Dan Erwin

Why Is Listening Accuracy So Very Difficult?

The obvious reason for listening failure is that people are unaware of listening processes. For example, lots of folk think resolving listening failure is all a matter of listening harder. But research makes it very clear that listening harder barely improves listening. As an exec coach and a specialist in listening, I learned years ago that people don’t understand that listening is actually a process containing several elements.

Got some doubts about that insight? Here’s how I found out about listening ignorance. And learned that very few smart MBAs—even from the top schools--understand that process.

Whatever my client's developmental objectives, whether influence management, strategic thinking, client management, decision processes, bias recognition, or leadership, I usually get around to asking participating interviewees a few very, very basic questions.  

One of the killers is this simple query:  "How effective a listener is my client?"  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I get the innocuous response--"he’s good."  Then I dig in:  Does he repeat what you've said?   Does he clarify or check out what you've said?  Does he summarize or paraphrase what you've said?  Or an even more significant question--to what extent does he verbalize the implications of what's being said? 

After four "nos" in a row, half the interviewees fill in the blanks and say something to the effect that it’s obvious my client may not be as effective as they once thought. The majority of interviewees have a question right at that point. In fact, I’ve found it advantageous to respond to their implicit listening questions.  (When I get three or four “never thought about that” responses, I’m knocking on the door for further business.) Then after confirming their insight, I take the next step—providing research information.  

The research is a shocker. It reveals that a busy manager spends 80% of her time listening to people, . . and still doesn't get half of what is said.

When Silence Always Beats Talk

Silence, when supported by intelligent questioning, is easily one of the most useful interpersonal tools in the managerial repertoire. Silence inevitably beats talk for enhancing higher order thinking, including complex analysis, evaluation, creativity, problem solving and decision making. The problem is that managers are either ignorant of its use, or—more significantly—the magnitude of change required is prohibitive. Indeed, research in educational settings reveals that the required change to an effective wait-time is of the order of 600%. The consequence? Silence nerves usually take over—and the manager rolls, losing one of the very best options for human productivity and insight.

The silence process
You read that right. Silence is a process. Call it wait time, lapse time, pausing or Golden Silence, a term coined by Miller and Heiman, the sales’ gurus. The original research defined two uses of silence: wait time I was defined as the duration of the pause after a question; and wait time II was defined as the duration of the pause after the responder first answered.

When you give your respondent extra time to think about your question, the information given back is far more likely to be solid information than if you had given half as much time.

"The Luck Factor"

Almost 25% of company founders and business-builders believe that luck is a major factor in their success.  What’s most surprising is that people generate their own luck. But lucky charms, amulets or knocking on wood won’t do it.

Richard Wiseman, the British psychologist, has studied luck from a scientific perspective, learning that it is not strictly random. Wiseman finds that lucky people tend to be more skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, they listen (pay attention) to their intuitive ideas, use positive expectations and work hard to make lemonade out of lemons. They take a resilient attitude toward life. If you know your psych, you recognize that there are a lot of spin-offs from empirical research built into his “luck factor theory,” beginning with the extensive research on the personal impact of positive attitudes.

In addition, Wiseman finds that unlucky people are generally much more tense and anxious than lucky people, and research has shown that anxiety disrupts people’s ability to notice.  On top of that, those same unlucky people shy away from the very change and variety that would add to the potential for good fortune.

In sum, Wiseman concludes that the differences between the lucky and unlucky people are striking. Lucky people tend to imagine spontaneously how the bad luck they encounter could have been worse and, in doing so, they feel much better about themselves and their lives. This, in turn, helps keep their expectations about the future high, and, increases the likelihood of them continuing to live a lucky life.

The new role of luck
Luck—or even better, serendipity--that aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident, assumes a far more important role in this new economy. In the fascinating new book, The Power of Pull, by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison, the authors emphasize the role and importance of serendipity. They define it as the ability to find people and the knowledge they carry with them. In today’s world, where you don’t even know what you’re looking for, finding and attracting knowledge people is key.

Why is this so important? As Pull puts it, when we dive below the surface of events that get so much attention—from both journalists and bloggers—we find that our foundations are constantly shifting. For most of us there is an enormous distance between where we are today and where we’ll need to be in order to fully take advantage of changing opportunities. Not only do we have to keep our eye on the ball—that long-term directional focus—but we all have to amplify our own efforts with the resources of others.

Think about it: if you’re exploring new sets of problems, new territories—what Hagel and buddies call an “edge,” it’s always very, very helpful to learn from the experiences of others. Luck, what I like to think of as “serendipitous encounters,” is not only the best way to gain insight and resolutions, but often the only way to gain those insights. Indeed, as I reflect on those “lucky encounters,” I celebrate my good fortune in the richness, insight and even the blessing they’ve brought to my life and profession.

