Archive for the ‘Listening at Work’ Category
Listening Skills Strategies—Case #4 The Conceptualizing Listener
Of the four listening styles, I find that Conceptualizing Listeners have the most challenging time getting heard in organizations. They generate ideas while they’re listening, which can make it confusing for others, especially those who are action-oriented and want to get to the point. But, Conceptualizers are often the ones with innovative ideas.
The Case:
Amanda, a research scientist in the medical technology field, has an idea-a-minute. She listens attentively, seemingly only for a short while, then begins to ask a lot of questions and offer ideas. Her boss, Huan, has told her more than once to stay focused and to listen. Actually, Amanda can cite almost everything that others said, and the ideas she offers are frequently innovative. Nevertheless, she can seem inattentive and scattered.
Following is an actual situation that shows Amanda in action. Huan’s team was preparing to meet with people from the FDA about the status of a new medical device. The company was anxious for the meeting to go well to move the product along in the approval process. For the team meeting, Huan, a very precise and careful manager, prepared a list of potential questions the FDA representatives might ask.
At the team prep meeting, Huan started to read the questions, and as he got to the third one, Amanda asked him to give them some more background on how he came up with the questions, what, if any, did the FDA submit, and who did he gather data from to actually answer the questions. Two of Amanda’s teammates said they were sure Huan did his homework, and they didn’t need to have her questions answered.
Huan with less energy than before, continued with his list, and Amanda sat quietly until the tenth and final question was put to the team. Silence reigned until Amanda, sitting forward and with a pondering tone said, “Have we addressed potential side effects for orphan diseases; and in the third question you said 35% of patients were tested, but in the fifth question you cited a different population, was that also 35%? I’m wondering if the FDA will be concerned with how the weight of the product might need to differ for males, females and children? What if we ask the FDA to brainstorm with us to develop a more exhaustive list for review?”
Eyes rolled, jaws tensed, and feet tapped. Amanda’s teammates didn’t want to hear more ideas and questions, they wanted to move forward, meet with the FDA, and respond to FDA questions rather than take more time to address Amanda’s list that would surely slow the process and might never be surfaced by the FDA.
Huan has asked us how to help channel Amanda’s Conceptualizing listening without losing any of her innovative thinking. What 2-3 pieces of advice do you have for him and others who want to know how to interact with Conceptualizing Listeners?
I’ll chime in with my advice on the next post.
Listening Skills Strategies—Case #2 The Extra-Personal Listener
Before we delve into the case study of The Extra-Personal Listener, I want to share something I just learned. It’s a psychological concept known as homophily: the notion that people like similar kinds of people and things. The concept certainly isn’t new, but I wasn’t aware that it’s a recognized term. The idea, which adds to the challenge of listening to people who are dissimilar from us, surely parallels what we talk about in this blog.
The Case:
Manuel is an Extra-Personal Listener and serves on the global marketing team. He wants to know how information, experience, ideas, and decisions apply to others. He asks about relevance, impact, values, relationships, culture, and he wants to talk about those issues—immediately.
People often have mixed reactions about Manuel. Some find his exuberance to be inviting while others are overwhelmed by it. Everyone does agree that he’s not afraid to show his feelings and cares more about people than numbers. Manuel is known throughout the organization as a connector. He pays attention to the needs of customers, peers, direct reports, vendors, and definitely, management, and tries hard to see that their needs are met.
Manuel has been temporarily assigned to a new project headed by a team leader, Iain, a Scot and a stranger to Manuel. Iain thinks you know Manuel well enough to give Iain some tips about how best to interact with Manuel, especially because about half of their interactions will be virtual.
What 2-3 pieces of advice do you have for Iain as he prepares for his time with Manuel? That is, how do you develop homophily between the two?
I’ll chime in with my advice on the next post.
The Hard Work of Listening and Listening Skills
“Marian, very interesting and quite varied. All comments proving that you get nothing for nothing.” Iain Duffin
Iain Duffin is one of the executives interviewed for the personal development journey study (results posted September 26-October 17). His comment brought to mind the notion that listening requires effort, but often people assume it’s natural and easy. As most writers and researchers say, hearing is not the same as listening. Hearing is an anatomical function for most people while listening is a conscious skill.
