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Blog on The High Cost of Bad Listening.

The High Cost of Bad Listening

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The quality of communication is not in the mouth of the sender.

A few miles off Highway 15 in the idyllic Pennsylvania countryside sit quiet farms and boulder-crested hills. 163 years ago, this same area around Gettysburg was the scene of the largest battle ever fought in North America. Miscommunication left Confederate General Lee in the dark about the Army of the Potomac’s size and movements as his cavalry commander, Jeb Stuart, rode around the Union Army instead of keeping Lee informed. Lee’s miscommunication with one of his direct reports, Dick Ewell, left the critical East Cemetery Hill in Union hands.

I hosted six extraordinary people for a leadership retreat there last week. Communication arose as a vital topic, both in the battle and in our personal and business lives.

Pain and Perspective

People learn through pain and perspective. The latter is usually more fun and less bruising. I learned about miscommunication the hard way.

I used to think communication was about exchanging ideas, until an Afghan elder sighed in frustration while I offered unsolicited advice on improving his village’s prosperity. I was so focused on the best advice to give that I stopped listening to the rest of his story. He was concerned about the struggle for legitimacy against militant leaders, not which projects would be best.

I learned to slow down and listen to understand. After all, we were communicating through interpreters of varying capability, across very different cultures, experiences, and outlooks. I had to be very intentional about getting their meaning.

I started paraphrasing what they said and asked, “Did I get that about right?” They either affirmed me or restated what I’d missed. Then I explored their points with invitations like “Help me to understand ___” and open-ended questions like, “What would be the next steps in achieving this goal?”

Once I put this process in place, the impact was massive: people believed they’d been heard and felt safe exploring ways to cooperate. We took steps that led the biggest insurgent group in the area to stop fighting and become allies.

You’re Not Hearing Me

When I returned to the States, I fell back into my old ways. I assumed that sharing a language and culture meant we shared an understanding. I could shortcut to offering ideas that solved problems, whether we were debating policy in the White House Situation Room or, later, meeting with a business prospect.

My ideas, advice, and support had far less impact than they could have, and I struggled to figure out why. Over coffee in a Milwaukee shop, it finally hit me as I offered advice and my prospect shook her head. “You’re not hearing me.”

I thought I served people best by contributing ideas and finding silver linings in troubled situations. I thought I was being supportive, but people took it as being tone-deaf, self-centered, and out of touch. I was devastated.

It’s in the Heart of the Receiver

The wake-up call helped me realize that the quality of communication isn’t in the mouth of the sender; it’s in the heart of the receiver. The listener’s experience matters more than the speaker’s intention when it comes to getting things done.

No matter how brilliant (or not) my idea might have been, if the receiver’s heart registered, “I don’t feel heard,” the transmission would simply bounce off like a rock skipping across water. People don’t feel safe when they feel that you don’t get them, so the heart stays guarded, and your ideas go nowhere.

Looking back on my Afghanistan days, I recognized that listening to understand made people feel heard and safe, which opened the heart to cooperation. Why not apply that at home?

Listening to Understand

I’ve seen four modes of listening. Distracted Listening occurs when your mind is on your smartphone or task, so you barely register what the other person is saying. Listening to Respond occurs when someone triggers a reply in your head, and you focus on formulating your response instead of listening to the rest of their point. When people talk past each other in meetings (like I saw repeatedly in the White House Situation Room), they are probably in this mode. Listening to Win is the more sinister twin of the previous, where you formulate your response to show how smart you are and how dumb the other person is.

Listening to Understand is when you focus your attention on what the other person has to say. It’s particularly powerful when you paraphrase what you heard and ask, “Did I get that about right?” When the answer is yes, explore their ideas with open-ended questions and invitations, like “What outcomes do you want to achieve?” and “Tell me more about ___.”

I also learned to resist the urge to give unsolicited advice or identify silver linings unless the person asks for it. Sometimes people just want their point of view understood. Other times they want a shoulder to lean on. Asking, “What would ideal support from me look like?” shows how you can help. If they reply, “I’d like to get your advice on this,” they will receive what you say with an open heart.

I invite you to try this approach at work and at home. Comment below and let me know how it works for you.

Listening to Understand Graph - blog on The High Cost of Bad Listening.

Listening to Understand

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Are you REALLY listening? Unlock hours of productivity with just one simple communication change.

Did you know that a Harris poll recently revealed that the average company loses eight hours of productivity per employee per week due to miscommunication? That tallies to 400 hours per employee per year. At a $100,000 salary, you are losing $20,000 in productivity. The totals are staggering.

Improving communication means providing clearer guidance, using plain language instead of jargon, and listening more effectively. 

I used to think active listening entailed nodding my head and saying “uh-huh” and “yes” every now and again. I probably looked like a kabuki bird or someone with a spring for a neck, and sounded like I couldn’t hold a conversation.

This practice didn’t earn me too many penalties as long as I interacted with someone with the same background and viewpoints.

Others from very different perspectives—whether in graduate school, Afghanistan, or outside the military—would feel that they weren’t being heard. My way of active listening was undermining relationships, impeding coordination, and limiting what we could accomplish.