Creating your own serendipity
In “Pull” the authors argue strongly and wisely for the “shaping” of serendipity rather than treating it as merely a matter of chance. They talk about our all-too-common experiences of needing to know, but not needing to know what you need, and what really exists, much less how to find it or whom. MIT’s Sherry Turkle adds that as a result of internet search engines, fewer and fewer of us really know how to engage in search outside of Googling the internet and using its other search engines. Because the internet completely manages search processes for us, knowledge of those processes has gone the way of the Dodo bird, profoundly limiting resources beyond the internet. Indeed, there seems to be little understanding, for example, that ideational and personal search tends to flow in significantly evolutionary and haphazard formats and that those processes can be manipulated for both ideas and people. Those who grew up, trained in library skills, would understand the processes. But what Hagel and colleagues do for us is a huge updating and revision of the 20^th century environments, knowledge and skills for the 21^st century.

Serenditipitous environments
Pull suggests five environments for enhancing serendipity.

• Geographic spikes—more people live in large urban centers than in any other part of the globe. Different cities offer a wealth of options, providing gathering places for increasing the probability of serendipitous encounters. Most of us think automatically of Silicon Valley for software or Los Angeles for producers and directors. One of my friends is interested in the future applications of technology to food resources and has located in the Twin Cities precisely because of UMN and the many food industries and resources in that area.
• Conferences—These “moving circuses” are especially useful because participants have self-filtered. They provide opportunities for meeting people with information, making possible likely serendipity.
• Online social networks—Virtual environments provide plenty of potential for shaping serendipity. Admittedly, as these environments grow there is potential for low-productivity encounters. Still, choosing the social platforms of interest can provide insight into which initial contacts to pursue.   
• Connection platforms—these platforms help people connect around needs. Open-source software sites such as SAP’s Developer Network are one kind. But eBay and Amazon provide another kind of network. For example, I’ve picked up a couple exceptional contacts simply by reading Amazon’s reviews on a niche book.
• Institutions—Many institutions develop conference strategies, providing options for contacts with people of similar interests. Universities, major industries and large corporations, as well as national conference planners all fit into this category.

Serendipity (luck) comes to those who. . . . know where and how to shape it.  As the authors put it, to get better faster at whatever it is you do, you’ve got to be supported by a broad array of complementary people and resources from which you can pull what you need to raise your rate of performance improvement. And what are the competencies you’ll need to achieve that? Well, that’s for another blog.

Hagel, John III, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, The Power of Pull: How small moves, smartly made can set big things in motion. (New York: Basic Books), 2010.
See especially: John Hagel's blog, The Edge
Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. (New York: Basic Books), 2011.
Wiseman, Richard, The Luck Factor. The skeptical inquirer, May/June 2003.
Flickr photo: tim geers

Conversations: The New Source of Organizational Power

It used to be thought that the major source of power for managers and leaders was their position. It was his vested position that gave a manager the controls of productivity, strategy and the firm’s future. That is simply no longer the case.

Out of the thousands of books on communication in organizations, Talk, Inc. takes today’s changing world of business seriously and provides a unique perspective. As findings by Harvard's Boris Groysberg and Michael Slind reveal in their new book, Talk, Inc., leadership is fundamentally conversation-powered. Indeed, as the authors declare, conversations are the new source of organizational power. 

The hard skills are easy to learn. It’s the soft skills of conversation and relationships that easily sabotage workers’ hopes for the future. And, as businesses are learning, the lack of those soft skills also sabotages strategy and the bottom line. So Groysberg and Slind’s new work is a welcome addition to every manager’s bookshelf. Indeed, the authors do something long overdue in this field: they refashion the concept of organizational communication around face-to-face conversation.

Four practical, learnable “talk” principles
As a result of extensive research in widely disparate industries and companies of all sizes, the authors discover a set of conversational principles for this new economy. There’s no one way, monologic approach to communication here. Instead, the authors find that successful leaders engage with a new social technology, comprising four concrete skills: 

• Intimacy. Yep. That’s the agenda and there’s no baloney here. The crippling disease of interpersonal distance has to go out the window. It will, of course, require a great deal of trust-building to get beyond the hierarchical practices of the past.
• Interactivity. Both members in a conversation are going to have to talk and listen. This kind of social technology won’t come easy to those schooled in the presentation models of the past. I’ve been beating that drum for years and here’s the research to support the success of that principle.
• Inclusion. There’s a logical sequence of principles from intimacy to interactivity to inclusion. The consequence is what you see on the internet brought to face-to-face settings: the triumph of employee-generated content. The subtext, of course, is that in today’s complex world, no manager, no single individual has all the information necessary for success.
• Intentionality. So do you plan your conversations? Is it just “going with the flow?” Or is something else required? The big picture will be part of the conversations and it will drive the strategic alignment for everyone to make better decisions on their jobs.

Is this really new?
Aristotle implied all this stuff in his “Rhetoric,” and the twentieth century drove it home. But Talk, Inc. sets its competencies inside the organization of the 21st century. This is really new. And it’s a book every manager and employee will want.

Boris Groysberg & Michael Slind, Talk, Inc. (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press), 2012.

Flickr: by Steve Unlikely

To Find a Job, Rebuild Your Network

The best way to find a job is still through networking. Certainly the web is useful. But ultimately, nothing is better than face-to-face. Here are my secrets to the process.

No matter how you get the contact, face-to-face will be inevitable. However, many really need to change their networking process to get that new job they’ve always dreamed of.

