My good friend and superb breakthrough thinker, Ann Herrmann Nehdi, President of Herrmann International (home of HBDI), sent me an Expo invitation.  The last time I was at the conference was in 2004 when my book, COACHING C.L.U.E.S. came out and I spoke at the conference as well as autographed copies of the book. That Expo had aisles and aisles of books that were scarfed up by eager learners.  This year there were about half the books, fewer categories, and not so many buyers.

If I’m going to create a “book” on listening, what would it cover, how would it look, what medium would it be in, who will want it?  Certainly, I don’t want to end up developing something that would end up in an ever-shrinking market, the traditional book.

And then there were the vendors on the huge Expo floor.  There was row-after-row of booths filled with people motivated to explain their wares, give me some tsatske, and scan my badge to collect my identity. While I knew how hard their jobs were, I only made eye contact with a few.

The vendors I talked to said they have modules or programs on listening. Most were Active Listening and included within Communication. Not one person was familiar with the content and only one found materials on it in his literature. I don’t want to run up Ladder of Inference and jump to conclusions that listening isn’t on their radar screen. It might be the Expo just wasn’t the right venue to hold a conversation about the topic.

What I am certain of is that attendees were drawn to hi-tech, glitzy, expensive, entertaining booths. One of the big guys gave away a Kindle an hour. People stood four deep at that booth, got caught up in the hype, chatted away with professional sales people. While, nearby, a smaller, traditional booth with candies or vanity pens to give away, was empty. In both cases, the vendors were selling their same, over-worn content, but re-packaged into different formats and claiming it was new information.

I’m glad I went to the Expo because I think it saved me a lot of time and changed my expectations. Whatever I undertake to bring listening to a broad audience, needs to be different content, format, and even media.

I need your help. What ideas do you have to suggest about a “book?”  I’m definitely in the problem/mess finding stage of the creative problem solving process.  Please advise me.

Is the Internet changing the brains of youngsters?

“It certainly is,” he says, “especially in the way we seek information. When we were growing up it was all about ‘just in case’ information, the Battle of Hastings and so on. Now it is ‘just in time’ learning, where a kid looks something up online if he needs to know about it. This means kids today are becoming less good at memorising, but in other ways their method of learning is superior to ours because it targets neurotransmitters in the brain, ones that are related to curiosity, emotional salience and interactivity. So I think there might be some real advantages to where this is going. Kids are becoming faster at searching for information. When you or I read, our eyes scan down the page, but for a Generation-Y kid, their eyes will have a different set of movements, top, then side, then bottom and that is the layout of webpages.”

I recently had an experience with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Hannah that echoes Eagleman’s explanation.  Hannah began reading early and prodigiously. She reads faster and more accurately than most adults, including me, so I’m curious about her reading process.

She came for a visit with her family during spring break, and I tried to watch her read to see if I could figure it out without being noticed. That part was easy because she’s not distractible when engrossed in a book. She was re-reading one of the Harry Potter’s as well as a different tome, with equally as many pages.

Just as Eagleman describes, Hannah’s eyes did not move across the page, line after line. Instead she seemed to look at the whole page then read in a “z” like pattern.  What is interesting though is that she doesn’t spend much time at all on the Internet, even though she’s adept at using a computer.

I intend to continue observing her and her brother Izzy to see how the Internet is shaping their brains.  One thing’s for sure; they’re not at all intimidated by technology.

Yesterday at an Executive Committee meeting, Francesca presented three ideas for a new marketing campaign and asked the EC for feedback. Jonathan swiveled in his chair and said, “There’s nothing new here. We did almost the exact same things at my last company without success. Why didn’t you come to me beforehand?  I could have saved you a lot of time and effort.”

Everyone in the room was stunned. The CEO pulled himself together and said, “Jonathan, let’s hear Francesca out, then we can discuss the ideas. Your response seems hasty.”

Unfortunately, interactions like those happen much too often in the workplace. Of course, there’s more than one explanation for what happened, but a big one is that Experience gets in the way of Listening. Because Jonathan sees himself as an expert, he reverts to what he knows and closes off new information that doesn’t match with anything in his past that has brought success.