I’m a frequent traveler and marvel at the cost to airlines of agents who mouth words, but don’t listen. For example, the other day two flyers had an international connection problem that the agent probably heard thousands of times. The young couple was flying to the middle east for some family emergency, she quite pregnant, wearing a burka, and not a native English speaker, needed the agent to be helpful and confident. Instead the agent apologized, said there was no way they could get to their destination within 24 hours of their scheduled arrival and suggested they rebook. The couple stood their paralyzed. Finally the woman requested that the agent look at other airlines. The agent said she couldn’t do that unless it was an emergency. Now I, standing next to the couple, knew that was the case, but the agent wasn’t paying attention from the start and went into automatic pilot mode. The whole transaction took much longer and was much less customer-friendly than was necessary had the agent been listening.
I imagine if I asked the agent why she didn’t pick up on the couple’s situation, she would have put the blame on overwork, or some other airline fault. It’s not unusual for employees to tell me their organization is short staffed. During this economic recovery that’s probably true in many cases. But sometimes the real issue is inefficiency that comes from acting before understanding. If they added staff, more people not listening wouldn’t solve their perceived problems. We’ve seen many examples of fewer skilled people accomplishing much more than many who haven’t been trained.
When we’ve worked with organizations to increase listening, and employees practice flexible and focused listening, there’s more efficiency because fewer things fall through the cracks. Rather than glossing over what senders are saying, our listeners:
- Ask enough questions to be absolutely clear about the issues and expectations
- Loop back to the original points made by the sender to check for accuracy
- Use different listening strategies depending on the style of the sender
- Over-communicate to heighten importance of the message(s)
- Be congruent with message, body language and tone-of-voice
To master all those listening skills, as Iain says, means putting in effort—every time and for every person.
Listening Skills and Executive Personal Development, Addendum
There were some lovely gems from the cadre of leaders that are worthwhile to share. The responses didn’t fit into any of the three questions asked, but they add insight from the people who took a few minutes to be with us.
Before we get to those gems, following are some answers to queries about the group’s average age, gender, geography, kind of jobs, how I know these folks.
- While I don’t know everyone’s age, I’d say the range is early 40’s to mid 60’s and the average somewhere in the 50’s.
- Seven males and four females.
- European and North American by current location, although most of the group has worked or resided in every continent (well, not sure about Antarctica) during the span of their career.
- Their current job titles are listed with their names, but I’d venture to say there’s hardly an organizational job that hasn’t been held within the group.
- I know each person well enough through coaching, collaboration or referrals, to be confident that these are the right leaders to interview about personal development.
The gems:
- Oh, and I like myself better too.
- The more I work on myself the more positive the atmosphere around me.
- I went on a retreat, no phones, computers, music—you get it, no technology. I nearly bailed, but I’m so glad I stuck it out. For the first time in my adult life I looked inward, didn’t necessarily like the future I saw, and resolved to be a much more compassionate person and conscious, caring leader.
- Listening to other’s views whether they are colleagues, customers or family members is often missed.
- This work opens up new doors—everywhere.
- When I retired (the first time), I heard over and over, “You are the best boss I ever had.” I know that’s true because when I moved from job-to-job some people came with me and others asked if they could.
- My job security comes from the success of others.
- Every time I’m in a new role I have to do more to adjust my style to others than to expect them to adjust to me.
- My son, just one year out of college, is in a management program and they’re starting him on this journey. He’s so fortunate.
- I never thought that awakening could happen in the workplace—it has.
- For twenty-five years I’d say I was committed to the job. I still am, but this year, 2012, the focus is on me.
- Everyone should live and work in another country some time in their careers. I can’t even begin to tell you all the things I learned, but a big one is that my job was to translate centralized organizational decisions to the local customs. Some goals from corporate cannot/should not be applied locally. Try to sell that upstream—that takes skilled leadership!
- Don’t turn away from the gifts that are presented to you.
Executive Presence and Listening Skills
A new client told me listening has always been a challenge for him because “There’s more firing in my head than my ears can handle.” I loved the expression, even though it was a lame excuse. He had some deeply entrenched habits that contributed to his reputation as a “lousy listener.”