Networking has been around since the 1930s, but research, insights and major changes enhancing success in the process are relatively recent. Don’t limit your outreach to close friends, colleagues or your current organization. It’s important to realize that your network needs to be tailored to its objectives. And if a new job is your objective, most will need to rebuild that network.

Many people seem to think that networks are easier to form if you’re extroverted and outgoing. But the real issue is effort, not personality style.

And one of the intriguing research finds about high performers is that they distinguish themselves by their network. They don’t necessarily have a big network. But their network has “bridging ties,” ties with people who reach outside their group and outside their organization. Job searchers should be finding and using “bridging ties.”

There are a number of top students of networking and networking analysis. But for popular consumption and personal feedback on your network and network building, pick up Wayne Baker’s, Achieving Success through Social Capital. It’ll help you analyze where your network weaknesses are, how to build a better network and how to focus on your objective.  

Redefine your network to focus on your job search.
Most have far more contacts than they think. Go through your past history, identifying former classmates, colleagues, clients and community acquaintances. When you sit down with a contact to talk, always ask for other contacts. Be very specific.  Follow the sales assumption approach: “Based on our conversation what three people should I contact?” Notice the specific number. If you ask whether they can suggest some others, you’re liable to get a no. But if you ask for specific number and keep seated, they’re liable to go to their own contact list and pull out three names for you. Then ask if you have permission to tell the contact that he/she was the source of the recommendation. And here’s a terrific secret: once you’ve made contact with the three, call the original source back, telling him of the results in up-beat fashion. And thank him. Half the time, he’ll give you more insights and more contacts.

The contact meeting is a discussion, not a job interview.
Keep faith with the stated objective of your meeting. If the purpose of your meeting is information gathering, never, never ask for a job in that discussion. If the contact brings it up, that’s fine. But don’t commit such a strategic blunder. Never go into a discussion unprepared—and be knowledgeable about the contact’s industry. Using information you have about his/her industry, ask more about the industry, its status, future, current jobs situation. Ask how to succeed in the industry and how to position yourself for opportunities.

Finally, get feedback on your handling of the conversation. How can you improve your information-gathering process? What other questions should you be asking, even what shouldn’t you ask. Make it a learning session, both for you and your contact. Give the contact a smile, a firm handshake, and get out of the room—on time. And if the contact continues to give you information, let him know that you appreciate it but that you want to keep faith with his time. He’ll let you know if you can stay seated or should get on your way. And, he’ll respect you for your professionalism. 

Keep good records of your contact and your meetings.
There are all kinds of programs for record keeping, but I keep a special contact file in outlook for potential clients and information gained from meetings. But be sure to check back every two or three months, update the contact, and check to see how he’s doing and whether he has further suggestions for you.

Earlier on in this blog, I pointed out that building a network is about effort, not personality. I hope that message has really sunk in. I’ve worked with numerous leaders who were scrupulous networkers. One especially comes to mind. A vice-president of a consumer products company, I watched him move from job to job, seemingly without any difficult. His first position was lost to a merger, but he had a new position in another company before he finished his tenure. His second position was lost to a strategic IT blunder, but he marched off to another even better position before being let go. He inevitably devoted time every week to networking, revising the quality of his links, and checking in with his contacts. It paid off in spades.

Flickr Photo: by clairphotography 

Listening Is NOT a Linear Game

“Wait, wait. I’m not finished.” Four keys to truly listening.

Listening is far more difficult, more fatiguing and often more frustrating than talking. Even the best listeners have to bite their tongues to stop from reacting, interrupting or verbally identifying with the person talking. 

Effective listeners listen for different levels of meaning. 

The linguistic or denotative level is simply that to which the message refers. “Jim can’t come to the team meeting.” The individual words of the sentence and the sentence as a whole have linguistic meaning. “Jim” refers to one specific person and “can’t come” refers to a specific action that won’t take place. “Team meeting” is a well-defined event. That's linear listening. 

But it’s the non-linear, interpretive level of meaning where our brains really start churning. The interpretive level of meaning in a message is created by the complex set of cues within the message itself. These cues tell the other person how to make sense of the message. Is it to be taken seriously or lightly. Does the message mean exactly what’s being stated, or even the opposite of its literal content? 

When the message is delivered face-to-face, there are liable to be mannerisms, facial, hand and body gestures, as well as inflections and tone of voice that give us clearer indications of how a transaction is to be interpreted. When the message is delivered via other means, all you have are the words. 

The third level of meaning for most messages is the relational. The relational level of meaning is the complex set of cues within the message that indicate the relationship between the talker and the listener. Every message in an interpersonal transaction (that’s right, “every message”) either reinforces or modifies the existing relationship between the two persons involved. 

In short, effective listening inevitably involves a lot of parallel processing. 

Four keys to truly listening. 

