Listen and Lead

Twitter, Halftime and Meetings

Charlie Villanueva's bosses say they are investigating an incident in which he tweeted  at work.

Villanueva is a Milwaukee Buck and his workplace was a locker room during halftime when his team was tied, 41-41, with the Boston Celtics. His Twitter message said, "In da locker room, snuck to post with my twitt. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up."

The Bucks went on to win and Villanueva went on to tweet, "By the way, lets just get the record straight, my halftime twitt had no interference with what goes on regularly during the locker room."

His coach must have disagreed. He soon posted, "Well guys, no more halftime tweets for me -- I'll leave it at that, won't comment on it any further. But I still got love for ya. Stay tune."

But Villanueva couldn;t really resists further comment: "About to take my nap, but I'm looking for some answers here, what's the difference between halftime twitting and halftime interview?" It's a fair question.

While NBA coaches might be concerned about secrets being Tweeted out of the locker room, it is likely they are more concerned with players' heads being out of the game.

Rick Bommelje, 2009-2010 president of the International Listening Association, told me he knew of an executive who had asked his managers to refrain from texting and answering e-mails during meetings because it interfered with their listening. At the next meeting, one of those managers got busy on his crackberry, and the executive told him to leave.

Problem was solved. Managers came to the meetings with fewer distractions.

At my old newspaper, the Detroit Free Press, few editors were quick to pick up on Twitter. One was not, though, and I sometimes saw his posts go up while he was sitting in meetings. (Ironically, this was the year when the newspaper brought down Detroit's mayor with stories about his text messages, which showed he had lied in court.)

Eventually, the newspaper got Twitter fever. The editors trained, they opened Twitter accounts and they began using tags to tie their Tweets together.

As Twitter fever swept the newsroom, the early adopter Tweeted this: "Tweeting throughout a mtg, sitting next to editor, but this time it's encouraged. (I prefer guerilla tweeting tho :) )"

So, which culture listens better, the one in which basketball forwards and leaders Tweet during meetings, or the one in which they are told to put the cellphones down and listen to each other?

International Listening Association's Milwaukee Conference

It is the eve of the International Listening Association's 2009 conference and I have some butterflies.

I am going so that I can listen -- of course -- to people who have made listening and the study of it their life's work.

I am but an amateur who picked up a few things while working in newsrooms.

Here is one thing I have already picked up from the group: We know from common sense that one cannot listen well to another person if he or she does not first respect that person and that they have a valid point of view. We cannot fake people out by miming the actions of real listening.

But if we take deliberate, careful listening into an organizational environment solely to gain information to help us run that organization better, this is fake listening taken to a higher level. The problem is the same -- a lack of respect. And we have that old problem of superimposing our agenda on the speaker's.

So, yes, leaders, listen well to the people in the organization. But don't do it solely for your benefit or the benefit of the organization. It just won't work. You have to listen for the benefit of the speaker, too. And, in the end, doesn't giving the workers a voice help better than just about anything else?

A Pill to Help People Listen Better

At first, I thought the ad was a joke.

"Stage fight?" was superimposed over a photo of a wide-eyed young boy clutching a microphone in a death grip.

Across the bottom of the photo, it said, "Finally, a natural supplement for public speaking."

The Deephaven Nutraceuticals ad touts Bravina, "our blend of nine natural supplements promotes relaxation and concentrates relaxation."

Why am I surprised? Pills to help us sleep, pills to help us remember, pills to help us calm down or stay awake or still our restless legs. Why not a pill that helps us speak? It's just another kind of performance booster.

You can go to the Web site and take a quiz to see if you need this supplement.

One of the questions on the diagnostic survey is, "Do you envision your speech going poorly prior to your public speaking engagement?" Sometimes that happens to me while I am speaking.

I have an idea for the people at Deephaven. It is the listening pill. It helps people listen.

I would make it in two sizes: golf ball and tennis ball. Just stick one of these pills in your mouth when someone is trying to talk to you and you can't help but listen.