ACTIVE LISTENING

My favorite author, Stephen Covey, was the first who made me realize that listening is a skill that should have been taught early on along with reading, writing, and speaking. To paraphrase him, we spent years learning how to read; years learning how to write; weeks, sometimes months, rarely years learning how to speak. But how much time was spent formally teaching us how to listen?

Hardly at all, if you’re like 99%+ of the population.

Catch yourself this very moment and count the number of simultaneous conversations you’re having in your mind. Should we be surprised therefore at how difficult it can be to listen correctly?

Catch yourself next time you’re conversing. Have you already created your response before the other person has finished speaking? That might work some of the time but when you interact with a larger and more diverse group of people, that communication pattern—of creating your response before the other person has finished speaking—will be the cause of mistakes and interpersonal problems.

A COMMUNICATION SKILL THAT SHOULD BE DEVELOPED

Active listening is a skill—a communication skill like speaking, reading, and writing that should be developed.

I made it a personal goal. One of the best and natural ways it developed for me was through my active participation in my Toastmasters club meetings. Click here for that blog entry.

Many articles have been written about this. I’ve shared my personal view. Now follows my edited compilation of tips from Verzuh’s excellent book, The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management (Wiley, 2008).

A USEFUL LIST OF LISTENING TIPS

These tips can be practiced as you listen to others—whether in a one-on-one discussion or during a meeting.

1. Focus yourself physically. To the degree possible, eliminate environmental distractions. (If you’re writing, stop. If you’re eating, stop. You get the picture.)
   
2. Use nonverbal cues to show you are invoked in what the speaker is saying, including nodding your head, making eye contact, and leaning forward.
   
3. Provide feedback, paraphrasing or summarizing the speaker’s statements to ensure that you understand them as the speaker intended.
   
4. Ask relevant follow-up or clarifying questions.
   
5. Listen for the idea behind the facts and data.
   
6. Suspend judgment on the speaker’s statements. Understand his or her point first. As you ask questions or acknowledge points, remain neutral in your responses. “So, what you are saying is ...” or “From your point of view ...” Demonstrate that you understand without revealing whether you agree or disagree.
   

During active listening, work to avoid these behaviors.

1. Don’t try to solve the problem or give advice until it’s asked for. Analyzing a problem with questions shifts the focus from the speaker to your hypothesis. “Have you tried ...?” or “What happened before ...” or “Are you sure that’s the issue?” You may be able to help the speaker solve a problem, but first you need to listen.
   
2. Don’t judge what you’re hearing—either positively or negatively. In particular, don’t share a judgment, as in, “That's not logical.”
   
3. Don’t shift the attention to yourself. This happens when we try to relate to the speaker, but end up talking about our own experiences, ideas, or emotions.
   
4. Finally, be aware of resistance and defensiveness by the speaker. Probing too deeply or playing the psychiatrist may not be welcome.
   

These simple guidelines can get you started. As with any skill, your ability to listen will improve with practice.

In the process of researching this, I came across this excellent article from an equally excellent blog by Alexander Kjerulf. He calls himself the CHO or Chief Happiness Officer. I think that's pretty clever. Every organization should have one.

I should also mention the Talking Stick. It was inspired by my favorite author again, Stephen Covey.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: 12 RULES OF EFFECTIVE INFLUENCE



Influencing others goes a long way in becoming organizationally effective. And feeling better about your world and yourself.

Stephen Covey is my guru on this and all related subjects that pertain to effective people. Click here to read my blog entry about his highly acclaimed book, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People."

The power to influence others is important in any setting. Currently, most of my work involves projects. Project teams are typically composed of workers “borrowed” from different functional departments. One of my hospital projects had team members from the administration, legal, accounting, and pharmacy departments.

Team members are frequently workers that were assigned by their bosses to help the Project Manager (PM) accomplish the project. It is crucial for the PM to win their support. This is very challenging since it is both crucial and difficult to do.

It is crucial and difficult for at least three reasons.

One, their primary allegiance belongs to their functional department. It is, after all, the Accounting Manager who your accounting team member permanently reports to.

Two, they know the project is a temporary endeavor. Unless the worker is persuaded of the project’s relevance to his or her world, his or her support may be half-hearted at best.

And three, the worker is probably busy enough as it is. There is a good chance that they will view their participation as just another assignment added to their current work load.

PRACTICAL GUIDELINES

I’ve listed some practical guidelines for the PM below. They all work and were either taught to me or learned from hard experience.

1. In the short-term, you should build common interests.
2. In the long-term, work on building trust, confidence, and respect for each other. If you have integrity and honesty, seek to demonstrate those qualities at every opportunity. If you don’t—well, you’re not my kind of a person.
3. Make hard decisions when necessary. However, be empathic with people who are adversely affected by those hard decisions. What’s empathy? To me, it’s being in the other person’s shoes and feeling what they feel and then returning to your own and communicating that you understand how they feel.
4. Avoid making enemies. An opponent is someone who disagrees with you and wants a situation to have a different outcome from yours. An enemy, on the other hand, is someone who has taken your disagreement to a more personal level and seeks to harm you. Discourage your opponents from becoming enemies by demonstrating genuine integrity and honesty. Do not be manipulative or double-cross them.
5. Be a worthwhile ally. This doesn’t mean that you have to offer your wholehearted and unreserved support for every action of your allies. Rather, it means that you should support people when they have worthwhile goals even if you do not directly benefit.
6. Do you know what a “fair-weather” sailor is? This is a sailor who sails only when the weather is safe and nice. Likewise, don’t be a fair-weather friend. Don’t demonstrate that you care about your allies only when the situation is safe. Demonstrate your support even if you expose yourself to political risk. In the long-term, you’ll earn not only their respect but the attention and respect of others.
7. 7. Be generous with your favors. Do not dispense your favors conditionally. Do not dispense your favors on the condition that you expect an equal exchange or quid pro quo. Do favors when they are appropriate and within your power.
8. Ask for favors when you need help. Refrain from reminding those whom you seek help of any previous favors that you did for them. People of integrity will remember and act accordingly.
9. Keep your lines of communication open across barriers and, difficult as it may be, especially during times of conflict.
10. Make it clear by your actions and choices that you will do what’s right and beneficial to the organization.
11. Be aware that others do not necessarily follow the same code of principles that you do. Act with integrity but don’t be naïve to the reality of the behavior of others.
12. Do not win the battle and lose the war. There will be life after the most important project. Do not win at the cost of your principles. Take a long-term perspective. I know it's easier said than done. And even when I know, I still make some of these mistakes. That's what being human is, isn't it? We just have to try and keep on trying.