It’s obvious that the opportunities for misunderstanding within the three levels of meaning are numerous. But organizational listening, even within the interpersonal, is inherently problematic. Add differing levels of hierarchy, work teams with several members, cultural and value differences, struggles for power, competition for scarce resources and the increased use of impersonal communication media to the soup and it’s a near-perfect set up for misunderstanding. So here are four keys to more effective listening: 

Avoid and ignore distractions. This doesn’t just mean shutting down your Blackberry or closing your web browser. It’s especially important to stop the business of formulating your response to what the other person is saying. Simply focus on what’s being said at the differing levels. Focus, focus, focus. 

Parrot and paraphrase. You can feel silly doing this, but parroting or paraphrasing not only shows the other person that you’re listening, but it encourages them to keep talking by showing that you’re actually listening. 

Ask thoughtful questions. Open-ended and implication questions help you see the issues more clearly. It also enables the talker to go deeper into what he or she sees as significant. 

Explore other’s listening mistakes. It’s a lot more difficult to learn from our own mistakes than from others. Whenever I’m around a “he said, she said” conversation, I pay close attention to how a person draws conclusions from that experience. I stay curious about their interpretations, sometimes even asking about how they drew their conclusion from what they heard. If you’ve sat through a team meeting, for example, and afterword someone tells you what they heard and the meaning they made from it, you begin to see how that person created meaning and how it (sometimes) differs from you. So I don’t just walk away wondering what planet they’re on or why I missed that. Instead, I pay close attention to their inference creating, learning about my own skills and even my mistakes, from them. Statisticians will tell you that our inference creations are far, far more wrong than correct. Most of us rather automatically think that mistakes were made, but not by us. That dog won’t hunt. 

The brilliant research scientist, Duncan Watts, formerly of Columbia University and now Yahoo’s principal research scientist, has a lot to say about our inference, meaning-making capacities. In a fascinating McKinsey summary on the future of marketing, Watts finds that we need to start suspecting our intuition (our inference-drawing and meaning-making capacities). Watts is talking about hard data, but his comment applies even more strongly to interpersonal/team listening. 

We can’t help thinking that we know why people do (say) what they do (say) or what they’re going to do. But whatever hypothesis or intuition you have, however self-evident it may seem, when you test it against the data, it’s wrong—not every time, but very often.

Listening Is Actually All About Questioning

Effective listening is not about listening harder.

“My boss--or my colleague--won’t listen to me.” Although it’s rare to see much about effective listening on the web, my single post on the subject, Listening with minimal encouragers--with nearly 20,000 viewers--is still going strong. Listening problems in organizations never seem to go away. Part of the problem is most still frame listening through the lens of attention. So they emphasize “pay attention and listen harder.” That, however, won’t significantly impact the quality of your listening. Listening actually involves the same fundamental skill as interpreting an email, a tweet or dealing with any other message media that requires responsiveness.

Being effectively responsive to messages in any format is first and foremost all about questioning, especially within the organization. That implies that our knee jerk response to the messages we receive within interpersonal conversations or scripted media is neither reading closely nor listening more attentively. The questioning may be verbalized orally or merely internal and silent, but effective listeners are invariably questioning.

Although written messages are infamous for misunderstanding, face-to-face conversations are still more complex. That’s especially true when it comes to effective listening. We’ve been taught to listen for the big ideas and pay attention to the words and meanings, but that’s only part of the issue. Effective listeners question the larger conversational context, the immediate setting, audience relationship, emotional tone, body movement, the gestures, eye gaze, tone and inflection as well as the words. In short, effective listeners are parallel processors who question what they both see and hear within the conversational package.

Can you question all of these factors at one time? Of course not. But as you question what you’re seeing and hearing, you’ll begin to notice just a few factors in each conversation that stick out. Usually those are the factors on which to focus your questioning and analysis. This might include context issues, for example, as obvious as, “why is Joe interrupting repeatedly?” Or, “why is the leader getting 'defensive' about that set of questions?” Sometimes the more important question might even be, “why don’t I have better insights into this seemingly politicized issue? How did I miss out on what’s evidently going on here?”

Invariably, there are only a handful of questions that apply to nearly all business settings:

1. What’s the meaning of this conversation? What’s being said and what’s the real subtext?
2. What are the relevant context, hierarchy, political, relationships, emotions, tone, body language and gesture I need to focus upon and analyze? Who are the obvious players here, and why are others saying nothing?
3. What are the relevant “undiscussables?” What’s not being messaged, but would be extremely useful to know and understand?
4. What’s the impact of the person’s messaging upon the context, conversation and myself?
5. What does he expect me to do about what he’s saying--and what am I really going to do about it?
6. What are the messages my listening is sending to the speaker and what adjustments do I need to make about those messages—if possible?

You’re not always going to be comfortable asking these questions orally in every setting. But your ignorance of the answers to these listening questions can impact your projects and career, sometimes seriously.

Remember that the conclusions you draw if you don’t ask a question out loud may be off base—far off base. I inevitably assume that my assessment of what’s being said—if I don’t verbalize my question to the other—has a greater potential for being wrong than right. It’s smart to distrust your judgments about the other person and what he or she is meaning. My friends, as well as my clients, tend to expect that I’ll call back after sleeping on a conversation to once more clarify a conversation’s meaning.

