Schlagwort-Archive: Listening

Listening

The urge of letting others knowing your stand point drives some people with a prepared script into a conversation. Almost like a voice recording the dialogue starts and unwound without break. Normally the content is coherent. The outline contains the relevant aspects. Occasionally, the audience participation is inserted in terms of questions. The own point of view is well elaborated and provided with a catchy conclusion. Nevertheless, the discussion does not lead to the desired end. On closer look, you recognize that you missed the opportunity to listen to the listeners.

Listen

A conversation consists less of talking but of listening. What you hear provides so much contents that you could limit your talking on what the listener is really interested in.

  • Do the counterparts ask questions?
    The best hint for additionally needed information is a straight question by the listeners. This enables to adapt your expression in such a way that the others can better understand. It is a bad luck, not to notice these questions. On the one hand you miss the opportunity to express yourself appropriately. On the other hand negative feelings grow within the questioner. For this reason you should enlarge on questions under all circumstances. Even if it is only the indication that you answer all questions at the end.
  • Do the participants seem to lack some information?
    The listeners often use the moment, when the speaker takes a breath, to step into the breach in order to also say something. This is usually feedback that clarifies, what was understood so far or what might be missing. If you listen attentively, you can hear these misunderstandings and react with additional explanations. As speaker you should be better prepared, as the participants. Therefore you are able to provide the appropriate clarification.
  • Do the counterparts have no additional information need, if they are asked?
    At the end of the presentation in any case you should ask, whether there are open issues that came up within the conversation. If there are questions that go beyond what you know, you can later deliver the appropriate information. If there are no further wishes, it is the right time to agree about the next steps and to terminate the conversation. When you finish earlier than planned, it is great. The counterparts will be grateful to be given some unplanned time.

Additionally it is worthwhile to take a look between the lines.

  • Are the counterparts in positive mood?
    The positive tendency of the opposite can be seen, if they listen attentively nodding and smiling.
  • Are there signs of disinterest?
    As soon as the gaze of the listeners deviates to the mobile phone or the watch or the listeners start yawning, the ice becomes very thin. In this case you can arouse renewed interest by raising the voice, changing your posture or through a deviating comment.
  • Do people show resistance?
    Facial expressions, gestures and postures show resistances. A turned down mouth or a grasp to the forehead or, if an opposite turns away, indicate a large probability that resistance is growing. This can go so far that the participants start disturbing.

At the end of the discussion it is helpful to briefly summarize the results. If the audience signals agreement, then you reached the end of the conversation. However, you should not expect that everything is already understood or that an agreement has reached. It takes at least one night, in order to give the batch run in the mind the opportunity to reconsider the results. Afterwards nothing or everything bars the way to getting a closing.

Bottom line: The discussion consists not only of talking, but, above all, of listening. In the feedback of the counterparts you find hints about their needs. At the same time the body speaks a clear language. By observing attentively the counterparts you get important reference points concerning their mood. On this basis, you can design conversations more effectively. Therefore – more listening.

Lonely leaders – soloists without impact

Some managers hamper progress in the enterprise with their avalanche-like excessive desire for action, when they do not pay attention to the feedback of their employees. They always run with new ideas ahead of the staff without completing anything. Half-done initiatives and a large number of demoralized employees remain. The successors have no other choice than to repair the damage – again and again. And this happens although the leaders should have noticed that they are only soloists without impact, if they do not have the support of the staff.

Sollerfüllung

Especially in the areas of service and administration, where no physical products are created, the commitment of the persons employed is the basis for good performances. Results that are difficult to measure, like the relationship with the customers, the appropriate application of resources and the consistent external representation of the corporate values, are critical, if a manager does not consider the ideas of the staff. How can you avoid losing your employees during your day-to-day work?

  • Listening
    Those bosses, who practice active listening within respective meetings (e.g. town halls, round tables), take thereby the foot off the brake. In return they receive the insights and the opinions of the employees, who eventually improve the results and the balance sheet of the boss.
  • Agreeing upon obligation AND freestyle
    Goals create the framework, in which the employees act. In general the targets describe, what the employees have to do. Additionally the goals should also be fixed. It enables the employees to provide additional personal contributions. That way dedication becomes again worthwhile. Beyond that the superiors get additional possible use from the extra abilities of the employees.
  • Service level Agreements (SLAs)
    With external service providers it has paid off to agree upon the deliverables, the response time and the speed with SLAs. The description of the required quality prevents a halfhearted target fulfillment. The thresholds are specified for the particular case to be processed and can be subsequently evaluated for defined periods. In such a way the service level becomes a seizable component of the goal agreement.
  • The open checklist
    Checklists examine the fulfillment of the essential aspects of a task. The task fulfillment becomes as good as the prepared checklist. With the classical checklist you get only a target fulfillment.
    Item 1? Checked off.
    Item 2? Checked off.
    Item 3? Checked off.
    Patient dead.With an open checklist that does not only contain of Yes/No questions, but also asks open key questions (like who, where, when, how), the work to rule is prevented.
    Which deliverables were accomplished?
    What characterizes the customer?
    What did we learn?
    What should we avoid?The customers will notice the difference immediately.
  • Sharing responsibility
    The strongest weapon against inner resignation is the joint definition of the basis of daily work. The employees specify the requirements and goals for the respective period in a joint discussion together with the managers. Self-defined and comprehensible goals are pursued more active by the employees and supply the bosses with a better overview, than abstract, hardly seizable agreements.

Bottom line: Superiors, who do not integrate their employees into their leadership, will have difficulties in the future. They lose the people through

  • their inner resignation,
  • the work to rule and
  • the target fulfillment.

Those leaders harm themselves. In the mid-term nobody wants to work for them. The lonely leader, who believes that he knows and can do everything and does not pay attention to the feedback of the employees, becomes over time nothing else but a soloist without impact.