What is Really Listening?

Third-ear listening is connecting and engaging with another human being on an emotional, or even spiritual level.

I like how Ann Hart, CEO of Breakthrough Coaching explains it: “If you really want to connect, understand, and influence other people you need the power of listening from the heart. What I mean by heart is NOT the idea of something weak or emotional. The heart energy is actually a source of strength and balance in the body. The heart is a brain [actually your whole body is a brain], far more powerful than the head brain. If you really want to connect, you are going to need the empathetic power of the heart”.

Some of you left-brained people are skeptical about now, right?

But once you “get it” you will understand the power of managing and listening from the heart.

Because bottom line is everyone has a deep desire to be heard and understood. This type of listening strengthens teamwork, reduces stress and conflict, and has many other benefits. It is especially unifying for people who work together.

So What to Do?

Normally we interrupt, ask questions, or offer advice on the outside while on the inside our internal dialogue is preparing for what we’re going to say in response (or we’re judging, etc.). Heart listening requires none of this. Be balanced and neutral; the less you say the better. When you put all your attention on someone else, something very profound changes. Carl Rogers, the famous psychologist, was known for his skill of listening with “positive regard”.

Deep listening is about paying attention. It’s a process of truly hearing and understanding another’s point of view. It sounds simple but it’s not or we would be better at it. We have to learn to listen through another’s “map”, not your own. Put this person first. This “soft” skill has to be the most important skill you can have!

As a coach I constantly work on listening, refining and practicing all the time. It’s hard to suspend the internal dialogue when listening. Plus I get a great thought or suggestion and I’m afraid I’ll forget it by the time they are finished speaking!! We all have our reasons. But I’ve found you need to understand another’s thoughts, feelings, and their “TWIST” (The Way I See Things). It can’t be from your point of view!

In Conclusion

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, nailed it when he said, “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”

Next month we’ll explore WHY we don’t listen but for now I have an offer! If you have read all the way down here, and you know what habit # is Covey’s “Seek to understand not to be understood”, shoot me a reply and I’ll send the first person a signed copy of my book, The Good Bus, and others the ebook.

What Are Some Team Problems?

Lencioni tells it like it is when he explains that many teams lack the kind of engagement they need. In particular, they can’t effectively argue about issues and decisions that are critical to success. “If team members are never pushing one another outside their emotional comfort zones, then it is extremely likely that they are not making the best decisions for the organization” he says.

In my experience, members succumb to apathy or disengagement when they don’t feel safe enough to speak up.

SOLUTION:  Learn the skills to have a Crucial Conversation! This two day course teaches skills to make it safe for any kind of conversations even when it’s emotional, high-risk and with opposing points of view.

Some other dysfunctional team problems include:

• Lack of trust
• Lack of commitment
• Avoidance of accountability
• inattention to results

Also team members are often unclear about their role and responsibilities and pressures to perform drive people toward safe solutions that are justifiable (CYA) rather than innovative. Sound familiar?

SOLUTION: Research shows teams need to trust members, have a sense of group identity and a sense of group efficacy. First, identify common goals and purpose. Have teams identify their core purpose, values, business definition, strategy, goals and roles and responsibilities. Without this foundation, its hard to achieve cohesiveness. From there, teams need to be intentional: what are the goals bothqualitative and quantitative?

T.E.A.M.

Trust You have to have a foundation of trust and this is hard in this ego-driven, self-preservation world! I like how Patrick defines it: “When it comes to teams, trust is all about vulnerability. Team members who trust one another learn to be comfortable being open, even exposed, to one another around their failures, weaknesses, even fears.” Yet this is the foundation for forgiveness and acceptance. Authenticity depends on members’ willingness to admit weaknesses and mistakes. They have to be able to say “I messed up” or “I’m sorry” or “I need some help here.”

SOLUTION: Share your DISC assessment with the team! Explain how you deal with things and what turns you off. We’re all different; share who you are fully! Show up!

Engagement Our engagement level is ever changing from one end of apathy, disengagement and maybe even sabotage to the other extreme of unbridled enthusiasm and passion. And once again, being able to speak up and be heard (maybe even confront someone) is key. Active debate allows the team to discuss what matters most. Again, trust needs to be there.

SOLUTION: Mine for conflict! Yes, encourage it! Use your Crucial Conversation skills to say it in a way that prevents defensiveness! After a member shares, remember–no consequences for being honest! Everyone is watching, you know. If you blow it here as a leader, NO ONE will speak up and you’re doomed.