While nodding and “uh-huhing” at high-level meetings, for example, I was also formulating my responses in my head to the fast-moving and sometimes contentious discussions. When I had it about right and gained a turn to speak, what I said was often out of step with where the conversation had moved. I was also accused of relitigating matters or rehashing what was already agreed, wasting time. 

4 Common Modes of Listening

Frustrated and wanting to do better, I learned that there are four common modes of listening: distracted, listening to respond, listening to win, and listening to understand.

Distracted listening happens when you multitask: reading, typing on your computer, scrolling social media, watching television, etc. You miss most of what the other person is saying, and they feel disrespected by your inattention. 

Listening to respond, what I was doing in meetings, occurs when you hear something that triggers a need to respond, so you stop paying attention to what’s being said while formulating your response. The same part of the brain is involved in both actions, so your internal voice will trump everything else. 

Listening to win entails focusing on proving you are right, undermining the other person, or showing how smart you are. Even if you succeed, you are guaranteed to be on the wrong side of right, making people feel unsafe around you.

Listening to understand improves communication because you focus on getting the other person’s point of view first, especially when you do not agree with them. Provide your full attention so they know nothing is more important at that moment than hearing what they have to say. When they make a point or two, rephrase their position in your own terms and ask, “Did I get that about right?” When they say, “That’s exactly right,” you can move forward.

Exploring their point of view with open-ended questions will show your intention to understand.

  • What inspired you to come to this conclusion?
  • What’s the impact of your observation?
  • How do you suggest we address your point?
  • What makes this matter so important to you?
  • How do you feel about this issue?

Once you’ve gained a more complete perspective, validate their communication by appreciating their willingness to address the matter with you. At that point, you can provide your perspective or point of view and discuss ways to move forward.

RAVEN

The RAVEN acronym can help:

R: Restate their views to their satisfaction

A: Ask open-ended questions

V: Value their willingness to share their views

E: Educate them on your point of view, experiences, or concerns

N: Negotiate a way forward

One executive complained, “Wait a minute, Chris. I don’t have time to do this in every conversation.”

You can’t afford not to because you will save more than the 400 hours per employee you lose annually. As this practice becomes a habit, people will flag problems and bring you new ideas because they know they are being heard, which will reduce time in crisis management and mediocrity while boosting innovation. 

Listening to understand is an investment in success.

I practice these conversations with my coaching clients and during workshops with their teams to help them turn listening to understand into an unconscious competence.

What impact will reducing the unforced miscommunication errors have on your company? Hit reply to let me know.

14 Behaviors That Drain Your Time and Energy

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Move away from these behaviors to empower your team, improve communication, and save time.

I used to think that personal and professional growth involved adding more to an already full plate: more objectives, challenges, opportunities, etc. So, I seized upon productivity hacks to do more in the same amount of time. I thought it was the best way to bridge the gap between my performance and potential. 

We used to joke as we trudged up and down mountains in Afghanistan about carrying 200 lbs of lightweight equipment. My life felt like that.

I became super organized and hyper-efficient, but my unforced errors increased, creating rework that added even more to the plate. The quality of my personal interactions diminished as I tried to split my attention between the person in front of me and other tasks I needed to complete. 

I was doing more, but to a lower standard, while getting burned out and losing friends. 

Dr. Mark Goulston helped me to see a different perspective. 

“Do you know what Michelangelo (the famous Renaissance artist) said when he asked how he made David?”

I took away everything that was not David.

Let’s call it the Michelangelo Principle: to begin closing the gap between your performance and potential, remove what’s holding you back. 

One of the most powerful ways is to prune away behaviors that create needless friction. 

Behaviors—how you apply your standards to the people and situations around you—can ease your path to success or create needless friction. 

For people like you at the tail end of the curve, your skills and experiences no longer differentiate you. Your behaviors set you apart. Advance even further into the tail end of the curve by removing your self-inflicted obstacles.

Draining Your Time and Energy: 14 Behaviors

Below are fourteen behaviors that drain your time and energy. Most leaders have two or three of these. Prune these away, and you’ll save hours each week in no longer correcting miscommunication and misaligned work or having to pick up the slack that didn’t need to happen.

1. Adding unnecessary value. When you improve someone’s idea by 5%, you reduce their commitment by 50%. Your employees perform far better with an 80% solution that they own than with a 100% solution you provide. Stop the happy-to-glad.

2. Offering unsolicited advice. Your good intentions can create resentment by saying, “I’m better than you.” Instead, ask what support you can provide to help them succeed faster.

3. Winning every argument. When you insist on winning every argument, you drag out meetings, create unnecessary conflict, and undermine goodwill. Gaining people’s buy-in is more important. Once you’ve got that, shut up and move out.

4. Butting in. Nothing matters before the “but.” The same goes for “however” and “no.” You create resentment with these words that say, “You make a good point, but my point is better than yours.”

5. Providing constructive criticism. Criticism builds defensiveness, which impedes progress. You waste time and energy relitigating the past, and your employees are less likely to innovate and try new things. Stop dwelling on history and start framing a better future by feeding forward: “How will you do it better next time?”

