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Listeners Last Longer Than Most
I read in the book You, Inc. by Harry and Christine Beckwith that if you watch reality shows, you will notice that the person that sits up and listens to the other contestant's problems, such as stresses, missing of family members, etc., that they are among the last to be voted off.
Think about the projects you've worked on. Are the ones that outlast the team the most technical or the biggest listener. Google "listening skills" and you get many hits. At the time I was writing this, the hit was 3,390,000. Many were training courses. One course is probably available at your organization that has a training department. Does yours? The number of books on the topic hits the thousands. In fact, Amazon.com listed 318,786.
The two most common listening errors I've witnessed fall into two categories: Everyone listens. The challenge is to listen just to listen. Not to think about your next question or to think of a solution. People don't want immediate responses. People want to know that you heard them. Understanding is not as important. People will wait until they are understood (giving you time to actually think about what you heard after the discussion). I call this the listening but preparing category. Techies often fall into this category. While are listening to the business person, are thinking: Guess what, you are NOT listening to them...you are thinking about yourself! "How are you going to meet the demand" is not listening. It's self-service thinking. Listening but preparing type of listening degrades your listening capability. In most cases: Everyone is provided an opportunity to think about what they heard. Therefore, wait. You do not have to provide a response until you had the opportunity to think about what you heard. It is much more important to get everything from the conversation. That means what is said and what is not said (body language). You will always be provided an opportunity to say "let me get back to you after I think about this a little." That will gain you more respect from the business person than responding immediately. Replying immediately gives the impression that: Now, does that sound like you really want to build a lasting relationship with the business community? Remember, business relationships are the key to your success. So why wouldn't you want to give them your full attention? What's worse than "listening but preparing"? Stop listening because you think you know it already! The operative word here is "think." In most cases, I doubt that you know everything. Even if you think you do, you don't know everything. You must always assume that you will learn something. It may be a known fact, but the way the speaker sees it may shed light on how you should implement the fact (user-friendly, remember). Remember the quote from Jeffrey Gitomer: "People who are cocky and arrogant say, 'I know that' and move along. People who are confident and positive ask themselves, 'How good am I at that?" and seek to improve'. I speak often. In every crowd, I see people "shut down" and stop listening because they think they already know what I'm saying. I ignore them. I feel they are not ready to listen. Yes, they may know what words are coming, but do they watch for the nuances of how I implement the lessons. After all, they may learn another way to explain what they know to their colleagues, staff, or business community. Cockiness is disrespectful. The first question I ask myself when I come across an arrogant person (in business or Information Technology) is ... what are they hiding? Business people do the same. They can smell arrogant techies from a mile away. Their thoughts, "this person doesn't care about what I need…let me find someone else." Now, does that get you or keep you on the best project? Even if you know the topic being discussed, I guarantee that you will learn something new. Listening to the business person for other subtle clues will build better requirements, systems and business relationships. Think about the last time you spoke with a business sponsor. What did you hear? Thinking about how something was said, did you miss anything? Did you miss an opportunity to "bond" with them (i.e. missing a sports analogy provides insight to what is important to the business person outside of the office.) Keeping open ears (and eyes) allows you to hear information relating to: What's in it for you? By listening more, you build a deeper relationship with the business person. You obtain more knowledge beyond the information. You are not voted off the team. Listen to learn...think later...last longer
SBDi speaks both Business and IT languages. Bring SBDi in to help communication between both organizations. Let us help you find the right flexible solution that will help business increase revenue.
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Pat Ferdinandi, Chief Thought Translator