Accountability This is a big one with me.You should be able to hold each other accountable and even offer suggestions to help others win! Peer-to-peer accountability talks are essential to maintain focus and monitor progress. Don’t be afraid to comment: “I notice ____ hasn’t been finished. What do you need to get it done?” or “What resources we missing here?” Effective team members are quick to spot problems and are willing to speak up without assigning blame. Remember, you don’t have all the information possibly. Seek solutions together.

SOLUTION: Ask Soft Solutions for their Totally Responsible Person (TRP) program or Crucial Accountability course! As a manager or employee, these are essential skills for your life and as a member of a team.

Metrics Metrics are important to assess achievements. This doesn’t have to be fancy! Visual aids are good! Also positive feedback or employee recognition are good too as they provide renewed motivation, energy and drive! People like to see they have the power to “move the needle”.

SOLUTION: Even a whiteboard with your metrics works. Some companies use a stoplight approach where green=good, yellow=caution and red= we’re off track and missing the mark. What gets measured gets treasured; and what gets treasured gets done! Make sure individuals put aside personal gains & attention or trying to fulfill personal career aspirations and/or boosting their egos. There is no “I” in TEAM!

The Big Takeaway

If you’re still with me now, decide where your team is by asking confidentially each member how well they feel you’re working as a team on a scale from 1 to 10 on the T.E.A.M. outlined above. Then ask where they think you need to be working together as a team.

Research of hundreds of teams in multinational organizations think his/her team operates at a 5.8 level of effectiveness but recognizes the need to be a 8.7.

Discuss and explore performance gaps and choose one behavioral change that everyone can agree to prioritize. Make team-building a regular part of your meetings!

Before asking for a raise — even if you need and deserve it — it’s easy to let self-doubt take over: What if your boss doesn’t think you’re worth the extra money? What if your boss hasn’t had a pay bump for a while, either, and labels you a complainer?

Lobbying for a better salary or perks shouldn’t jeopardize your career, though, if you do it the right way — especially if you’re a valued employee, says Joseph Grenny, who wrote the bestselling Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High.

The key to getting what you want? Stick to the facts, Grenny advises.

“First, research salary data online to find out what other people get paid for jobs like yours in your geographic area,” he says. “Then, be ready to give solid evidence for why your performance merits more money.”

Whatever you do, don’t say you need more money for personal reasons (no matter how urgent), says Grenny.

To make it easier to sell the idea to higher-ups, “you want your boss to see this as an informed business decision, not a charitable contribution,” he says.

If your annual review didn’t reflect your true wonderfulness, don’t stew in silence, says Joseph Grenny, an executive coach at VitalSmarts, a leadership development firm in Provo, Utah.

Even the best-intentioned leaders are so overworked in these lean times that your achievements may sometimes slip past them. Or they may blame you for a problem when there are other, fixable reasons why it’s occurring.

“Saying nothing may be a bigger risk than speaking up,” says Grenny.

Since a so-so (or worse) appraisal in your HR file could unfairly block you from bigger career opportunities down the road, “you need to calmly set the record straight” about specific comments or complaints you believe are inaccurate, says Grenny.

Also ask your boss to go into detail about what he or she needs from you. Try to get insights into how this manager defines a job well done, says Grenny, and be prepared to do more listening than talking.

Grenny also advises: “Ask for more frequent feedback — maybe even once a week — so you can make course corrections if needed, long before your next formal evaluation.”

Let’s hope you never work for a Bernie Madoff type. But if you discover bad deeds are happening in your company, what can you do? Say nothing to your boss, and you risk seeming complicit in the wrongdoing. Speak up and you could earn that dreaded label, “not a team player.”

Luckily, you can be a whistleblower without blowing your career, says Grenny. You’ll need to be diplomatic, though.

“Start the conversation by sharing your good intentions and stressing that you have the boss’s best interest in mind,” Grenny suggests. “Explain the negative consequences you think will follow if the behavior continues.” After all, bilking customers, deceiving investors, and other dodgy practices have been known to destroy companies, taking thousands of careers straight down the tubes. Remember Enron?

If your boss pooh-poohs your worries (“This is how we’ve always done it”), or even retaliates against you (goodbye, raise), take your concerns upstairs.

“At that point, it’s appropriate to approach your boss’s boss,” Grenny says. “But, so you don’t seem to be going behind your boss’s back, suggest that the three of you meet together.”

What if the rot seems to go all the way up the organization chart? In that case, start looking for a new job.

If you’re coping with outdated equipment, vintage software, pointless paperwork, unrealistic deadlines, or a perennial shortage of skilled support staff, it’s much harder to work efficiently. And you may blame your boss for being unsupportive or just clueless.