6. Justifying your actions after requesting feedback. You asked for feedback on what you can do better. Your employee tells you something you do that bothers them. When you justify your actions, you imply someone other than you is at fault. They feel they stuck their neck out, wasted their time, and gained your resentment. When you ask for advice and get it, say, “Thank you.”

7. Not listening. Instead of focusing on your employees, you try to multitask. Your employees think they are unimportant to you, and you get only a fraction of what they say. You may listen to respond (see winning every argument), so you miss their more essential points. You waste time and energy on misunderstandings and rework. Focus 100 percent of your attention on listening without passing judgment. Seek first to understand.

8. Speaking (or typing) when angry. You are guaranteed to worsen the situation by creating resentment, putting your foot in your mouth, and piling on problems. Step away from the keyboard, go for a walk, and ask, “What can I do to improve the situation?”

9. Negativity fixation. You want to show how smart you are by explaining why every new idea will fail, so you stifle initiative, undermine ownership, and stay mired in a failing status quo. Ask instead, “How will you address this challenge?”

10. Feeding someone’s negativity fixation. You’ll waste hours arguing back and forth with a know-it-all who’s stuck in their ways. Ask instead, “If it were possible, how would you do it?”

11. Letting perfectionism impede progress. Moving from an 80 to 90 percent solution can be prohibitive regarding time, money, and opportunity cost, so stop waiting for perfection. Go with the 80 percent solution and adapt as needed. You’ll save time, energy, and resources while seizing opportunities that grow your business.

12. Obsessive fault-finding. Some leaders treat finding an error as if discovering a buried treasure. You spend so much time looking for what’s wrong that you miss seeing and recognizing what’s right. You spend time correcting faults but fail to reinforce productive behavior. So, unnecessary problems keep piling up.

13. Finger-pointing. Leaders who obsess over faults tend to fixate on blame. This tendency creates predictable backlash as people try to defend themselves, cover their backsides, and re-litigate the past. While you waste all this time and energy, the cause of the problem remains. Focus on the cause, not blame, address it, and move on.

14. Being the hero. When you parachute to solve everyone’s problems and answer their questions, you become a crutch for your employees. Instead of building self-reliance, you create dependency. You rob yourself of the time to do your job and rob your employer of the value you should provide. Instead of solving the problem for them, ask, “How would you do it?”

Are you ready to slay your time and energy vampires and become an ever-better you? I can help you zero in on the behaviors that close the gap between your performance and potential, revealing your own David. Schedule a call here, and let’s get started.

Are You Communicating As Effectively As You Can?

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We all know communication is key but have you ever explicitly talked about preferred methods with your Team?

communication

Communication is a complicated beast. As a leader, communicating clearly and often is a must. Following up after communication is a great practice. Being receptive to feedback and constructive criticism is hard but helps us grow. Having an open-door policy gives our Team a greater sense of belonging. I could go on and on about the benefits of and the great ideas about communication.

Here’s a novel idea: How often have you asked your team their preferred method of communication? For example, many people prefer emails for task-related requests, texts for brief information or check-ins, and phone calls and/or in-person conversations for things that are personal or could be misinterpreted through email. Think about it.

Perhaps you always communicate over email, but the younger generations in your office prefer Slack or texts. Your communication method could be hindering their ability to work efficiently.

communication

I have recently asked this explicit question as a director and as a consultant and it has opened my eyes as to what others prefer and also has given the individual team members a voice and more control of their preferred communication method.

First, take some time to ask your Team how they prefer to be communicated with given certain scenarios.

Four steps to better communication in the workplace:

  1. Email
  2. Text/Slack/inter-office messaging
  3. Phone call
  4. In-person
  5. Other
  • Overcome email nuances by calling or talking in person: If you ever find yourself wondering if someone might misinterpret the email, chances are you should call or stop by in person. We all know it’s hard to interpret emotions and sarcasm in emails so grab the phone and call if it’s too complicated to put in an email.  
  • You don’t need to change all of your habits: However, when you can meet your Team halfway, they will feel heard, understood, and they will appreciate your generosity in communicating in a style that will support their productivity.
  • Sharing preferred communication method is a two-way street: It will give you, the leader, an opportunity to share your desired communication and you can also share your “why,” which may influence your Team to streamline their processes.

Additional ways I can help you communicate.

Laura Colbert Consulting Programs
The Trusted Advisor Program is my most intensive 1-on-1 program. Within 90 days, you’ll gain habits that create breakthrough success. You get personalized coaching and support, relentless accountability, and commonsense action steps that get results.

Additional Offerings:
Join our central Wisconsin in-person or online Impactful Leadership Lunch. Join like-minded leaders during this monthly mastermind lunch group to improve your business efficiency, boost employee retention, and get you focused on doing what gives you joy. Are you looking for a Keynote Speaker at your next event? I use my past experiences and knowledge to show you how to be the best version of yourself, surround yourself with the right people, and build highly productive teams.

Book:
Sirens: How to Pee Standing Up – An alarming memoir of combat and coming back home. This book depicts the time of war and its aftermath. It seamlessly bridges the civilian and military divide and offers clarity to moral injury and post-traumatic stress.