If you build a social contract—an agreement with the person--that you can ask questions about what’s being said, and do it early on and regularly—you’ll find it possible to ask nearly all these questions. Of course, you’ll need to regularly renegotiate the contract. If the person is a superior, you’ll want to find out whether he’s OK with questions in public or would prefer them in private. Eventually, even the most reticent will agree to public questioning of significant issues.

FYI: Systematic research in communications, psych, anthropology, and sociology underlies all these listening questions. But I decided that enough was probably enough. Still I’ll drop one overarching piece of research directly related to listening into this blog: Misunderstanding is more prevalent and widespread than understanding within the organizational communication package. Organizational misunderstanding can be tied as much to contextual politics and body gesture as to the meaning of words. (I should remind readers that politics is not a dirty word. Nearly all conversation has political overtones.)

Are Top Salespeople Born or Made?

My blog title is from an HBR blog on critical sales skills, written by Steve W. Martin. Martin argues that over 70% of top salespeople are born with “natural instincts” that play a critical role in determining their sales success. His conclusion, he writes, is drawn from his “research.” So, Martin believes, top salespeople are born, not made. Duhhhh! We got rid of that same notion regarding top leaders about ten years ago. Now we have to go through the same song and dance about top salespeople. Aaaargh!

But are sales skills actually a matter of natural instinct?

Take, for example, what Martin regards as the first and most differentiating factor of sales success--language specialization. Very few, he writes, are language mavens who can conduct intelligent conversations about the details of daily business operations. . . . Successful self-made salespeople possess domain-area expertise and speak the corresponding business operations language, or have deep knowledge of the industry's technical language. These languages are the yardstick by which customers measure a salesperson's true value and greatly influence their purchase decisions. Lesser-performing self-made salespeople are not as fluent in these languages, so they tend to focus on likability and friendliness with prospective customers.

This reminds me of my favorite movie line by Jason Bateman in the opening scene of “The Switch” in which he talks about his inability to relate: For most of us it’s about not being able to say what you need to say when you need to say it. Martin would say that Bateman’s problem is biology. Less than 30% of the top conversationalists are self-made. They are born with natural conversational instincts. So it’s our inheritance--the luck of the draw.

That’s utter nonsense. Martin hasn’t done the right research. It’s one thing to say that top salespeople grew up in families where good fiction that develops one’s experience was read, and critical thinking and interactional conversation were modeled and emphasized—and most don’t have that luxurious background. It’s another to say that some have natural instincts that play a critical role in determining sales success. I wrote asking for his research. Thus far, a month later, no response.

True. There is such a thing as language instinct, but only at the most basic level. Unless there’s a physical impediment such as Down or Joubert Syndromes, where a portion of the brain is underdeveloped, evolution starts us all out with basic language grammar. If you pay attention to toddlers you can recognize the grammar. Our eldest, when a toddler, understood it was “raining” or “snowing,” or the “sun was shining.” So of course when the wind was blowing, it was also “winding.” That’s toddler grammar—and it is instinctual says Steven Pinker.

Where we go from there is highly dependent upon environment, opportunity, learning and motivation. If you’re familiar with the conclusions regarding deliberate practice, you know that expertise in any domain requires a great deal of modeling, feedback, coaching and practice. That’s true whether the issue is chess, golf, math--or language. Buy shoes at Nordstrom’s and buy tennies at the local discount shoe store and ask both salespeople about their shoes. It doesn’t take much to recognize the language distinctions of trained middle-class people versus those of poorly trained people trying to work their way out of poverty. That’s the result of environment and education. Yeah, I know. The students of deliberate practice don’t want to rule out some special giftedness for world-class performers in golf, violin or chess. But let me assure you, you don’t need to be a world-class performer to become a top salesperson.

But at one point, I’m in full agreement with Martin. Top salespeople sure as hell need more specialized language skills than they’re liable to get in 95% of families or even in the better schools. They need to learn the art of conversation.

Why are the skills of interactional conversation so lacking in business culture? Or, for that matter, in the American culture? The answer is hidden in plain sight. The interactional skills of top salespeople are built upon a number of obvious issues: domain, operational and strategic knowledge. But interactional skills are also built upon dialog competencies. Specifically, critical thinking, listening, advocating, inquiring and turn-taking.

The better schools teach critical thinking, advocating and active listening. But questioning and turn-taking are a completely different animal. Business people, and especially the male of the species, are taught to advocate, not inquire and interact. Leaders who ask questions are thought to be weak and looked down upon. Amazing to me how that “W” is thought to be a leader because he advocated, but “Obama” is not, because he questions. And does it publicly. More nonsense from the idiocracy.

We’ve got a pot full of research explaining why in our culture and especially in the professional and business cultures we don’t inquire. (Lawyers question—but only with leading questions. Those aren’t the interactional and collaborative questions of development, innovation and strategic sales.)

In one of a number of studies, Fiona Lee asks, When the going gets tough, do the tough ask for help? She finds that individuals do not seek help—translated, they do not ask questions. Why? Help seeking implies incompetence and dependence and is therefore related to powerlessness. At bottom, questioning implies vulnerability and fear to most people. Letterman asks questions, but only so he can make fun on his show. They aren't the questions of dialog.

