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.
