Step 2: Listen For Potential
The chapter begins with a scenario: a person makes a passing comment that she is not happy at work and is thinking about finding a better job. People are quick to give conflicting advice: taking a vacation to refresh her perspective, suggesting various ways to deal with the problem, suggesting ways to cope with the stress, or suggesting other jobs to consider.
There are two reasons for these reactions: the first is that each person is giving advice based on their own filter, agenda, or emotional reaction. The second, and more insidious, is they do not recognize her as a person who is is feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but who is essentially intelligent and capable to come up with her own solutions.
How you respond to a person who is facing a dilemma is often guided by your assumptions about that person. Going back to neuroscience, each of us develops a frame through which we respond to stimuli, which influences our thoughts and perceptions and attempts to fit new information to a frame. As such, when we suggest a solution to a problem, we are considering not only the problem but the frame in which we view the person.
This is likely the reason that a parent continues to infantilize their child even into adulthood - their "frame" is fixed to the way they perceived them in their youth. They are not listening to the problem and considering suggestions (or whether to make suggestions at all) in an open manner, but fitting their response to the frame they have based on their existing beliefs about that person.
Clearly, the best approach is to do the opposite: to listen more effectively and to be aware that your existing frame may be limiting your perception and leading you in the wrong direction - and leading you to lead the other person in the wrong direction as well.
How You Listen
The author suggests an experiment to consider your current mode of listening: speak to someone for a few minutes, anyone on any topic, meanwhile being attentive to your inner monologue: what thoughts and ideas are "running around inside your head" while the other person is speaking.
Very often, you will notice that what you are doing is listening for cues in what the other person is saying that give you the opportunity to pursue a specific agenda when it is your turn to speak.
- You may be looking for an opportunity to say something that makes you seem intelligent or witty, considering what you can gain from the interaction, or gathering information you might want for another purpose.
- You may not be paying attention at all, whether temporarily distracted by other noises in the environment or simply not interested in what they are saying
- You may be trying to figure out what's really going on with the person or their problem and considering ways that you can help.
Naturally, the third mode of listing is where we ought to be - but the author asserts that in running similar exercises with "hundreds of people from many different cultures" he has found that people only put a small percentage of their attention on actually listening to the other person. Unless we make a conscious effort to listen, we generally do not.
A New Way to Listen
The author suggests that leaders should listen to others in a specific way. That is, they truly listen, working to comprehend what the other person is saying rather than looking for the first opportunity to interject. Second, they consider the speaker to be a capable and intelligent person who likely has all the tools they need to be successful, and who could benefit from exploring their own thoughts and ideas. Simply stated, their approach in listening is focused on the other person rather than themselves.
The author suggests some of the tactics a leader uses in a conversation with a person who's trying to solve a problem:
- Determine whether the other person is looking for suggestions by asking "Do you want to use me as a sounding board?" or "How can I best help you think this through?"
- Helping the other person to envision the outcome they are seeking to achieve by asking "What is it you hope to accomplish?" or "What outcome are you hoping for?"
- Helping the other person discover a path to success by asking "Do you have a sense of what you need to do?"
Listening for potential encourages people to think their own way through a dilemma. It strengthens relationships by instilling a sense of trust and confidence. It improves people by coaching them to solve problems rather than providing a ready-made solution: and if you do this repeatedly, your people will soon learn to solve their own problems.
(EN: There's a caution here, especially for leaders/managers: sometimes, the other person is coming to you for guidance and suggestions and assuming too passive a role in the conversation leaves them frustrated and damages your credibility - so you have to listen attentively to detect when this is the case, and even ask about it explicitly. Granted, poor leaders jump at the opportunity to give direction to others without understanding the situation, the desired outcome, or what the other person may have considered but to swing to the opposite extreme of just being a listener and providing no guidance is not an effective solution.)
There is also a brief mention of conversations in which a person is reflecting on a situation that has already passed in which they feel that they did not get the results they wished for, and which they feel is over and done with. While it may be pointless to explore things they might do in such a situation, a leader can help the other person take a lesson from the past - guiding them to consider things they might have done differently, things they can do in future, or simply discover the lessons to be learned.
The author also suggests that "something magical happens" when you listen attentively to another person - your internal chatter becomes almost nonexistent. They find themselves transfixed "in the moment" and having conversations that are not only more effective, but also more pelasant.