At his suggestion I shadowed him for two days to understand how he interacted with people, and he took Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio® to learn how he listened. As I watched him in meetings (group and 1-to-1), I didn’t actually know what he heard, but he presented himself as non-involved. He sat expressionless, pushed back from the table, asked only pointed questions, offered no ideas or feedback, interrupted with non-sequiturs, and sneaked looks at his iPhone.
Afterwards, I shared my observations and asked about the impact of those behaviors on others. He’s smart and quickly grasped that his actions were creating the opposite effect of what he wanted to project. What he wanted to project we named, Executive Presence (EP), and what he sometimes projected we named Executive Absence (EA). They became our standards and measures, as well as a language that quickly cut to the chase: e.g. “Was that an EP or EA?”
We crafted the critical few Executive Presence attributes as a guide to model. They are:
- Genuine: Sometimes called “walk-the-talk” it is the intention to live in truthfulness and not pretend or cover up.
- Clear: It is following the KISS principle to make all communication understandable—no jargon, code or spin.
- Present: Inquire, listen, process, use body language, facial expressions and tone-of-voice to demonstrate complete attention.
- Confidence and courage: Willing to take innovation risks that others are excited to join.
- Optimism and passion—not necessarily wildly outgoing, but deeply committed.
- Likes colleagues. Sees people in a positive light and treats everyone with respect.
- Laughs at own mistakes and willing to be vulnerable—no blame and shame.
He made a scorecard with the seven attributes and rated himself after various interactions. My job was to help him build skills in the weak areas and solidify the strengths. He was optimistic and passionate (5), confident and courageous (4), and laughed easily at himself (7). We unpacked what he did to make sure he consciously replicated those behaviors rather than relying on his subconscious to perform them well.
For the more challenging attributes, I showed him techniques and tools that aligned his Executive Presence to what he modeled. For example, he stopped taking his iPhone into meetings, pulled up to the table, asked probing questions that required preparation on his part and thought on the part of the responder, and made facial expressions that matched his internal processing.
We’re still working together and he’s making fabulous progress. He and I are even talking about conducting an Executive Presence workshop that would include his scorecard.
Do you have a list of Executive Presence attributes that you’d add?
Listening Skills Ground Rules
In last week’s blog post, Tortoise and Hare Listening, I said that having ground rules for listening might increase the likelihood that people would actually pay attention to the expectations and needs of one another during an interaction and experience improved listening skills.
It’s not such a crazy idea. Groups establish ground rules for meetings and workshops to make assumptions explicit. A ground rule gives direction about how someone is expected to behave. For example, a common one is “Do not interrupt.” Ostensibly, that gives members of the group permission to point it out when someone speaks over others. Just having that as a ground rule indicates to the group that interrupting behavior will not be tolerated, and will heighten attention to avoid displaying that unwelcome trait.
That set me to thinking about listening ground rules that might be helpful:
- Identify the purpose– determine with your partner(s) what you’re both listening for and what you want to get out of the interaction
- Obey the listening golden rule: Listen to others as they would have you listen to them—don’t project your desires and biases on others
- Ask permission to take notes and be willing to share what you’ve written
- Give undivided attention—no gadgets, fidgeting, side-conversations
- Make body language invitational instead of armor-like
- Inquire more, advocate less
- Tell others when you’re losing your ability to listen and request a physical break
I posted these at a recent two-hour meeting and asked if we could try them out to see if it was a good idea and how they’d influence the meeting. Everyone agreed to try them, and afterwards we took an extra fifteen minutes for debrief. There were many more responses than expected, but here are the most frequently said ones:
- The list was intimidating at first because we (5 people) wanted to do it “right,” but after a while we got embroiled in the conversation and the list just served as a guide.
- Everyone really liked the listening golden rule—e.g. “Now I see that I get impatient when people don’t listen the way I want them to.”
- Several people said they wanted to ask for a break, but thought they couldn’t.
- Many noticed that there were more people who allowed others to finish a thought than usual.
- The undivided attention rule was hardest to follow and sustain.
