Listen and Lead

If You Want to Listen, Let People Talk

One vitally important thing has to happen before you can listen. Someone has to talk.

Some leaders make it safe for others to speak up. Others make it dangerous.

One day at our afternoon news meeting, an editor suggested an idea that we can politely say was not reflective of his best thinking. As soon as he described it, you could see that this idea would not fly. Our senior manager was at the table and began kicking holes in this poorly conceived idea. She went on at some length, explaining why it was bad and could never, ever work. If someone in the twenty or so people hearing this had wanted to disagree with her – no one did – she was laying down enough gunfire to take care of them. After the meeting, I told her that had not needed to do that. The idea was lousy, it had no chance and would have died a quiet death whether she said anything or not. If, instead, it had picked up steam and was headed into reality, she could have killed it later. And, as she was the top manager, she could have killed it without even explaining her rationale. Instead, she had stomped it to pieces, burned it to ashes and sowed the ground it was born on with lye. Her reaction not only embarrassed the editor who had ventured it, it also taught the others around the table that there was a risk in proposing ideas –- not just bad ones – but any that she might disagree with. This does not make for an environment where people feel free to speak up – or where much listening will be needed.

In the sports department at the same newspaper, the sports editor has cultivated a culture where he gets people to speak up by rewarding dumb ideas. He calls is “one dumb idea a day.” His tactic is that many ideas are actually good, risk-taking ideas that need to be fine-tuned into breakaway, creative ideas. So, people through out lots of suggestions. If one seems like a dumb idea, the sports editor will say, “Good job! That’s a dumb idea! Just what we’re looking for. Now, can we make it work somehow?” The more dumb ideas a person pitches, the more they get praised and the more they might improve the content of the sports section. Here, people are not punished for speaking up, they are rewarded for expressing their ideas – even when they are dumb. And it is far easier leaders to listen to good ideas and act on them when people are encouraged to say them out loud.

Another one of our leaders had this expression he would use in meetings when it seemed a topic had run its course. He would ask, “What else?” After seeing this a few times, I asked him privately whether “What else?” meant “what else can be said about this?” or, “let’s change the subject.” He told me he meant both things.

No Whining?

Once, an editor who had apparently seen a procession of people come by to talk about their troubles bought me a gift. It was a white button with one word on it in black letters. The  word was “whining”. And it was overstruck with a red circle and diagonal line, the international sign for “No whining.” I thought it was funny and put it on the front of my cubicle not far from my nameplate.

A couple weeks later, a respected corporate HR person was out for a visit. She came to my cubicle to see me. She spotted the button immediately. Wordlessly, she removed it from the entryway to my cubicle and moved it to a file cabinet behind my desk. Then she began our conversation, which was about something else entirely.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but I remember her silent action. We talked about it by phone a few weeks later. She said, “You are the one person people can go to with whatever is bothering them. If you tell them there is no whining -– or that you even think they are whining – where are they going to go?”

Message received.

A few months after that, I was visiting another newspaper where the city editor had cultivated a reputation as, basically, a “tough broad.” A sports fan, she kept a wooden  baseball bat at her desk as a humorous reminder that she would enforce deadlines. Remembering my experience with “No whining” button, I asked a couple staffers about the bat. They did not think it was funny. In fact, although they didn’t think she would ever hit anyone with it, they said it intimidated them and kept them at bay.

I suggested that the top editor move the bay away from that editor’s desk. She did. Now, this may not have made people more willing to talk to her, but it removed away a hint that they would be clubbed if they did!

Look at your office from the perspective of a visitor. What is there? Do you have a gag gift that might inadvertently keep people at bay? I try to have some varied artwork. There are some editorial cartoons. There are some simple images that reflect different cultures. On my desk -– and not on my side of it -– is a box of tissues. I am trying to set a stage for listening. I am trying to say, “You are welcome to come here. This is a safe place for you to talk.”