Listening with your eyes / talking with your fingertips

So, for most of us associated with TMN, we spend a lot of time online. We communicate regularly via email, text and, perhaps most of all, posts on a community forum.

There's an art to "listening" as you participate in this type of communication as well. There are several key things to remember:

First, writing lacks verbal cues, such as tone, as well as nonverbal cues, such as facial expressions and mannerisms. Estimates range that approximately 80 to 94 percent of the information that is gathered in a face-to-face conversation comes from nonverbal cues. So it is more important than ever to ensure that you give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume benign intent - you are missing a LOT of information when you read versus when you talk.

Second, though written communication gives you time to pause and reflect, that sometimes can backfire on you and give you time to brood and let your frustration take over. Be aware of when a situation is causing you a lot of frustration and do not let that frustration come out in your response.

Third, remember our discussion on perception a couple weeks ago? Perception plays a HUGE role in written communication. How I interpret your message is going to be based on my perception of you, your mood, your opinions and thoughts and your motivation in writing. If we are friends, I am more likely to read your email or post in a pleasant or neutral way, whereas if we have had contentious situations in the past, I am liable to allow those situations to reflect upon the message.

Finally, written communication causes a delay in the reaction of the other "speaker." You don't get the immediate nonverbal cues you would in a face-to-face conversation, to show that someone understands or is confused by what you are saying.

So what can you do to combat these particular written communication troubles?

First, take time to read and reflect upon the email or post. What is it saying at face value? Try to eliminate any preconceived thoughts about the writer and focus solely on the words.

Still having a tough time putting yourself in their shoes? Pretend the person writing the email or post is your very best friend. Now look at the words with that perception in mind. Does anything change? Do you see anything different than you did before?

If it is an especially contentious situation, sleep on it. You don't have to respond immediately (though it is important that you respond promptly!) and it is always better to have a well thought out and neutral response than one written in the heat of the moment that you may regret later. Remember, in a face-to-face conversation, your words might sting the person you are speaking with, but with written communication, your words are there, on the page, perhaps forever. Be sure that the words you write are the ones you are willing to let the entire world see: believe me, it has happened -- up until recently, you could do a Google search on my name and find several of my email conversations back and forth to  disgruntled members posted on blogs and websites - fortunately for me, I have yet to find one that I have been embarrassed about or felt that I handled poorly. You never know when your words might show up again later, so be sure that they are words you can stand behind.

Lastly, if you are unable to respond in a neutral tone, or unable to step back from your perception of the situation or the person communicating with you, find some help. TMN has lots of support built in with many leaders willing to lend a hand if necessary. A mark of a good leader is knowing when you are in over your head and calling in the troops for assistance... none of us can do this alone! Its important to ask for help when you need it.

Communication skills, both written and verbal, are essential to a good leader. Take advantage of the time you have with written communications to reflect and ensure that your response is fair and impartial. Those under you will have respect for you, knowing that they can trust you to be neutral and fair in all situations.

For further reading:
You've Got Conflict - Email & Conflict Management (pdf)

Listening Quiz

LISTEN!
I think I told you guys that this blogging thing is new to me! I'm sorry for extending Week 1 into Week 2, but I was juggling a little too much last week! Please forgive!

So I spent some time trying to find good quizzes last week and it was harder than I expected. There are a lot of quizzes about listening in conversation but not many about listening in writing -- and well, at TMN anyway, we "listen" through the written word all day long! I wanted to make sure we touched on that part of it too, so today I'm going to share a "listening through speech" quiz I found online... and then tomorrow, I'll be back to talk about how we can listen through the written word.

First, let's look at how you listen when you're having an in-person conversation. Take a moment to take this simple 15-question quiz.

Ok, I know I admitted last week that this is not one of my strongest areas... but its still a little embarrassing to admit that I scored 39 out of 60 on this quiz.

How do you rate?
50-60 Excellent! You have exceptional listening skills.40-49 Above average, but you could improve your skills.
30-39 Your score is promising, but you could greatly improve.
15-29 You need serious listening training.

