Listen as UK sound consultant Julian Treasure addresses a TedX audience about how important genuine listening is to understanding and peace.
Listen as UK sound consultant Julian Treasure addresses a TedX audience about how important genuine listening is to understanding and peace.
Posted at 08:52 PM in Listening Legends | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
When Sandy Rowe retired as editor of the Oregonian,one of the many who considers her to be a mentor passed along six lessons she learned from Rowe.
The first was how to listen.
In a News Leadership 3.0 posting for the Knight Digital Media Center, Michele McLellan wrote:
"I remember when Sandy first arrived at The Oregonian in 1993. She scheduled one-on-one interviews with pretty much everyone in the newsroom staff. When my turn came, I was struck at how intently she listened. No fidgeting, no looking around or peeking at the clock. Total focus. Eye contact. No speeches. Lots of questions, many of them gently challenging.
"I was astonished. A new forty-something editor who had just crossed the continent to take over a flailing, demanding newsroom in a strange town. Total focus. My 15-minute interview turned into an hour-plus conversation."
Posted at 12:38 PM in Listening Legends | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Jill Geisler of the Poynter Institute for which I write a career column, has a great piece on the importance of managerial listening and techniques to accomplish just that.
She has also developed an online course with Poynter about listing.
Posted at 12:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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?
Posted at 07:14 PM in Lousy Listeners | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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?
Posted at 08:23 PM in Maintaining Focus | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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.
Posted at 03:32 PM in Techniques | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Today's issue of the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology reports on a study that says doodling while listening may improve recall. Subjects were given a doodling task while listening to a dull phone message had a 29% improved recall compared to non-doodlers in the study.
To keep doodlers from becoming self conscious, they were asked to shade in shapes on a piecve of paper, rather than to doodle naturally. All of the participants were asked to listen to 2 1/2-minute tape with several names of people and places. They were then asked to write down the names of people going to a party and the names of eight place names that were mentioned. There were 20 doodlers and 20 non-doodlers. The doodlers recalled on average 7.5 names of people and places compared to only 5.8 by the non-doodlers.
None of the participants were told it was a memory test.
While the study did not cover more intense discussions or those held face to face, it suggests that the mere act of taking notes during a conversation may help one maintain focus.
Posted at 11:45 PM in Techniques | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
As the United States tries to remake its global image, it has turned its ear to the world.
Lead listener abroad is Hillary Clinton, who began her quest for the U.S. Senate with a listening tour through New York.
The contrast with the previous administration, which withheld listening as a negotiating tactic, is striking.
Here is the Washington Post on Clinton's visit to China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia.
While Clinton is talking a lot, to be sure, the Post said she she told students at Tokyo University, "My trip here today is to hear your views, because I believe strongly that we learn from listening to one another, and that is, for me, part of what this first trip of mine as secretary of state is about."
Posted at 09:58 AM in Techniques | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
You should watch this YouTube video.
It was made by astronaut Andy Thomas, for a a special "no barriers" cross-generational team at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The idea is to build a more open environment for innovation. The effort, still underway, was started by Center Director Mike Coats, a former astronaut himself.
The idea is to meld experienced workers schooled in the old command-and-control style and youthful workers raised in more open, collaborative environments.
Thomas shot and then produced the video to show what happens when workers with ideas run up against systemic resistance.
Many organizations would be devastated to see themselves parodied this way on an in-house video.
But NASA had already been through a far more devastating experience. NASA manager Wayne Hale wrote about Thomas' video on his blog and then posted it on YouTube. He explained why.
Like many at NASA, he was profoundly affected by revelations that the 1986 explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger might have been avoided if managers had listened to dissenters who had tried to warn them. The system was so good at protecting itself and keeping everyone on task that it deflected or hid the warnings.
More recently, despite NASA's efforts to reform, Hale had seen signs that some of the old ways were intact.
So, he posted a critical, in-house video. He urged readers of his blog to watch the video more than once.
Here it is:
He concluded by writing:
"Since these behaviors are still being practiced at NASA, here is what I believe managers need to do
"1. Break out of the sandbox. Even if it is not your area, the agency needs the best ideas to succeed in our goals. If you have subordinates who have ideas for improving other areas, it is important to get those ideas into the open where they can compete in the marketplace of ideas, or at least get a technical review.
"2. If subordinate has an idea that has been tried before and didn't work, consider that times may have changed and it might work now or with improvements that you know of. In the final extremity, your subordinate needs more than the curt dismissal that its been tried before and didn't work -- you need to explain it to them.
"3. Managers at all levels need to provide safe places and times for interaction that skips levels in the chain of command."
Watch the video and ask yourself: What would go into a video about the way things get done inside your organization?
This video did not get much coverage in the mainstream press. One wonders why.
But you can read stories in National Public Radio's Web site, MSNBC or Softpedia.
Posted at 11:15 PM in Lousy Listeners | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
One of the preconditions for effective listening is respect for the speaker.
And leaders who buy into listening do not just want to do it themselves. They want their organizations to have a listening culture.
So, it stands to reason that an organization cannot really develop that kind of culture until the foundation is laid with the creation of a trusting, respectful climate.
If people are off in corners or blaming other departments for what goes wrong. Organizational listening cannot occur. The first step, then, is to eliminate the dread that people feel and their need to engage in blame-gaming. The impetus to take that step is going to come from the top -- the leader.
The leader must get out in front of people, be honest about the situation and invite a few questions and even potshots. The leader's response to brave people who ask hard questions will show whether we are going to have a respectful exchange, or whether we should all scurry back to our corners.
Leaders need not be as concerned about the outspoken staff member's question as they are about their response to it. If they concentrate on their answer, rather than the barbs in the question, they take a big step toward opening up new channels and a new culture.
Posted at 12:38 AM in Techniques | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)