So, is language specialization instinctual for the few? Not at all. What holds us back is the fear of vulnerability and ignorance of the questioning process. Can that mental model be changed and people gain the necessary competence of dialog: the art of talking, thinking, turn-taking and questioning together? Of course. But it won’t happen overnite. As my friend, Alexandra Levit, puts it in her brilliant new book, Blind Spots (see my Good Book list on the left column), the widely held belief of overnite success is pure myth.

Once more. Is the language specialization necessary for top salespeople a matter of instinct? Of course not. Those who think so haven’t done their research.

Fiona Lee, “When the Going Gets Tough, Do the Tough Ask for Help? Help Seeking and Power Motivation in Organizations.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol 72, No. 3, pp. 336-363, 1997.

Photo: Flickr, by Valerie Everett

Old Farts and Young Punks in the Workplace (Part I)

Generational differences are an issue that affects work process, teams, boss-subordinates and client relationships.  It rears its nasty head in that magnificent buzz-word, “communication breakdown.” Generational differences are fraught with conflicting assumptions, frustrations and misunderstanding. The same Gen-Yers who have not the slightest difficulty working with issues of sexual orientation, culture and color often find themselves and their elders going bonkers over their generational differences.

What’s different about generational differences? 

The world in which a person grows up shapes his life far more than he or she realizes. The number of issues and experiences which can cause interpersonal differences is extensive: 

• Differing world events including wars and depressions versus economic prosperity.
• Differing religious experiences, including whether and how you were churched or not churched. Jew, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, secular.
• Differing perspectives on family and human sexuality.
• Differing geographical experiences, including urban, suburban, rural, deep South, Southwest, Upper Midwest, or all over the world (army brats)
• Differing kinds and quality of education, including grade and high school, public or private, state or tech colleges, private colleges, major universities and elite schools.
• Differing educational focus such as vocational versus professional or liberal arts.
• Differing interests and attitudes about sports, music, etc. 

Generational distinctions are usually tacit. That is, we are unaware of them until problems, opportunities, misunderstandings and relations force their presence into conversations. That can make them doubly problematic.

When all this is translated into workplace terms, it usually means different values, ideas, objectives, work ethics, attitudes toward work and authority and outlooks on life. Though today’s workplace culture values speed, turnaround time, and how hard and how many hours you’re willing to put in, all of this is subject to generational interpretation. Toss in age bias and you have a perfect mix for cross-generational conflict. Or, a perfect mix for fascinating, enlightening, creative and fun work relationships.

Developing work relationships.

The foundations for successful work relations are the same no matter what generation you belong to. When relations lack the glue of inherent similarity, it’s the strategic smarts that make for success. All relationships, whether up/down, sidewise, or extremely diverse are built on the same communication foundation: mutual dialogue that involves disclosure, reciprocity, liking and respect. Of course you can toss in all kinds of characteristics and skills, but we believe these four are the overarching rubrics for the development and maintenance of work relationships.

Relationships can’t work without conversations around these four foundations, regardless of the setting. By conversation I mean a shared inquiry, an act of thinking and reflecting together. Conversation, in contrast to the mere advocacy of the idiocracy, is a living experience of inquiry within and between people. So if you don’t know how to talk, ask questions and/or reflect on ideas with another person, you’re going to be stymied.

• Disclosure conversations. By definition, self-disclosing messages reveal something about oneself. It may be background and history, or, significantly personal opinions and underlying attitudes. But disclosure is a dance between two or more people in which mutual revelation takes place. Although self-disclosure loses its capacity for achieving goals when used indiscriminately, it is best used as a fundamental means of accomplishing significant objectives. Furthermore, you can’t really connect with a person without self-disclosure. Studies show that self-disclosure is not only valuable in relationship maintenance, but also in cross-generational communication where one party sees the other as possessing desirable knowledge.
• Reciprocity conversations. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours is true in work just as it is in romance. It’s just that the content differs. Without reciprocity, relationships, especially in the work setting, come to an end. Extensive research, especially in anthropology and sociology, point to both the necessity and immense impact of reciprocity on relationships.
• Liking conversations. Although we can work with people we don’t like, we tend to work better with those we like. The research on liking captures the traits that are related to positive intentions such as friendliness, helpfulness, sincerity, trustworthiness and morality. We show liking at work with the sharing of jokes, light teasing, coffee together or a beer after work.
• Respect conversations. The research on respect emphasizes competence and focuses on efficiency, intelligence, skill and creativity. Although communication rules may keep you from saying directly that you “respect” her, respecting is shown in the workplace by conversations about one’s appreciation of her friendship, insights or support, teamwork and so forth. Systematic research over the years points out the necessity of both respect and liking as key characteristics of effective relationships.    

 Strategic communication behaviors.

 My protégé, Liam O’Dea, who’s nearly 50 years younger than I, has spent the last five years working out the issues in this blog with me. Without making our own example as the fundamental model, we came up with two sets of communication strategies. 

