Getting People to Listen to Each Other

“So when you are listening to somebody--completely, attentively--then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed--to the whole of it, not part of it.”

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

I was recently asked an interesting question by a participant in one of my seminars: “How can I get people to listen to each other?”

Her question reminded me of a tough conversation I facilitated between four founders of an IT company. The purpose of the conversation was to provide unvarnished feedback to the founder who was not pulling his weight, to give each person an opportunity to say their piece, and to reach a resolution that would meet the needs of everyone involved. Imagine being in the middle of that! After having interviewed each founder as well as others in senior management, I anticipated the challenging group dynamics that could sabotage the conversation. In particular, it sounded to me as though people were so busy defending their own positions, that they never really considered the other person’s side of the story. Concerns went unattended, conflicts were never resolved, and relationships were in shambles.

As I opened the dialogue, I confronted this issue head on by saying something like this: “Today’s subject matter is deeply personal, and I know that it is important to each of you to retain your friendships with each other while reaching a suitable resolution. I’m going to present some consolidated feedback, and then give each of you a chance to provide your own perspective. It is critical that you listen fully to each person without forming your rebuttal or rehearsing your own statement in your head.” I knew I had set the stage when the CEO asked, “How did you know that we do that?” Call it intuition or good detective work...

Listening to others is not only important so that we don’t miss information, but also so that we don’t miss the feelings and perceptions conveyed by the speaker. Especially in times of conflict, the things that need to be addressed are not the statements themselves, but the feelings underneath. If you suspect that people are not listening to each other in meetings, you might try these tactics:

1) Call a spade a spade, and do what I did with the group of founders--confront the issue head on by telling them what you expect and what is unacceptable behavior.
2) Use the “talking stick” idea that Stephen Covey presents in The 8th Habit, where people are only allowed to speak when they are holding the stick.
3) Outlaw the use of Blackberries and cell phones. If your meeting is a long one, allow enough time during breaks for people to send e-mails and respond to voice messages.
4) Ask others to rephrase what was said to check for understanding. Point out times when it sounds like two conflicting people are saying essentially the same thing, and ask them to be clear about any details that they feel aren’t being addressed.

Do you have other techniques for getting people to listen to each other? I’d love to hear them! Until then...Cheers!

4 Ways to Harness the Benefits of Teamwork

“Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity.”

- Vince Lombardi

The term “team” is thrown around a lot these days. There are “sales teams,” “cross functional teams,” and we “team” with others in our organization. But are we using the term properly? Are these actually teams, or are we just looking for a snazzier name for a group?

In the past month, I’ve heard quite a few people tell me that they were in the process of reorganizing their teams and were experiencing great difficulty with it. One reason for the difficulty is that they are not dealing with teams. Before you embark on such a process yourself, it’s helpful to know the difference between a team and a group.

The most basic definition of “group” is “people with something in common.” They may have a common skill set, interest, or task. A team is a group that has these additional characteristics:

- Teams are assigned to complete highly complex tasks,
- An individual team member’s tasks and success are dependent on the tasks and successes of other members, and
- Members are organized in a way that minimizes weaknesses and maximizes strengths.

Effective teams are also characterized by benefits such as higher levels of camaraderie, dedication to mission accomplishment, and a real respect for the unique strengths brought by each member. And since each person’s expertise is a critical component of the team’s success, members also tend to want to hone their skills and actively seek developmental opportunities.

In order to enjoy the benefits of team unity--camaraderie, dedication, and respect--you must do so by enhancing team-specific characteristics.

- Interdependent tasks: Encourage each member to explain how their ability to complete their task is dependent upon the way others complete theirs. Engage members in setting standards and deadlines together, so that they see the direct connections between tasks.
- Interdependent successes: Emphasize joint accountability and help individuals work through conflict when expectations do not translate to performance. Create a system that enables individual members to recognize outstanding effort and results in their teammates.
- Minimize weaknesses: When a person encounters a roadblock, connect them with other teammates whose experience or expertise can help them over the obstacle. Offer the opportunity during team meetings for stuck members to ask for help. If a person repeatedly encounters the same roadblock, consider shifting their responsibilities away from the area of weakness or reassigning them altogether.
- Maximize strengths: When you prepare to embark on a new project, ask each member to describe how their strengths will contribute to mission accomplishment. Individuals will have an increased understanding of each teammate’s perspective and be able to better identify sources of help within their own team.

Here’s to leading a winning team...Cheers!

Meetings that Matter

“The interaction of many minds is usually more illuminating than the intuition of one.”

- Theodore Sorensen

Unproductive meetings—they are the reason I’ve left teams and the reason I have worked hard at refining my own ability to lead groups of people to do great work.

Despite the bad experiences I’ve had at meetings, I still believe that Sorensen is correct. And I believe that his words are the motivation behind why we schedule meetings in the first place—we want to harness the wide-ranging wisdom of many people in solving complex problems.