Don’t charge into your boss’s office when you’re completely fed up with the situation, though, says Grenny. Instead, schedule a meeting, and keep in mind that your boss is almost certainly not trying to make you miserable.

“Start the conversation with curiosity rather than anger,” Grenny suggests. So the boss isn’t tempted to tune you out, avoid accusatory, judgmental, or inflammatory language.

Instead, calmly describe the gap between the support you need and the support you’re getting, Grenny advises.

“Explain why you’re concerned, with emphasis on your common goals,” he says. “Next, invite dialogue. Your boss may see the problem differently. If you’re open to others’ points of view, they’ll be more open to yours.”

Ever think, “If I were in charge around here, we’d go in a whole different direction …”? The safest option, of course, is to keep that opinion entirely to yourself.

But if your corporate culture encourages debate and consensus, respectfully disagreeing can pay off. Just make sure it’s clear you have the best intentions for doing so, Grenny says.

“You want to establish up front that, far from trying to undermine your boss, you’re offering a different viewpoint that might help,” he says.

It’s not so much what you say as how you say it, Grenny notes. So tread softly and ask lots of questions. Lay out facts supporting your view that a given plan won’t work, then keep reassuring your boss that your goal is to help the whole team succeed.

Tactfully taking issue with the status quo shows you care, Grenny points out, so “the result of your openness could be a greater openness on your boss’s part as well.” Here’s hoping.

It’s like you are a big carp swimming in a river and you see this juicy worm and you bite the hook; the other person is the fisherman who reels you in.

Even when you learn to identify the bait and you swim right past that juicy worm, just a few miles downstream you see a juicy piece of cheesecake and before you know it, you are being reeled in again.

It’s funny how those who love to pull our triggers know just what bait to use. If you get wise to the worm, they figure cheesecake will work.
In your personal life it could be your mother and her famous “Well hello stranger” every time you call. You feel angry because instead of appreciating your call, you get the guilt trip for not calling more often.  It’s the subtle innuendo of calling you “stranger” that trips your trigger.  You spend your time either apologizing or explaining all the while regretting that you called in the first place.

In your professional life it can be the employee who keeps showing up in your office with yet another complaint, or another major life catastrophe that keeps her from performing to her ability.  You feel sorry for her so you spend way too much time address her issues and then you give her more leniency than you should only to have your kindness backfire when she calls in from work the next day, or she continues to step in the hole without ever considering your advice. This drama almost always leads to a breakdown in workplace relationships.”

Meet Marlene Chism of www.stopyourdrama.us. She explains to us how to respond, rather than react when you’re pulled into another’s drama! Don’t allow others to suck the life out of your joy at work!

How To Improve Workplace Relations

Marlene Chism
www.marlenechism.com

If you want to stop being reeled in, here are the steps for improving workplace relationships:
1. Awareness
2. Offer No Reaction
3. Listen and acknowledge
4.  Ask an empowering question

Awareness
Awareness is always the first step. You must first recognize the trigger.  If you find yourself already drawn in, then take some time after the communication exchange to examine just exactly what happened to get you to respond the way you did.  If you can recognize the pattern, you can be prepared for the next time.

Offer No Reaction
There are only a couple of good responses to drama. The first option is to offer no reaction. It takes two to play games unless you are playing solitaire. When you respond with sarcasm, argument, or any other form of manipulation such as a deep sigh or eye-roll, you just bit the bait and you will soon notice your workplace relationships begin to unravel. Withdraw from the temptation to get the last word or to prove the other person wrong.  Simply take a breath and offer no response.  See what happens.  You just avoided the worm. Beware of the cheesecake.

Listen and Acknowledge
If you are offered another “test” it will be a little more tempting and may show up as cheesecake. Now you can use the Listen-Acknowledge method. Try using one of these responses the next time you are drawn into someone’s drama:
1. Wow. That must feel terrible.
2. It sounds like you are frustrated with me. (Breathe)
3. Sounds like you need some space.

Ask an Empowering Question
After you have tried the first two responses and the other person continues to complain, blame, or offer drama, you have one more ally and that is to ask an empowering question. Here are a few samples:
1. What do you want to happen?
2. What are your choices?
3. How do you want me to support you in this?
After that you have to set a boundary about how much drama you are willing to be around or engage in.  Everyone wants to be heard that is for sure, but as a leader you must have the compassion to listen but the wisdom to not get drawn into the drama story.
When you refuse to be drawn into the drama, your employees will notice and emulate your behavior. This will lead to improved workplace relationships.