Acting on the basis of a social contract. The success of what we call a social contract is based upon the understanding that relevant problem solving and decision making are joint undertakings. Social contracts between people give equal attention to both the political and technical issues. When you work in collaboration, one person doesn’t solve problems for the other. Instead, both are actively involved, for example, in gathering information, setting goals, and creating and following through on a solution. Social contracts require a lot of talk about what we’re doing, how we go about it, how we divvy up responsibility, where we’re stymied, etc. The collaborative role requires a fair amount of conversational sophistication. There are significant demands for authenticity and vulnerability. However, only collaboration can provide for the quality of relationship that can consistently meet the ever-growing demands of today’s business. To a high degree, collaboration in the social contract is built upon negotiation and re-negotiation. They are both inevitable.

Liam and I have a social contract that includes a great deal of experience negotiating and renegotiating with each other. There’s a terrific amount of liking and respect for each other, but we decided a long time ago that handling each other with kid gloves is a waste. We can always renegotiate—and we do! 

Here are some verbal tidbits to give you a sense of what it may sound like. Recently Liam asked for some insights into nonprofit proposal. D: “I don’t know much about nonprofits.” L:“Yeah, but you work on a proposal basis all the time.” D:“OK, but take what I say with a grain of salt.”  L: “Yeah, yeah.” D: “When I go about it, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah.”  L: ”Why are you giving me all that information? Just answer my questions. I don’t need a long story to do this.”  D: “Wait a minute. I’m making a point for you.” L: “The clock is ticking.” D: “That’s frustrating, but here goes.” L: “You’re not listening to me. What’s the relevance of what you’re saying?”  Etc. . . .

At the end of our conversation, Liam pulled it together and said, “Well, we had to fuss a bit for me to get what I wanted from you. But, that’s OK.” D: “Yeah, we usually do a lot of circling in the heat of problem solving.” Again, bear in mind that Liam and I have a long history and comfort level with each other. As you can tell from the tidbits, we are both highly driven characters. Our direct language may not be appropriate in the early stages of a relationship. The office context may require you to be softer and more tactful, but we thought our example would provide a useful illustration of the openness, transparency and productivity that is possible. 

What’s also obvious to us after such solutioning is that we both are highly refreshed and satisfied at the conclusion of the process. We get better thinking, better decisions, and better results. Notice that the conversation included inquiry, advocacy, challenging, comments on the communication, frustration, etc. These are typical in a social contract.

Unique cross-generational actions. Although the following conversational behaviors take place in all effective relationships, we believe that they are more necessary, even exaggerated in cross-generational messaging.

• Conversational clarification. Asking and giving explanations of terms and ideas is hugely necessary when cross-generational conversations take place. Fifty years of difference (for us) means that we often fail to share or understand meanings between each other without clarification.
• Conversational listening. Although listening seems to be a larger problem for me than Liam, we both jump to conclusions and draw inferences very fast. Unless we’re listening intently to each other, we don’t recognize the misunderstanding until the conversation is down the pike. Since both of us talk concretely and abstractly very rapidly, on occasion, each of us has to insist the other listen more intently.
• Conversational interruptions. Interruptions before one has finished his ideas create havoc. “Wait until I’m finished,” comes out of both our mouths readily.
• Conversational push-back. It’s important to learn to identify disagreements, verbalize, and clarify them as soon as possible. Although any and all conversations can be revisited at a later date, the sooner you can push back on a person’s ideas, the more effective. When there is immediate disagreement, then the push-back should take place instantaneously. Typically, you may not realize your disagreement until you’ve slept on the other’s ideas. We’ve found that next-day push-back can be typical of our collaborative exercises

 In part two we’ll lay out specific strategies that include examples, protocols and scripts for your use.

4 Tips for Giving Your New Boss Feedback

Focusing on the relationship with your new boss--from the start--is key to long-term success.  If you've never done it before, giving your boss feedback can be nervewracking.  Still, many, if not most strong relationships are based on openly sharing advice and input.  That kind of communication relationship weathers the storms of personal disagreement and corporate difficulty.  So here are four tips for building a relationship with feedback and advice at the center.

1. Start early.  Most new bosses try to have one-on-ones early in their tenure.  Pay close attention to her input, guaging her willingness to listen and openness to relationships.  Be attentive to the smallest hints of concern that she may voice.  Make a few comments and ask a few questions that telegraph your desire for a relationship and willingness to give unsolicited input.  Research clearly reports that your ability to enhance the ego of your boss is a key success factor. 
2. Determine her willingness to listen.  Since silence is open to many interpretations and meanings, define early on how your boss uses silence.  Is she paying attention to what others are saying, formulating her own response, accepting or rejecting ideas?  Keys to a real listener include her use of questions, definition of terms, clarification of input, as well as summary application of a speaker's insights.  Pay close attention to her "turn-taking" skills.  Does she talk, listen intently with silence, talk again, listen more with questioning?  If not, be wary and very carefully filter your messages to her respectfully, always assessing her response until you get a better handle on her expectations and liking.
3. Schedule your feedback.  Always set up the meeting with your new boss.  And do it within the first four to six weeks of her tenure.  Tell her that you've got a couple important issues you'd like to talk about.  Be ready to give and explain a very positive contribution she's making to the organization. Detail it's success.  Then suggest one change or new action that would make her more successful. Explain your rationale, give an example, and suggest the positive consequence.   Never, never take her by surprise until she lets you know that she's comfortable with "walk-ins."
4. Gauge her reactions.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, the best of us are more often wrong than right when it comes to assessing a person's reactions.  So pay close attention to how she goes about problem solving and making decisions.  How much info does she need?  Listen to assess her ability to determine the consequences of her behaviors.  And pay attention especially to her self-awareness. Can she admit error, talk about her thinking and laugh at herself.  And after you've dished out positive and negative feedback, check in by occasionally asking, "Does this make sense?"  Or, "Did that work?"

