by Aaron Levy
THE IMPACT OF NOT BEING HEARD
Scott was twenty-six when he reached out to me because he was not satisfied with where he was in his career. He was working at a young tech company that was experiencing explosive growth. The company had an influx of capital, a ping-pong table, flexible work hours, and a fun atmosphere. But Scott was not content.
Unlike most employees who simply disengage and eventually leave when they are not happy, Scott took steps to engage in his career. He hired me as his coach and was willing to throw himself into open, honest, and direct conversations with his managers about his future at the company. When he brought up his growth and development to his boss, Scott felt as though she didn’t have time to care about him. She had too much going on and wanted him to go along with the company’s plan. Even though their eventual plan included a promotion for him, it meant continuing down a path that Scott was clear he didn’t want for his life or career.
After several conversations, Scott felt as though his boss hadn’t heard him at all. It was as if he were merely a cog that could easily be replaced by anyone. On the same day Scott received his promotion, he quit. He gave up the opportunity to make more money and have more stock options in order to take another job, one where he felt he could build the skills most relevant to his desired career growth.
Scott’s company failed to hear and understand the desire of their high performer. Instead of celebrating top talent moving up in their organization, they were unwittingly hosting an exit interview. This led to their loss of a talented employee who had energy and desire to give more. It also led to a disruption in their work and the need to find, hire, and train another suitable candidate.
When your managers fail to listen with intention and attention, you run the risk of alienating your people. Listening to your employees’ needs and goals will give you the opportunity to plan and potentially adjust their path forward in a mutually beneficial way, rather than deciding a path for them without their input—or worse, ignoring their input altogether. If, instead, you practice listening with intention and attention, you’ll save your company time and money that you would have spent on rehiring for a position, and you’ll create relationships with your employees that will not only make them stay but will motivate them to work harder.
NOTICE YOUR INNER DIALOGUE
The very first thing to do when trying to build the habit of listening with intention and attention is to get clear on what holds you back from listening to others. Listening is a conscious act. How do you approach listening to someone else? What runs through your mind during the course of a conversation? What conversations do you have with yourself while someone else is talking to you?
When you think you’re listening, your brain may actually be working overtime searching for counterarguments or ways to direct the conversation back to your desired outcomes. That’s not listening. It’s more like waiting for your turn to speak: You can’t hear what they have to say. And others notice.
We all have internal conversations, but few of us pay attention to them well enough to manage them. If you listen first to yourself, you can regulate your inner dialogue, allowing yourself the ability to truly listen to others. What can you learn about your inner dialogue, and how can this help you become a better listener and leader?
Noticing and accepting your inner dialogue is the first step to becoming a better and more powerful listener. By developing an awareness of the sheer fact that thoughts are constantly running through your brain while you’re trying to engage in a conversation, you’ll realize you have the chance to do something different. With awareness comes the space to choose what we bring to each conversation. The power of listening with intention and attention comes from being fully present with another person, which can’t take place until you are aware of yourself and your inner dialogue.
Here’s an activity you can use to test yourself on this skill.
ACTIVITY: BEING IN SILENCE
1. Find a partner.
2. Sit directly in front of your partner so that you are facing each other with your knees almost touching.
3. Set a timer on your phone for three minutes and then put your phone facedown, near you, and on silent mode.
4. Stay silent with this other person for the full three minutes.
What thoughts ran through your head during this time? Did you look around the room? How many times did you think about the alarm and hope it would go off? Did you notice how uncomfortable the silence was? This is your inner dialogue. It’s where 90% of every conversation occurs—within your brain. Even if you’re thinking, This guy is crazy; I don’t have an inner dialogue! you are engaging with your inner dialogue at this very moment.
YOUR LISTENING BLIND SPOT
Remember the field of grass we walked through on our way to creating a new habit? Imagine you’re back in the field, making your way through the ten-foot-high grass, pushing it aside as you stumble through the field, no longer certain of where you’re going, when you notice a paved pathway off to your left. You can see the pathway doesn’t lead to where you want to go, but it’s there and you’re tired, and it’s easier than continuing through this endless wall of grass.
The paved pathway is your blind spot. A blind spot is a habitual pattern, either a thought or behavior pattern in your life that gets in the way of you creating a new habit. It’s a path you’ve likely taken millions if not billions of times throughout your life, which is why the path is so well paved. It’s comfortable and easy, but it leads you away from where you want to go.
Your blind spot might seem like a bad thing; it’s not. It’s probably helped you get to where you are. We all have them, although we are typically unaware of them; that’s why they’re called blind spots.