What others would you include? How do you think they’ll be received?
Tortoise and Hare Listening: Defining Listening Skills
Recently when I was conducting a webinar, one of the very insightful participants surfaced a great question: “What’s the right pace for good listening? Since we can listen faster than we can talk, what’s the best balance?” After some probing we determined that what he was really asking was just how much attention must be paid in an interaction before the interaction is too long and interest wanes.
While there’s not a formula for balancing listening to speaking, our webinar attendees did consider who wins the listening race—the tortoise-listener who moves slowly and deliberately, missing very little on the way to gaining complete understanding; or the hare-listener who moves swiftly in preparation to decision-making and action.
The tortoise-listener is the embodiment of the “move slow to go fast” rule. She asks many questions, gathers facts and data, digs for underlying motivations and concerns, and weaves it all together to develop the most comprehensive thorough understanding of the situation before making recommendations or developing a plan.
The hare-listener is seen more commonly in organizations. He asks just enough questions and gathers just enough evidence to make a decision or plan and recommend his ideas as the best path forward.
Can’t you see them both in a meeting? The hare loses patience with the plodding approach of the tortoise, rolls his eyes, fidgets in his seat, checks email, and tunes out. The tortoise looks stoic, ignores the hare’s obvious frustration, and continues to seek more information. Both are convinced they’re right and that the other doesn’t listen. By the end of the meeting, one usually wears down the other, collaboration hasn’t happened, and it’s doubtful they’ve arrived at the best results.
Our webinar group decided the only way to get these two polar opposites to work effectively together is to acknowledge their differences at the start and develop some listening ground rules. (I need to think about what those ground rules might be and I’ll write them up in the next post—it would be great if we could develop a community list.) When teams have taken Hear! Hear? and seen their group reports, they inevitably come away with much deeper appreciation of how their listening styles impact communication. The tortoises and the hares can talk about the consequences of too much inspection or too much speed and how to balance their tendencies to arrive at best fit for the situation.
Too fast and the hare-listeners finish ahead of everyone else, alone and without enough fuel to run the next race. Too slow and the tortoise-listeners cross the finish line after everyone else has gone on to the next race.
The Classic Trap of Experience—Listening Case
Jonathan, the senior VP of Sales, and Francesca, the senior VP of Marketing, have had a contentious relationship for the year Jonathan has been in his job. At first their peers thought it was a matter of getting clear about roles, responsibilities and territory, and that it would smooth over, especially since working with Francesca was never a problem.
Yesterday at an Executive Committee meeting, Francesca presented three ideas for a new marketing campaign and asked the EC for feedback. Jonathan swiveled in his chair and said, “There’s nothing new here. We did almost the exact same things at my last company without success. Why didn’t you come to me beforehand? I could have saved you a lot of time and effort.”
Everyone in the room was stunned. The CEO pulled himself together and said, “Jonathan, let’s hear Francesca out, then we can discuss the ideas. Your response seems hasty.”
Unfortunately, interactions like those happen much too often in the workplace. Of course, there’s more than one explanation for what happened, but a big one is that Experience gets in the way of Listening. Because Jonathan sees himself as an expert, he reverts to what he knows and closes off new information that doesn’t match with anything in his past that has brought success.
Some considerations:
- New information is perceived to be a threat to what has been tried and made true
- Prior experience has been repeated enough to be trusted
- It takes time and effort to assimilate new information
- Success speaks for itself; there’s no need to start again from the beginning
- Reputation is built upon replicating winners
What advice do you have for the people in this case?
Part 2 of Notes from the International Listening Association Convention
Dr. Doyle Srader, Northwest Christian University, Eugene, Oregon
Performance Listening
Question: How is the act of listening sufficient to fulfill the duties of the listener and/or create relationship?
Some findings:
- There are three categories of performance listening:
- Listening toward relationship—calls relationship into being and establishes ties
- Listening toward leadership—enters without an agenda and allows interaction to establish meaning and directions
- Listening toward fairness—hear someone out much like in the judicial system where there is a hearing
- Measure of success is when followers are satisfied that the interaction has been effective and appropriate
- Communication is transactional and a co-created encounter
- Goal—use all three to be a credible listener so other person would say s/he’s been heard
Christopher Gearhart, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Sensory-processing Sensitivity
Question: Is the Highly Sensitive Person a Highly Sensitive Listener?