The majority of bosses are completely lacking in both interactional skills and self-awareness.  That's neither condemnation of bosses nor of business/technical education.  Relationship skills were not required in the 20th century industrial economy.  Indeed, giving and following orders in a controlled environment required little relationship intentionality.  In the New, Global Economy relationship skills are the ultimate distinguishing characteristic of the successful.  Technology, the so-called hard science is rather easy to learn especially because it is largely controllable and predictable.  In contrast, many struggle to learn the so-called soft power skills where the ability to control and predict consequences is far more difficult. Even today, few business and technical colleges and universities are up to the demands of the world environment.  And you'll often find, much to your dismay, that many managers and execs are clueless.  So be wary as you go about managing your boss.  But don't fail to do it.

Relationship building is never an event, but a long-term campaign.  It can be costly, but as I've emphasized in an earlier blog on managing your boss, it'll also provide job opportunities, resources, links to the rest of the organization, and often a very good raise.  

Listening Is Not About Trying Harder

More and more as managers and professionals go up the ladder and gain more responsibility, they focus on listening.  A case in point that I referred to in a previous blog is Teresa Taylor, COO of Quest.  Taylor admitted that very often, rather than listen, she was formulating ideas in her head.  But as she gained more responsibilities, she had to get things done through other people.  And that meant influencing people.  And as she said, listening is key to influencing people.  In other words, if you don't understand another's attitudes, priorities and commitments, you're not going to be able to influence them.  Listening, then, is a primary means for understanding another person.

So how do you go about becoming a better listener?  Many people decide to "try harder" at listening.  But "trying harder" will bring little positive results.  Instead, effective listening is a distinct package of learnable skills and tools. 

Easily, the most effective tool for listening is what I call an "implication response."  The implication response is a particular form of listening.  It is a unique means of insuring that you've really understood what the other person--boss, colleague or subordinate--is actually saying and that you're really listening.  Of course, you can respond with, "I hear you, " or "OK. I get it," or "I understand," or something to the effect that "that makes sense to me."  You can even clarify what the person has said, but nothing works as well, or is as accurate and precise as the implication response.

Since the skill assumes interaction and requires serious thought for the listener, I reserve it for important matters.  If the other person is talking about a task or relationship of importance, I'll use it as a means of double-checking my listening and understanding.  Notice specifically, that an implication response goes beyond parroting or paraphrasing.  In the implication response, the recipient of a communication responds by describing what he or she is going to do, what is going to happen as a result of communication from another person.

An implication response includes two steps: a brief paraphrase, and a thoughtful statement of implications which inevitably gets a response of yes or no from the talker.

Let's suppose you've worked up a proposal for a small process change in department.  You're discussing the matter with Jane, who's very close to your boss, and she gives you a direct message, telling you that you're going to need the boss's support to go forward in the process change.  Since this is an important matter for you, you engage Jane in implication responses.

First, the paraphrase, often ending with a slight question.  "So, Jane, I'll have to get the boss's support--even for a small process change like this one?"

Jane nods her head affirmatively, and you go on with the implication response.  "OK.  Based on what you're telling me, that means two or three things:  First, I've probably got to redo my proposal.  Second, I've got to justify my recommendation with a fair amount of detail.  And, third, I've got to really sell these ideas to my boss, or I may as well stop what I'm doing right now.  Is that what you're saying?"

You can see that by laying out the implications of Jane's information, you let her decide whether or not you've really understood.  It provides her the opportunity to insure that your understanding--your listening--is right on.

Here are just a few of the scripts that can be applied to numerous situations as implication responses:

• In light of our discussion, here are what I see as the next steps.
• Base on what I've understood from you, I plan to attack the problem this way.
• As I understand your description of the problem, I intend to go about resolving it this way.
• Based on your explanation, I see the following drawbacks to that approach.

If, however, the person giving you the information disagrees with your implication response, then she can clear up the issue--and you can start over with implication responses.

I hope that two principles of listening are obvious from this discussion of the implication response.  First, listening is not a passive activity.  It's not merely letting what a person says register in your gray matter.   It's going to require both thinking and further interaction.  Second, and even more importantly, listening at its heart is fundamentally about questioning.  It's questioning your understanding of what the other has said, and questioning the speaker in implication terms.

A caveat: It takes time to get used to listening this actively.  And framing implication questions is not always obvious.  Still, taking time up front to check out your listening will always save you time in the long run.  It'll keep you from having to redo your misunderstandings and also build your reputation as a capable and thoughtful person.