checked the answers, an informed decision could have been reached efficiently without wasting time and eroding trust in one another.
2. Teach your employees how to listen. Listening is a means, not an end, but it still requires skill to do it well so the process of listening is transparent and the emphasis is on content. The Golden Rule we’ve so often been taught, “Do unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You,” isn’t applicable for listening. Instead, it is “Listen to Others as They Want to Be Heard.”
3. Listen for and monitor the level of organizational entropy. Redundancies, employee and customer turnover, re-dos, too many/too few people copied on memos, active rumor mill, and pipeline inconsistency, are all indicators of disorder that’s already entrenched and doing great harm. One role of a leader is to observe the horizon for signs of emerging entropy, and act swiftly to gain control.
Good listening is an energy-saver and a productivity enabler.
Listening Lessons from a String Sextet
Recently, I attended a masterful performance given by six members of the University of Colorado music faculty. I was fortunate to be right in the center of the first row, with no obstructions to block my rapt attention.
During their performance I observed many lessons on listening that we can apply at work, home, school—anywhere that depends upon our ability to perform at our best.
Transferable musical lessons:
Know the score
Musicians: Each musician practiced over and over until they knew every note, sign, and sound. They knew the piece cold so they could concentrate on playing together.
Application for the workplace: When we understand the context, people, expectations and our own knowledge, we can concentrate on what’s being said.
Allow for different voices
Musicians: There were six musicians with a range of experience, techniques and interpretations of the music as well as three different instruments with individual sounds. At various times one of the instruments might be most prominently featured, while the others play to support that stronger voice.
Application for the workplace: There are usually several people in an interchange, each with something to say. Turn-taking is crucial to allow for individuals to share a point-of-view or data that is vital to others. No one person should monopolize an interaction, which will drown out others who might have highly valuable information to add.
Follow different leaders
Musicians: My friend Lina Bahn, first violinist, explained that leadership among musicians in this sextet is interchangeable as there’s no conductor, First violinist’s part is usually more demanding than second violin, but all are equally important. Responsibility is shared by everyone and determined by the music.
Application for the workplace: Sharing the platform is not always easy, especially when we have something we deem important to say. However, understanding that leadership is not a positional right, but an earned platform, allows for the problem or the situation to guide what is said and by whom.
Connect with one another
Musicians: There’s a lot of body language being “spoken” among the members of the sextet. Eyebrows raise, heads nod, bodies sway, and legs move, all actions that encourage fellow-musicians to engage and stay focused. The audience is part of the performance, too. The sextet is energized by applause and appropriate body language (though humming along is not appreciated), so the audience and the performers feed off one another.
Application for the workplace: We learn to read one another’s signals when we’re face-to-face. Emailing will not relay all information that is required to collaborate and make fully understood decisions. Our listening habits are developed in our brain, body and emotions that emerge during interactions. Strive to establish a co-created interaction where it’s a give-and-give (not take) among all communicators.
Acknowledge strengths
Musicians: Because I was watching so closely and at an ideal vantage point, I noticed that when one musician played a particularly demanding passage, a couple of the others smiled slightly or leaned their body and instrument towards their colleague in recognition of work done well. When I asked Lina about that she said acknowledgement of a musical idea is highly valued and greatly appreciated. The musicians can’t miss a beat, so the interaction has to be subtle and brief.
Application for the workplace: Even the smallest recognition makes a difference to people. Listening to someone and saying, “Thanks for making your points in a clear manner” or “I appreciate that you had to learn new software in record time” or even a smile, will probably make that person’s day and will increase the likelihood that behavior will be repeated.
Honor silence
Musicians: A brief period of silence with its own place and quality, is as important as sound. The musicians, briefly at rest, are poised, expectant and ready to resume their “conversation.”
Application for the workplace: Moments of silence give people the chance to think and not feel obligated to fill the space with unnecessary sound. The gift of silence is golden.
Focus on the present
Musicians: More than anything, the success of the sextet comes from their ability to stay focused. But on what—the score, one another, their instruments, the audience, physical comfort? Yes to all, but without losing concentration. They are on alert for what matters, split second by split second.
Application for the workplace: Giving full attention to a single task or person, unequivocally increases the likelihood that the fewer mistakes will be made. When we let go of the myth that we can multi-task and replace it with the knowledge that we can single-task, our listening proficiency will increase.
Whatever the context, consider how you can behave with the same degree of commitment, focus and respect as a sextet whose every performance relies on well-honed listening mastery.