Politics and Listening Skills
I was struck in an article in Time Magazine (June 24, 2013 pp40-43) about Chuck Schumer’s brand of deal-making. He said:
“I’m willing to listen if it will help bring Republicans along.”
“If you want to bring somebody onto your side, you have to figure out what motivates them.”
“If you want to be a knight on a white horse, always espousing 100% purity, then you shouldn’t be in the Senate”
“I don’t like the far right. And I don’t like the far left. Because I think they expect they have a monopoly on wisdom.”
“I’m a politician. That means I have chosen my life’s work in the constraints of the system to accomplish as much good as I can. I accept the tough choices.”
Not only does he bring up the art of compromise in negotiations, he also speaks to all four listening habits that we’ve identified, and mostly he surfaces the need for everyone to learn how to flex their listening to others and to the situation.
What are your responses to his remarks, both as they relate to the current state of politics, and to their application to listening in your world?
Short Term Listening at the Expense of Long Term Value: The Value of Listening Skills
Even people who know all the good listening techniques fail when they only pay attention for a brief period of time. They focus just long enough for the speaker to share partial information, opinions, problems, or ideas. These fly-by listeners don’t carve out time for the speaker to say all that needs to be considered, nor do they listen for implications, applications and unintended consequences.
For example, “’leadership by walking around” can lead to short term listening. The idea was to get managers out of their offices and into the cubicles of staff. Many managers complied by making rounds, much like a hospital physician. Yes, employees were visited, but the interactions were often hollow and pro-forma; thus not meeting the original expectation that the visit would result in real, meaningful conversations that lead to higher performance, better decisions, and enhanced relationships.
The causes of short term listening are expressed in these phrases:
I’ve heard it before.
I don’t have time.
This person’s rambling.
I know the answer.
Maybe a good idea, but we don’t have the resources.
My boss’ll never go for it.
Poor timing.
Out of my jurisdiction.
And the results show up as:
I’m frustrated, demotivated, disengaged.
What’s the use of creating new ideas if s/he won’t give me the time of day.
Tough. I’m going to do it anyway, even if I have to go it alone.
If s/he won’t think beyond the moment, I’ll find someone who will or I’ll jump levels.
Resources, that’s a crutch. I’ll just rearrange the budget to fund this initiative.
This proposal has not been heard before—guaranteed.
Tips to reduce short term listening:
- Set aside time to hear a complete message. It’s better to say, “I can’t pay attention right now, how about tomorrow morning at eight?” than “Walk down the hall with me on my way to a meeting to tell me what’s on your mind.”
- Paraphrase back to the speaker to check for understanding.
- Stop what you’re doing, grab a pen/computer/white board, and make notes.
Learn and practice the art of inquiry—a leader’s job entails getting to mutual understanding with employees, and that takes asking a lot of intelligent, probing questions, followed by even better ones. Employees generally know a leader has gotten to his/her position by having smarts and experience, so there’s no need to pontificate.
I like to think of listening as an investment in the bottom line. Done frequently and well, information is shared, understood, and acted upon. That requires a commitment of time, respect, and patience.
I have a plaque in my office that reads:
Yes, of course I have a minute for you
My Rates
$5.00…….Listen
$10.00…..Pretend Interest
$20.00…..Sympathize
$25.00…..Care
Listening Skills and Sales: Listening Mistakes Made by Sales People
Most probably like you, I’ve sat in on or made sales calls. When they go well, I rarely stop to analyze why. But, when they go awry, I go over every part of the interaction trying to understand what happened.
There are the obvious mistakes: insufficient preparation, unclear goals, performance pressure, and unfamiliarity with the client/business. Any of those problems can sink the call, but most seasoned sales people don’t go into a situation so unskilled.
There are four (4) less common mistakes that even well-trained and practiced sales people sometimes make.
- Ignoring the signs that you and your customer are not aligned
- Failing to course-correct when the opportunity is still there
- Fear about deviating from your organization’s sales plan
- Trying to cover up your mistake and judgment errors when it’s too late
Scenario:
You are in a meeting with your customer you’ve sold to for three years. She’s usually easy to work with and interested in what you have to offer. Today she stands after about five minutes into the meeting, looks at her watch and ipad that’s sitting open on her desk, frowns, and doesn’t ask one question. Mistake #1 you chalk up her change in behavior to busyness and plow ahead with your presentation.
Mistake #2, not stopping to ask what’s going on. It would be so easy to say, “Let’s recalibrate to make sure I’m addressing your needs because I’m observing that we might be off course.
But, you fear that if you take too much time or if you admit you’re off-course, you might question the sales strategy established for this client. So, Mistake #3, you stick to the sales strategy/goals/plan. That way no one will accuse you of going rogue, and everyone can put the blame for the poor sales call on the client.
But then, you see failure signs instead of dollar signs in front of your eyes. You realize you’ve erred, and Mistake #4 surfaces. You try to backtrack and stop selling, ask her questions, offer her some good deals, and even make some small talk, but it’s too late.
In this case, you didn’t pay attention to the non-verbals, failed to re-set by inquiring about what was going on, and made poor assumptions that a prescribed sales plan was the way to go instead of paying attention to the information the client offered.
Sales success is very dependent upon applying the Listening Golden Rule: Listen to Others as They Want to be Heard.
Speakers Earn Listeners’ Attention: Listening Skills for Speakers
I recently attended a webinar delivered by a famous coach, and for the entire time the audience was on mute. How in the world did the presenter imagine he’d hold his audience’s attention while he talked non-stop and we sat passively, supposedly to listen to his brilliant message? But then, I also watched a TED talk. The live audience and we viewers were also ostensibly on mute, but I didn’t feel like a passive participant.
What’s the difference?
- The TED presenter personalized her messages. She used herself as an example, gave statistics that related to concerns of the attendees, and paused to let a point sink in. And she laughed along with the audience.
- The webinar presenter was more interested in delivering his content and how it related to him than its relevance to the audience. We were hundreds of unknown people, invited to learn from a master, and the onus was on us to listen and figure out how to use the information.
- In fact, there was allotted time at the end of the webinar for questions and there was none for the TED talk, and I don’t know what questions would have been asked if allowed. But, I could tell by the nature of the webinar questions that the audience didn’t exactly grasp the information. The questions focused on topics the audience knew from familiarity with the coach’s books and lectures, not on the content of the webinar.
I was an eager listener when I started both sessions, but it didn’t take long to either gain or lose my attention. One speaker earned my attention by her presence while the other lost me by his self-absorption. She created a sense of being in conversation with each attendee, while he was intellectually and emotionally remote.
Think about yourself.
- Where is your focus—on them or you?
- Do you speak to and with the listener?
- Are your messages relevant?
- Do you combine both facts and feelings?
- Do you check for understanding?
We cannot overlook the importance of the speaker’s role in an interaction. The speaker and the listener are co-authors of successful communication. And both are responsible to make that happen.
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.