So how did meetings become such a waste of our time? It takes a short Google search to find pages of jokes about meetings, like the mock-poster that reads: “Are you lonely? Don’t like working on your own? Hate making decisions? Then call a meeting!” It’s only funny because it’s true: some people schedule meetings out of boredom, tradition, or wavering confidence in their own leadership ability.

To regain focus and get back the gift of time, heighten your awareness (and the alertness of your fellow attendees) by answering these questions before you call the next meeting:
1) What is the purpose of this meeting? This may sound like an obvious question, but too few meeting leaders actually ask it. When you do, you can be sure that you won’t be calling a meeting for one of the inappropriate reasons noted above.
2) What outcomes do I expect to see as a result of this meeting? Like any well-stated goal, you’ll want to make sure that the intended outcomes are specific, measurable, and realistic for the time you have allotted for the meeting. All conversations, agenda items, and questions should be geared towards achieving these results. I find it useful to start the meeting by stating the questions that I want to have answered by the time we’re done.
3) What is the best method for achieving those outcomes? You may get better results through one-on-one conversations, smaller team meetings, email exchanges, spreadsheet updates through a file-sharing system, or good project management software. During the meeting, if you find that a tangential issue is consuming too much time or that more thought needs to be given to a particular subject, encourage that it be taken off-line and addressed again later.
4) What benefits will be gained by bringing this particular group of people together? Choose your attendees wisely. I only invite people to attend a meeting for two reasons: the person will lend a unique perspective to our problem-solving, or I want to give the person an opportunity to ask for and receive help from others at the table.
· If you find yourself inviting certain people in order to keep them informed but not to engage them in group discussion, you might use a different approach. Consider having detailed notes disseminated, or record the conversation for selective play-back so that those not invited can still get the specific updates they need.
· If, on the other hand, you invite people to attend so that they can keep you informed, consider the investment of time that you are making. It may be a quick way for you to get updates from a lot of people, but if these meetings take 90 minutes, and you’ve got 30 attendees, you’ve just invested 45 hours in an outcome that only required a total of 10 hours, had you held short one-on-one conversations.

Test yourself: If attendees were to ask you the question “Why am I here?” and you could give a specific reason for each person, then you should be on track. And if you can actually let them know in advance why you’ve asked them to attend, you’ll be less likely to see Meeting Bingo cards and artistic doodles at the table. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll stop fiddling with their Blackberries. Maybe.

The next time you lead a meeting, let Sorensen’s wisdom guide you. Here’s to leading meetings that matter...Cheers!

Mastering Your Mind

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.”

- Horace

How many e-mails are in your in-box? How many are unread? After talking with a busy group of managers in Baltimore last week, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear numbers with four digits.

How long is your task list? Do you have any reminders that go unattended day after day? When I open my Outlook in the morning, I always get a little chuckle—as the reminder window pops up, all of the chimes that go off make it sound like I just won the jackpot on a slot machine.

This is a problem.

To be most effective in our roles as managers and leaders, we’ve got to be able to deal with compound issues—defining problems, proposing solutions, assigning action officers, following up on time lines, aligning activities, building alliances—the list could go on and on. In order to handle this level of complexity and manage others’ productivity, we’ve got to be masters of our own productivity. And believe it or not, Enemy #1 is not the limited number of hours on the clock, but rather the limited space in your brain.

Yesterday, I was reminded by friend and fellow coach, Don Khouri, of the similarity between our brains and computers. He used David Allen’s analogy of psychic RAM (Random Access Memory), making the point that our ability to process ideas slows down when we have too many unattended issues on our mind. And in our complex situations, we can’t confidently act on something that we haven’t processed adequately.

Deciding that it was time to free up some much-needed psychic RAM, I took Don’s advice, and I hope that you’ll take some time to do the same:
- Jot down all of the things that are on your mind. Don’t judge the validity of each thing, just write it down. To completely clear out your mind, you might consider the roles that you play and the commitments you associate with each one, or you might jog your memory with a “Trigger” List like the one that you’ll find in Allen’s Getting Things Done.
- Review each item. If you feel any anxiety or grief over an item, ask yourself a few questions:
- Did I make a commitment to this? Is it appropriate to renegotiate the commitment?
- Is it actionable? If not, define it as an action step, or as a series of steps.
- How do I define the successful outcome of this task or project?
- If I were to take the next action on this item, what would someone see me doing?

Once you’ve gone through this exercise, you’ll have a clearer sense of what needs to be done, and you will have given attention to all areas of your life. But there are a few more “open loops” that you’ll want to close: those e-mails and task lists. I know it may take some time to organize, archive, and delete those messages and reassign or delete tasks, and I also know that the time will be a worthwhile investment in your future productivity and sanity.

Don’s advice is to close your e-mail each day with an empty in-box—all of the day’s messages filed neatly away in an appropriate folder or in a virtual waste basket. I don’t know if I’m there yet, but I know that I won’t go to sleep fearing what awaits me tomorrow.

Here’s to mastering your mind and getting things done...Cheers!