 Ok, so I can greatly improve... I guess I already knew that! I know that the things I need to work on are to stop interrupting when people are talking and to allow people the opportunity to finish before I start planning what I am going to say next. Right there, in the moment, I get excited and impatient to say what's on my mind. I need to remember that the person across the table deserves time to get their point across and I need to focus my entire attention on THEIR point before I start formulating my own.

How did you do on this test? Did the questions give you any insight into what your strengths are as a listener? What about your weaknesses? Where can you improve in this area? Think of one thing you can do the next time you are in a face-to-face conversation to be a better listener and then go out and DO IT!

Improve Your Listening Skills Even When You Don't Want to Listen by Kevin Eikenberry

I've said it in a hundred training workshops. Listening is important. I don't know why I say it - everyone already knows it. Whether talking to leaders, coaches, trainers, meeting facilitators, plant operators or anyone else, I'm sure the reaction is the same.

"Duh, Kevin, that's profound."

I believe we all know how to be great listeners when we really want to be. Times like: on a second date, when comforting someone who is hurting, when helping someone we care about. All of these are times we have experienced, and if our listening were graded in these situations, we would all score high.

So, listening is a skill we already have, and can perform quite well in certain situations. The problem is we don't practice our skills at our best in nearly enough situations.

In fact, there are sometimes that we are awful listeners. Times like:
- When we are angry.
- When we are busy.
- When we don't care or are uninterested.
- When we are bored.

Most of us aren't very good listeners in these situations. But it is in many of these situations when improving our listening habits will pay us the biggest dividends. What can we do then to improve our listening habits in these difficult times?

The Seven "Gets"
There are seven specific "Gets" that I recommend to you in any situation when you aren't at your listening best. Here they are:

Get Curious.
I learned this in college. I was most successful in classes I was interested in. So, to improve my success in other classes I looked for what I found interesting or wondered about. When I got more curious I became more interested, listened more carefully and was more successful. The same is true for meetings or one-on-one conversations. Become curious and you will listen more carefully, ask questions for clarification and understanding, and voila! boredom becomes interest.

Get a pen. 
Taking notes when listening has a way of keeping your mind on task. It shows the other person that you are genuinely interested and helps you hear for important facts, feelings and other information. You may not want to bring out your notebook in every conversation, but there are many situations, especially in our professional lives where taking notes will increase your listening effectiveness significantly.

Get focused.
The last two pieces of advice help us focus, for sure. Beyond that though we can improve our listening by shutting off our brain a bit. Stop thinking about the call you need to make. Stop thinking about your other project. Stop, and listen.

Get over it.
Perhaps someone is talking about something you don't agree with, or they have hit a hot button with one of their comments. Often at this point we stop listening and await our chance to rebut, restate or renounce their comments. Get your mind back into listening mode by telling your mind to "Stop!" If you have a passionate point to make your passion will help you communicate it. Keep listening, and state your ideas when the time is right.

Get over yourself.
Sometimes we are angry or frustrated about things that are unrelated to what the speaker is saying. In these cases we need to get over ourselves and get into the other person. The speaker may need counsel or acknowledgement from us, or may need our help on something very important. Get over your stuff and listen. Don't take your anger out on the other party just because they are there. Hint: Listening isn't about you.

Get space.
Sometimes we can delay a conversation if we are really upset or otherwise distracted. If the situation allows you to get back with the other person, be honest and tell them that you need a few minutes before you will be able to truly listen to them. They will appreciate your comments and be pleased to have a better listener in front of them at that future time.

Get in practice.Since listening is a skill, we can practice it. When we practice doing something we build a habit. So practice better listening skills all of the time, especially when it is easier to do so. Then the next time you don't really want to listen, your habits will kick in and you will be more effective.

Each of these seven will help you listen better in the difficult situations. I encourage you to take this advice, applying at least one of them today to the next listening challenge you face.