The Clarity of Distance
The author considers the common belief that people who are too close to a situation are often blinded to things that are obvious to people who are more detached, or how our initial reaction to a problem usually turns out to be the right course, even after hours of painstaking analysis, and that people are often more efficient and sometimes even better off if they simply trust their instincts and act.
Every day we are bombarded with massive amounts of information, even more so in the office than in our private lives, and the bustling pace leaves us without much time to reflect before taking action. In organizations, there is great fear of being rash and failing to perform due diligence, and processes are put in place to encourage or require reflection and consideration. But in many instances, such processes go to far, such that people become so buried in the details that they lose sight of the goals or become unclear about which direction to take.
In this situation, the listening leader can help to pull people out of the weeds - the analogy being a person on a hill, looking out over a maze, who can guide people in the maze because he has a higher perspective that is not blocked by the walls. This is where micromanagers become poor leaders: by focusing on the small details, they join their people in the maze rather than staying above it and lose the perspective they need to help.
By way of an anecdote, the author suggests that listening to people doesn't require hanging on their every word - a person who is lost in a problem may want to give you a blow-by-blow account that will drag you into the maze: but rather than focus on the details, your task is to drag them out of the weeds and consider the bigger picture as a guide to what they might do differently to succeed.
Taking a step back and considering the broader perspective is something a person can do for themselves, though it is a habit that must be encouraged. An effective leader must not only encourage this practice in his followers, but learn to adopt the practice himself.
Filters can be another impediment to understanding: the mind attempts to fit new information into its existing frame, and tends to be dismissive of information that does not match. The author stresses that there is nothing wrong with that - in many instances our hard-wiring is set to respond to a situation in the same way that has been successful in the past without having to deliberate.
But in other instances, our filters can mislead us, or create blind spots in our cognition and perception. The benefit of working in groups and talking through problems is that each person has a different set of filters, such that some will see what others miss. (EN: My sense is that "groupthink" remains a significant issue, but an issue that must be accepted for the sake of the benefits of having multiple perspectives.)
When listening to others, we must be aware of our own filters, particularly when the filters relate to the person with whom we are conversing. The mind works the same way for people as it does for any other objects: it forms an impression of them as they are and attempts to fit new information into our existing perspective about a given person - which can get in the way of a more beneficial objective. That is, we must resist seeing them as they are, effectively typecasting them, and instead consider instead the idea of what they can become or achieve.
Another topic to consider in terms of listening is our personal agenda. In any conversation between a salesman and a prospect, there is a thin veneer of the salesman wanting to help the prospect obtain a product that will serve their interests over a core of self-serving interest in making a sale regardless of whether the product is a good fit for the prospect's needs.
In the same way, a manager sees his staff as resources to be used to serve his own needs and goals. He may wish to steer a subordinate toward a goal that makes him look good to his own superiors, or he may feel a sense of personal power in getting others to follow his commands regardless of the outcomes. An effective leader seeks to bring out the best in his people, but is not immune to the temptation to use them for his own ends.
In general, identifying the agendas of the people involved in a conversation can help to identify sources of conflict between personal and organizational goals. It's especially important to turn the microscope on yourself: be aware of your personal agenda, perhaps even to the point of stating it out loud so it can be acknowledged and, if necessary, explicitly set aside.
Another topic: personal "hot spots" define areas particular sensitivity, and where awareness is necessary. It's fairly simple to identify the hot spots in other people - you may avoid certain topics if you are aware that recent events in a person's life lead them to be vulnerable in a certain area - but a lot more difficult to be aware of our own hot spots.
By way of an example, the author returns to the opening scenario of a person talking about being frustrated at their job and thinking about making a career change. If they raised this issue with a friend who had recently been laid off, that person's reaction might be more guided by their emotions that by rationality.
Current theories of "emotional intelligence" suggest that the way we process information is influenced by our mental state - the stronger or "hotter" our emotions are running, the greater influence they have over our perception and cognition. And the more we are prone to act emotionally rather than logically. Even in our default state, emotions exert some influence.
In some instances, we can carefully guide a conversation around the hot spots - but in others, the best course of action is simply to desist and delay the conversation for a time when you are better able to think straight. (EN: Brings to mind that when we attempt to conform to the archetype of being detached and unemotional in decision-making, we are merely pretending to ignore our emotions and they still have a significant impact.)