However, your blind spot also holds you back from greatness. You must notice it to become aware that you’re on the wrong path. Once you notice, you can refocus on where you want to go: adopting the new habit and getting back into the field.
We each show up with a tendency we fall into when listening to others. Some of us listen to connect ideas; some of us listen to solve a problem; others listen to figure out what they are going to say next. Each of us listens for something, to do something. This is your listening blind spot.
For me, it’s listening to connect. In each conversation, I listen to see what connection I can make between what the person is saying and something I know in my life, regardless of its relativity to the conversation at hand. I’m constantly looking for key words or ideas to latch onto as the person is speaking: “You’re from Michigan? I know Michigan. My sister-in-law is from Michigan. I did a half- Ironman in Michigan. Have you been to Benton Harbor?” It’s been a real gift in my life, because it’s helped me make connections by engaging in surface level conversations with almost anyone. I’m able to quickly connect to a place or experience they are sharing. It helps me fit in, to feel liked and worthy.
But it is also the number-one thing that holds me back. It was the biggest barrier I faced when starting my business. I needed to not just make connections and be liked; I needed to provide real value, and that only happens when I shut up, let go of my agenda, and truly listen to my clients.
As a business leader, your listening blind spot is something that’s likely helped you get to where you are today, so it’s natural to have an attachment to it. However, holding onto it won’t allow you to get where you want to go.
Take Yvonne, a client of mine who spent the first eight years building her business, Monarch & Company, from the ground up. As a bootstrapping entrepreneur, she had to solve any and all business problems. After those eight years on her own, she added a business partner, Anna, and other team members, which allowed her to take Monarch to the next level.
I started working with Yvonne and Anna during this new phase of their company’s life cycle. In a session with Yvonne, she shared how she and Anna seemed to keep clashing on issues. It was frustrating for both of them, and it held back the company’s progress. Yvonn
e told me she couldn’t figure out why it was happening.
It wasn’t until I was in a meeting with both that I saw it happen live. A simple question from Anna about setting a target for one of her quarterly goals sparked a blowup. Yvonne looked at me as if to say, See? This is what I’m talking about. I paused and then smiled as I realized what was going on.
Yvonne had spent her career listening to solve; it was so ingrained in her way of being that she couldn’t determine when someone wanted her to solve a problem, to brainstorm an idea, or simply to listen without taking action.
Yvonne thought Anna wanted her to solve the problem and was frustrated because she wanted Anna to be empowered to solve problems on her own, to take the reins of her side of the business. In Yvonne’s mind, Anna was asking Yvonne to make all of her decisions. In reality, Anna wanted to discuss and brainstorm the goal together, because she valued Yvonne’s opinion and insights. There was a disconnect between the two partners. Yvonne’s blind spot of listening to solve was holding her back from not only hearing Anna but also taking the next step in the growth of her business.
Common listening blind spots are when we listen
• To determine my next steps
• To decide if I should pay attention
• To validate my ideas
• To make sure I’m heard
• To figure out what I’m going to say next
• To prove myself
• To learn the other person’s intentions
• To understand the issue
• To make my point
• To help the other person
WHAT IS YOUR LISTENING BLIND SPOT?
All of these blind spots, no matter how honorable they may seem, are still blind spots. They hold us back from being present and listening to the other person. Even if your blind spot is listening to help the other person, you’re looking in the conversation for ways to help instead of simply being present, without any agenda.
That’s the key to listening: no agenda. You have to be present without a destination and without a determination to make. You must listen to hear the other person.
ACTIVITY: DISCOVER YOUR LISTENING BLIND SPOT
1. What is your natural tendency when listening to others (at work or home)? What are you listening to do?
You may feel that several of the blind spots listed earlier describe you. For the sake of becoming a better listener, pick one. This is where you will focus your awareness and attention.
I listen to ___________________.
2. How has your blind spot helped you in your career?
3. How has it held you back?
4. What impact does your blind spot have on your team?
Bringing your habits to your consciousness gives you the awareness and ability to choose a different course of action.
INTENTION AND ATTENTION
Research professor and storyteller Brené Brown shares a great story about the difference between sympathetic and empathic listening.4 She relates expressing sympathy to looking at someone (a team member) who has metaphorically just fallen into a deep pit and is scared and overwhelmed, and responding with, “Ooh, that’s bad. Well, at least you didn’t break any bones.” When you listen sympathetically, she says, you aren’t truly listening to the other person’s needs or feelings. In turn, you call out a silver lining for their situation to make it not seem so bad. Expressing empathy, on the other hand, is about going down into the pit with the other person, seeing the situation from their perspective, recognizing their feelings, and saying, “I know what it’s like down here, and you’re not alone.” It doesn’t require you to solve any problem or provide any insight; it’s about you being present.