Some considerations:

• New information is perceived to be a threat to what has been tried and made true
• Prior experience has been repeated enough to be trusted
• It takes time and effort to assimilate new information
• Success speaks for itself; there’s no need to start again from the beginning
• Reputation is built upon replicating winners

 What advice do you have for the people in this case?

Dr. Westen performed the following experiment with the audience:

1. He repeated four words: two of which were “ocean” and “moon.”
2. Next he asked: “What laundry detergent comes to mind?”
3. Those of us who thought of “Tide” raised our hands.
4. Drew estimated about 80% of the audience, the typical percentage, raised our hands.

Dr. Westen explained that our results were predictable and replicable wherever Tide is sold, not because it is the most famous brand in the world, but because he primed us with the words “ocean” and “moon” without our being aware of his ploy. He primed us with words that relate to tides, which put our brains into search mode for familiar connections.

Our brains gravitate to prior experiences: e.g. we leap to conclusions when the words we hear are similar to ones we’ve heard before. That’s part of why we don’t listen fully; we gravitate to existing networks to select what we listen to.

More research on this subject was reported in the March 24, 2012 issue of Science News in an article by Laura Sanders, “Brain cells know how you will bet.”  She says, “…nerve cells deep in the brain know what to do.  And these cells know the plan seconds before the person actually decides on a course of action.”  Thus, those neural networks are functioning well in advance of our conscious decision-making.

So what do these studies show us about listening?

1. There’s a constant battle between our conscious attention and the brain’s control function—we don’t know 80% of what’s going on in our brain, so we better take advantage of the 20%
2. Listening requires focus and intention for the information to be of any value
3. We use intuitive theories about what we’ve heard and make up answers for what we don’t know—that can be dangerous if we don’t listen well to what is being presented to us
4. Since our brains tend to be ahead of our conscious selves, staying present is our best chance for alignment between sender and receiver—or as someone else on the panel said, “Our unconscious processes can’t think and do at the same time.”

Listen with all the openness you have. When you come from a place of knowing, it messes you up to think about it and blocks most of what the sender has to offer.

Performance Listening

Question: How is the act of listening sufficient to fulfill the duties of the listener and/or create relationship?

Some findings:

• There are three categories of performance listening:

1. Listening toward relationship—calls relationship into being and establishes ties
2. Listening toward leadership—enters without an agenda and allows interaction to establish meaning and directions
3. Listening toward fairness—hear someone out much like in the judicial system where there is a hearing

• Measure of success is when followers are satisfied that the interaction has been effective and appropriate
• Communication is transactional and a co-created encounter
• Goal—use all three to be a credible listener so other person would say s/he’s been heard

Christopher Gearhart, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

Sensory-processing Sensitivity

Question:  Is the Highly Sensitive Person a Highly Sensitive Listener?

Some findings:

• No, highly sensitive people are easily distracted by stimuli and may not focus well as a listener
• fMRI shows more processing activity and less accuracy for a highly sensitive person
• fMRI shows longer and deeper processing activity for a less sensitive person

Sheila Bentley, Bentley Consulting; Graham Bodie, LSU; Jennifer Grau, Grau Interpersonal Communication

A Time I Felt Listened To

Question: Which techniques make a person felt listened to?

Some findings:

• People describe attributes first and behaviors second
• Sometimes the researcher had to ask, “What caused you to list that attribute to get the person to describe what the person did?
• Women square off more in an interaction while men take an open positioning
• 80% of all malpractice suits are caused by patient feeling “brushed off”
• An initial reaction determines degree of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the entire interaction, even if the first person encountered is not the main interaction (e.g. person at the front desk makes a good/bad impression, and that colors every subsequent interaction, regardless of how others treat the person)
• Back-channel responses, those that are unconscious such as nodding or uttering “uh-huh” signal understanding
• The key attributes included in a Physician Listening Study:
• It is assumed the physician brings these attributes to the table:

