Both have also dealt with intense legal situations in which they had to listen to the points of view of multiple stakeholders. She’ll ask them for their opinion directly. Kit tries to include people who don’t instinctively speak up in meetings. When I asked how each of them lead, both of them said through listening.Įileen said she didn’t know anything about business when she first started her company, so she had to really listen to people, to learn and understand. and Kit is owner and co-chief visionary officer of Clif Bar & Company. Eileen is the Founder and Chairwoman of Eileen Fisher, Inc. I recently talked about this with Eileen Fisher and Kit Crawford at the Wisdom 2.0 conference in San Francisco. We connected, I learned, and we both felt like we accomplished something out of the conversation. It was only when her laptop was closed and her schedule wasn’t jammed with meetings that I got something out of our meetings. She’s also the same manager who would have her laptop up during most of our one-on-ones, and nod her head and smile as I shared updates, half-listening. She went on to ask, “How does all of this fit together?” Those two questions fundamentally changed how I approached my work. That manager illuminated my focus on getting stuff done, and the problem with not tying it back to any kind of strategic priority in the company. “What are all of these things helping to solve in the organization?” There it was. I said, “The only thing I have left to do is…” She stopped me mid-sentence. When I strategically create space on my calendar to reflect on a conversation and prepare for the next one, I can be more present for others.ĭuring an eventful one-on-one with my manager earlier in my career, I was busy giving my update on all the things I was working on. When I have back-to-back meetings, my goal is to get through them with just enough time to run to the other building for my next meeting. And the converse is also true: I listen more when I create space in my day. Listening creates spaciousness, which we need to do good work. I’m reminded of why what we’re building together matters. There’s the reminder of what’s possible if we focus on what the other person has to say. When I close my laptop and it’s just me and the person across the table, there’s a connection. You’re not only listening to what the person is saying, but how they’re saying it - and, even better, what they’re not saying, like when they get energized about certain topics or when they pause and talk around others. The phone may be down and you may be nodding in agreement, but you may not be picking up on the small nuances the person is sharing.ģ60 listening. People laugh, not because it’s funny, but because they recognize that this type of listening is what they often do themselves.įocused listening is being able to focus on the other person, but you’re still not connecting fully to them. In our sessions, we usually illustrate this type of listening with a simple prop - an iPhone. Internal listening is focused on your own thoughts, worries, and priorities, even as you pretend you’re focusing on the other person. In our management development sessions, we find it helpful to highlight three levels of listening: Listening can be a challenging skill to master. There’s no reason to think that ratio has improved since then. Back in 1957, researchers found that listeners only remembered about half of what they’d heard immediately after someone finished talking. Several studies over the decades have estimated that we spend anywhere from a third to half our time listening. Listening is an overlooked tool that creates an environment of safety when done well. With so few anchors in our work environment, and so many variables we can’t control, it’s important to double down on the things we can control. New teams form, new team members join, and projects shift based on new priorities. In a growing, constantly changing company like Twitter, there aren’t a lot of things that remain the same for very long. But it only works in an organization that values listening. It can be a powerful technique, especially if there is no single right answer – a situation that will be familiar to anyone doing leading-edge work. More often than not, when I ask this question, my team has a better answer than I do - or one that I hadn’t thought about before. Sometimes I even preface it with, “I don’t know.” As leaders in our organizations, it’s up to us to coach colleagues and our employees through finding that answer. My team knows that when they come to me with a question, this is likely the question I’ll come back with first.
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