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© 2007-2011 All Rights Reserved, Kevin Eikenberry and The Kevin Eikenberry Group. Kevin is Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group (http://KevinEikenberry.com), a learning consulting company that helps Clients reach their potential through a variety of training, consulting and speaking services. To receive your free special report on Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential go to http://www.kevineikenberry.com/uypw/index.asp or call us at (317) 387-1424 or 888.LEARNER.

My confession...

A note about perception

I’ve been reading a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.  Last year, my mom cleaned out the closets and gave me a huge box of books (ah, heavenly!). Included were several leadership and management books of my dad’s. They looked interesting, so I put them on the shelf and figured I’d get around to reading them someday.

A couple weeks ago, I picked this one up and decided to give it a whirl. I began reading the first chapter, entitled “Inside Out” and was immediately hooked.

In his first chapter, Mr. Covey covers several important topics (and I urge you to go and get the book – it is a really valuable resource!), but the one that most spoke to me was his discussion about perception.

He begins by describing an experiment in which two groups of people were given two different pictures of a woman to examine for thirty seconds. After looking at their drawings for thirty seconds, the entire group was instructed to look at a third picture, also of a woman. They were given some time to examine the picture and then were asked a series of questions.

“What would you say the age of the woman is?” asked the administrator.

“I’d say she’s about twenty-one or twenty-two,” said a participant from one side of the room.

“What?” said a participant from the other side of the room. “Are you crazy? That is an old woman in that picture – she has to be at least eighty.”

The room erupted in discussion as the participants defended what they saw in the drawing. Each side of the room was certain that what they saw was the truth.

The drawing they were looking at was this:

The first group of participants had looked at this drawing first:

And the second group had examined this drawing first:

When the first group of participants saw the second drawing, the image of the first picture they saw, that of an old woman, had so influenced their perception in just a thirty second viewing, that they immediately saw an old woman in the second picture.

The second group had a similar experience upon seeing their first drawing highlighting the young woman, and saw a young woman in the second picture.

The administrator of the test attempted to get each group to see the other image within the picture and only after pointing out various features – the mouth of the old woman or the nose and eyelashes of the young woman, was he finally able to help the groups see the other image in the picture.

However, once any of the participants looked away from the picture for more than ten seconds, the original perception would return.

So why am I telling you all this?

In our experiences on TMN’s communities, we have all had times where we have looked at a situation a certain way – whether that perception was colored by our upbringing, our passions, our fears. However, there might be another group of people who view that same situation completely differently, based on their individual upbringings, passions and fears.

As illustrated in the experiment, BOTH OF YOU CAN BE EXACTLY RIGHT! Just because you see it differently, doesn’t mean that the other person’s perception can’t be valid and true.

In any leadership position, one of the most important character traits you can have is fairness and impartiality. When you are working with others, it is important to be able to step outside of a situation and see it from all the different angles. You don’t have to agree with those viewpoints, but you have to acknowledge they are there and that they are valid.

Being a good leader means that you look at each situation from the perception of all of the participants. You try to put yourself in that person’s shoes and empathize with their unique situation. You refrain from quick judgment based on initial perceptions, because, as you can plainly see from the experiment above, they may not always be fair.

Mr. Covey has some amazing insight into being an effective leader. I’m not even halfway through the book and I have already had several “paradigm shifts” as he calls them, where my perception of a situation has immediately changed upon learning some important fact or point that I may not have known (like our friends in the experiment who didn’t know that there were actually two different women in the drawing). I really feel that I am growing, not just as a leader, but as a person because of the knowledge he shares. I do urge you, if you can, to check out his book and soak it all in. You will certainly be glad you did.

For those of you who don’t have the time to read it, but would like to get a glimpse of Mr. Covey’s genius, check out this audio book that highlights some of the key points of his book.  

Perception is an amazingly powerful thing. Taking a moment to see how it can affect us allows us to recognize it when it comes into play in our leadership roles and work toward eliminating its negative effect on our thoughts and decisions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this today! Monday, I’ll be talking about the first characteristic of a servant leader: Listening. I’m really looking forward to taking this journey with all of you.