Some findings:
- No, highly sensitive people are easily distracted by stimuli and may not focus well as a listener
- fMRI shows more processing activity and less accuracy for a highly sensitive person
- fMRI shows longer and deeper processing activity for a less sensitive person
Sheila Bentley, Bentley Consulting; Graham Bodie, LSU; Jennifer Grau, Grau Interpersonal Communication
A Time I Felt Listened To
Question: Which techniques make a person felt listened to?
Some findings:
- People describe attributes first and behaviors second
- Sometimes the researcher had to ask, “What caused you to list that attribute to get the person to describe what the person did?
- Women square off more in an interaction while men take an open positioning
- 80% of all malpractice suits are caused by patient feeling “brushed off”
- An initial reaction determines degree of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the entire interaction, even if the first person encountered is not the main interaction (e.g. person at the front desk makes a good/bad impression, and that colors every subsequent interaction, regardless of how others treat the person)
- Back-channel responses, those that are unconscious such as nodding or uttering “uh-huh” signal understanding
- The key attributes included in a Physician Listening Study:
- It is assumed the physician brings these attributes to the table:
Confidence, Empathetic, Humane, Personal, Forthright, Respectful, Thorough
Most important verbal behaviors: Answers questions, elaborates on topics being discussed instead of answering with short statements, asks questions, does not interrupt or change the subject
Non-verbal behaviors: Maintains appropriate eye contact, focuses body language and position, engages in appropriate composure, smiles/laughs
Random notes:
- Good listening gives you currency
- There are four stages of counseling/therapy
- engagement
- assessment in context
- insight
- action
- Babies borrow their sound from parents—that’s why many children have similar voices and speech patterns as their parents
- Listening is enhanced when the listener asks: Who/what am I as a listener in this situation?
- Anticipation of where the speaker is going next derails communication
- Metaphor: Listening is a cup. If it’s full with our own stuff, there’s no room for another’s.
There was a lot of validation of our work in Listening Impact, especially for Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio ®
Active Listening might be a passé term: What would you nominate in its place?
Some Listening Tips from IBM’s Sam Palmisano
Following is part of an interview that I thought you’d find interesting because it’s a slightly different twist on listening. Look for my comments at the end of the interview.
IBM’s Sam Palmisano: ‘Always Put the Enterprise Ahead of the Individual’
Published: January 18, 2012 in Knowledge@Wharton
Interview with Michael Useem, Management Professor
Useem: Let’s dwell on that for a second, around the issue of mentoring and coaching. I know that an axial principle of your leadership here is to provide lots of coaching and lots of mentoring. Looking back on your own career prior to 2002, who would you single out as the most important mentor you had along the way?
Palmisano: Well, it’s interesting, because so many people helped me. The key … is you have to be a good mentee. Because you have to listen. And what happens as you become successful is you forget the ingredient of being a good mentee, which is listening to the people who are mentoring you. But I’ve had obviously lots of previous managers, previous CEOs John Akers, Lou Gerstner, other guys on the outside who are always willing to help. If you ask and listen, people are always willing to help you.
I find that people aren’t always willing to listen…. You have to be able to want to be mentored. It starts with that. I see it so often. That is the key. But you have lots of role models along the way. People who were always a good role model for me [were those who] never put themselves first. They always put their institution or society or their enterprise first. And usually they get better results. If you say, “Well, why does it work?” [It's] because you get people more excited because they can contribute versus an individual trying to take all the bows for the team. And so you could say I’m comfortable in that style. But if you put that aside for a second, I actually think it’s a more successful product at the end of the day.
My comments:
I chose this piece because it was a different take on listening. Mr. Palmisano talks about the need to be a willing listener, to be the receiver. Think about the number of times you’ve walked by an interaction between two people and noticed equality between speaking and listening.
People with different listening habits will search for information that suits their styles, so even the best mentee will select what has the most value for her. Regardless, the point here is to remember to accept help when it’s offered and be grateful.