Confidence, Empathetic, Humane, Personal, Forthright, Respectful, Thorough

Most important verbal behaviors: Answers questions, elaborates on topics being discussed instead of answering with short statements, asks questions, does not interrupt or change the subject

Non-verbal behaviors: Maintains appropriate eye contact, focuses body language and position, engages in appropriate composure, smiles/laughs

Random notes:

1. Good listening gives you currency
2. There are four stages of counseling/therapy
• engagement
• assessment in context
• insight
• action

3. Babies borrow their sound from parents—that’s why many children have similar voices and speech patterns as their parents
4. Listening is enhanced when the listener asks: Who/what am I as a listener in this situation?
5. Anticipation of where the speaker is going next derails communication
6. Metaphor: Listening is a cup.  If it’s full with our own stuff, there’s no room for another’s.

There was a lot of validation of our work in Listening Impact, especially for Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio ®

Active Listening might be a passé term: What would you nominate in its place?

It was quite an extended process to get to the convention—plane to Seattle, shuttle to the ferry terminal, hour ferry ride to Bremerton, and short walk to the convention center and hotel.  Nevertheless, I’m very glad I attended because I heard some terrific presentations given by smart, smart people.

Graham Bodie and grad students from Louisiana State University

Supportive Listening

Question: What are the similarities and differences between a supportive person and a supportive listener?

Some findings:

• Supportive person is described in general, impressionistic terms such as: positive, intelligent
• Supportive listener described in specific, behavioral characteristics: involved in interaction, responds verbally
• Influencers on the relationship are
• non-verbal \immediacy (e.g. body language)
• verbal-immediacy (e.g. questions)
• Answer to question: How important is it to you that your relational partner is a good listener or good comforter, depends upon the importance you put upon it. Our level of satisfactions depends upon what we’re looking for in our relational partner to demonstrate.

Language Style Matching

Question: Does Language Style Matching (LSM) influence a relationship?

Some findings:

• Mimicry is automatic and mostly unconscious
• LSM is often used when people like one another
• LSM, use of emotional words, or cognitive (cause and effect) words didn’t make people feel better or worse. Or, nothing in particular made much of a difference
• But, negative emotional words and tentative words made people feel worse
• Major finding:  We have expectations of listening behaviors, but they don’t matter much until they are NOT used. Then you’ll be considered a bad listener; however using them all won’t necessarily translate into your being considered a good listener.

Laura Janusik, Rockhurst Univeristy, Kansas City & Margarete Imhof, Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

Listening Construct Across Cultures

Question:  What similarities and difference do three cultures exhibit in terms of conceptualizing listening? (Japanese, European, US American)

Some findings:

• Culture is communication and communication is culture
• Subjective listening concepts determine how/why one listens
• How one perceives listening could affect how one does listening
• Subjective concepts are culturally dependent

Metacognition

Question: Will we listen better if we think about it?

Some findings:

• There are three stages to metacognitive listening:
• Before: plan and set goals
• During: comprehend, aware of what’s happening in the moment
• After: reflect
• Bringing listening to consciousness increases likelihood of a positive interaction

Directed Learning

Question: What are some strategies that will enhance listening in the classroom/training room?

Strategies:

1. All about connections

a.  What do I already know about topic

b.  What should I know that I don’t

c.  Learning facilitator stops every 10-15 minutes to tell them to make connections between a and b

2.  Voice Mirroring

a.  Facilitator reads a script while the audience mirrors her words out loud

b.  Initially, the facilitator faces the audience, then turns her back

c.  Facilitator faces audience again but this time the audience silently mirrors the words inside their heads, and finally they close their eyes and mirror in silence

d.  Technique brings yourself back on track to focus entirely on what the speaker is saying

