Listening Impact

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.