3.  Stop, Look, Summarize

a.  Draw a line at the bottom of your page of notes

b.  Periodically, put the information into your own words

c.  Technique translates and summaries ideas into an understandable format

4.  Big Picture, Little Picture

a.  Look at details and tie them to the big picture

b.  Look at big picture and tie them to details

c.  Technique relates two extremes of thought process to one another

5.  Think, Pair, Share

a.  Write words/terms you don’t understand

b.  Pair up to figure out meaning

c.  Share with others who may/may not have figured out definitions

d.  Technique uses group knowledge and reduces anxiety about not knowing what a word/term means. It’s particularly good for non-native speakers as well as for people from different functions/disciplines

6.  Multi-Tasking is a Myth*

a.  Can’t do two tasks even when tasks tap into same part of brain

b.  Can’t do two switch tasks using different parts of brain

*If you don’t subscribe to this blog and you’d like a copy of the short exercise that demonstrates this strategy, sign up for the blog and we’ll gladly send it.

IBM’s Sam Palmisano: ‘Always Put the Enterprise Ahead of the Individual’

Published: January 18, 2012 in Knowledge@Wharton

Interview with Michael Useem, Management Professor

Useem: Let’s dwell on that for a second, around the issue of mentoring and coaching. I know that an axial principle of your leadership here is to provide lots of coaching and lots of mentoring. Looking back on your own career prior to 2002, who would you single out as the most important mentor you had along the way?

Palmisano: Well, it’s interesting, because so many people helped me. The key … is you have to be a good mentee. Because you have to listen. And what happens as you become successful is you forget the ingredient of being a good mentee, which is listening to the people who are mentoring you. But I’ve had obviously lots of previous managers, previous CEOs John Akers, Lou Gerstner, other guys on the outside who are always willing to help. If you ask and listen, people are always willing to help you.

I find that people aren’t always willing to listen…. You have to be able to want to be mentored. It starts with that. I see it so often. That is the key. But you have lots of role models along the way. People who were always a good role model for me [were those who] never put themselves first. They always put their institution or society or their enterprise first. And usually they get better results. If you say, “Well, why does it work?” [It's] because you get people more excited because they can contribute versus an individual trying to take all the bows for the team. And so you could say I’m comfortable in that style. But if you put that aside for a second, I actually think it’s a more successful product at the end of the day.

My comments:

I chose this piece because it was a different take on listening. Mr. Palmisano talks about the need to be a willing listener, to be the receiver. Think about the number of times you’ve walked by an interaction between two people and noticed equality between speaking and listening.

People with different listening habits will search for information that suits their styles, so even the best mentee will select what has the most value for her. Regardless, the point here is to remember to accept help when it’s offered and be grateful.

Following are some of the dismal figures from studies:

Towers-Watson, Global Workforce Study

• 20% are engaged (they don’t say though that 80% are disengaged)
• 50% don’t feel inspired by leaders
• 53% don’t feel leaders are trustworthy
• 58% don’t think senior management cares about talent development
• 61% don’t think leaders deal effectively with poor performers
• 62% don’t feel leaders have interest in their well-being

Gallup, Workplace Study

• 49% are not engaged and 18% are actively disengaged
• $350 billion per year cost of disengaged workers to the US economy

Great Places to Work Institute

650% ROI to stockholders from the organizations on their list

There is:

• Low turnover
• High engagement
• Constant innovation and agility
• Ever-growing customer satisfaction

The numbers in these studies don’t tend to change year-after-year, nor do the questions asked that determine the answers. Still, some other findings do support the results. When people are exchanged from the best to the worst places to work, they change. There’s evidence that says when top performers are put into a low performing environment, they gradually falter and fail. But there aren’t a lot of studies done on the poor performers going to a top-notch outfit. Have you known people who said they were failing where they worked before coming to your organization and flourishing? Share those stories.

I tend to believe that the purpose in life and leadership is creating value. I once heard a very inspiring motto that I feel is the best way to articulate that belief and be a positive influence, anywhere/anytime.

What choice can I make and action can I take, in this moment, to create the greatest value?

My choice was to write this post to you, someone who is not one of the negative statistics, but someone who adds value.

In my professional life I guide people from merely being hearers to being listeners—to go from taking in sounds to evaluating, analyzing and taking action. To be a really tuned in listener one must go beyond Active Listening (AL) techniques. I think of AL techniques as Listening Hygiene, or behaviors that create the impression that someone is engaged in the interaction.

When we’re told to practice good hygiene it is usually something that we do to the surfaces of our bodies such as washing hands or putting on sunscreen. Those techniques are very good for prevention and can stave off germs, but they don’t go deep into the bloodstream to heal disease. Inadequate listening is as big a “health” threat to an organization as poison is to an organism.

For this discussion it’s important that I differentiate Listening Hygiene techniques from tactics we at Listening Impact tout. Some of the more common Listening Hygiene techniques are:

• Maintain eye contact
• Lean forward
• Mirror gestures
• Remain silent

Those techniques do work for some people, especially when the interaction is pretty superficial, but they won’t suffice when there’s a lot riding on the need to fully understand the situation and content.

If we look at just one of the hygiene behaviors, eye contact, we can see how it might appear that the listener is intensely taking in what others are saying. After all, there’s the bromide that the eyes are the windows to our soul. I don’t know if that’s a true statement, but I do know that many good listening fakers can make excellent eye contact without actually paying attention. They are like I was when the nurse tried to wake me up from the anesthesia. I looked right at her, tracked her with my eyes, and apparently spoke her name, but I was not tuned in.

At Listening Impact we use Questioning Strategy as a tactic that requires both the listener and speaker to engage in the interaction.  The listener is equipped with awareness about how he prefers to listen, which informs the types of questions s/he will ask. Our listeners develop understanding of other listening habits and develop questions that fit the style of the person(s) s/he is interacting with rather than asking unrelated questions that don’t lead to mutual meaning.

While most people don’t walk around offices in an anesthesia stupor, some do substitute superficial techniques for real skilled engagement.

The Glossy Black Cockatoos (c) Hugh Todd

We were on a bush walk in South Australia and came upon a sign that said the area is the habitat of the very rare (only about 260) glossy black cockatoo.  If you saw that sign, what would you do? Right, haul out your binoculars, walk very quietly, and look around. We saw evidence of the seeds they feed on, so we were sure we’d spot the bird. No luck, so we continued on the hike, all the way down an embankment to the water, across river rocks to our destination, The Old Cannery.

It wasn’t much of a site, but the journey there was worth it.  On our return trip, once again at the place the bird could be, I wondered what would happen if my partner became incapacitated. I certainly would not be able to get him out. Just then, as I was walking along, looking up for yet once more chance to see the magnificent bird, I tripped and fell hard onto roots and rocks.

My wrist and arm were sore, my hand was bleeding, and my pride severely damaged. Once we hiked out, I was able to drive the car, albeit uncomfortably. We changed our ferry reservation to earlier, and went home to ice, ibuprofen and a wrap. All that happened on a Friday.

We returned to Colorado the following Monday and I saw an orthopedist the next day. Yes, I had two small breaks and was fitted with a splint to immobilize my wrist.

Here’s the part where my brain comes in. On the trip I read a most fascinating book The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, MD. Most of the book is about brain plasticity, including how the brain creates new maps to deal with malfunctions and injuries. So, I decided to observe what was happening as my brain and body had to cope with my wrist.

First of all, I’m very left handed and the break is on that side. Beforehand I did very little with my right side, but it came to attention almost immediately. I drove to the ferry with my left hand on the gearshift (ouch) but my right arm, almost without my being aware, reached over to help. Since then, I observe myself becoming more and more ambidextrous: eating, brushing hair, closing car door, cooking, sorting laundry, typing (as fluid as ever with right and peck with left), and sleeping on my other side.

It might be wishful thinking, but I also notice my thoughts are more concrete and I’m more apt to remember details. I even found myself to a destination with logic rather than my GPS. Maybe Dr. Doidge’s writing is influencing me, or maybe what I’m experiencing is what he writes about. Whichever, I intend to keep using my right hand once the left is healed because I like having greater capacity.

Have you ever had a similar situation? What did you notice?