Setting your intention to listen with empathy gives the other person a simple acknowledgment of their situation. It’s distinctly different from solving the problem. Instead, it’s hearing them, showing them you’re there alongside them and you care.
ACTIVITY: CHECKLIST FOR LISTENING
Follow this checklist prior to a conversation in which you know it’s important to be present, and to listen with intention and attention.
□ Remember your listening blind spot
Simply being aware of your own listening blind spot ahead of time will help you notice when you are doing it. And when you notice, you can choose to stop.
□ Remove all distractions
One client, Joan, a senior director at a large national wellness company, realized for each meeting she had with her employees that she was in front of her computer, which made it quite hard for her to be present and focused with her team. So she stopped bringing her computer to meetings. It was that simple.
This step is about removing the distractions that will get in the way of you being able to be present in the conversation. It could mean putting your phone on silent, turning off alerts on your computer, or not having your phone out at all. Even the presence of your phone facedown on the table during a meeting is a distraction for your brain, which is why my phone stays on silent in my pocket!
□ Clarify the meeting’s purpose
Start the meeting by getting clear on the purpose. What is each person trying to accomplish in this meeting? What would success at the end of the meeting look like? By beginning with the end in mind, you can let go of trying to wonder what the point of the meeting is and stay on task with the person and the meeting.
THE STAY INTERVIEW
It’s time you put your learning into practice—but how? Holding a stay interview is a perfect way. A stay interview is the opposite of an exit interview. Instead of learning about why the person decided to leave your company, it’s about going upstream and getting clarity on what will make your employee stay with you and your organization. A stay interview helps you connect with an employee outside of a normal one-on-one meeting, to learn about them and their desires for growth. Take your employee to coffee, on a walk around the block, or if you have a remote team, host a virtual coffee meeting where you’re each at a coffee shop in your own respective locations. Your primary goal is to learn about where your employee sees themselves in the next few years and what they want for their career.
Start by asking these two questions, and then build on what you hear:
1. What skills are you looking to develop?
2. How can I support you?
ACTIVITY: THE STAY INTERVIEW
1. Outside of your normal 1-1
2. Start by asking
a. What skills are you looking to develop?
b. How can I support you?
3. Shut up and listen
When I discuss stay interviews with leaders, I often find hesitation and fear. They say, “What if I can’t give her the position she wants? What if we don’t have the growth that she is looking for right now?” Asking these questions doesn’t mean you need to give your employee more money or a new position. What it means is that you’re hearing what’s important to her and where she wants to grow, and it opens the dialogue for you to be a coach in her development.
Notice I did not advise you to ask your employee, How are you looking to grow? There is a distinct difference between the questions How are you looking to grow? and What skills are you looking to develop? When you ask an employee about their desired growth, they’ll tell you about the next position they want, the title they’re looking for, or the amount of money they want to make. Even if you’re the CEO, you can’t guarantee this to any employee, since you don’t know where you’ll be in the next three months as a business, let alone in two years.
Asking a question about growth sets you up to let your employee down. Instead, when you ask, What skills are you looking to develop? the focus is now turned on the employee and the skills they need to grow. To answer this question, your employee must first think about where they want to be in the future—potentially their desired position, title, or monetary compensation—but then they have to translate those outcomes to the skills they’ll need to get there.
You can he
lp the employee here. While you can’t guarantee title, position, or money, you can help them develop their skill sets. You can put the employee in key learning situations, assign projects, allow them to shadow someone, find a mentor, or take a number of other actions to help them build the skills they’re looking to develop.
Once you ask this first question, shut up and listen to what they have to say. A common tendency our leaders have during their first couple of stay interviews is confusion, discomfort, and silence from their employee after the question is asked . . . which makes sense. Most employees are never heard, and here you are asking them a question about themselves.
Bruce, a leader who went through our bootcamp training, did this with an employee who told him he’d never been asked that question at work before. Both Bruce and the employee were blown away. Know that your employee may not be prepared for this question. They may look and feel a little uncomfortable with you attentively listening to their response; they may not even have a response at that moment.
I have a challenge for you: Instead of bailing your employee out of the silence, shut up for a minute. Don’t time it; just be quiet for a bit. Let your employee gather their thousands of thoughts, and be there with them, allowing them time to think and then respond. By giving them a few seconds, you show you’re not going to cut them off, that you truly want to know. When your employee sees this, more often than not they’ll start to share gold nuggets with you.
If they still don’t know what skills they want to develop, don’t let them off the hook too easily. Ask to meet again the following week to have the discussion once they’ve had more time to think and reflect. After a week, they’ll have ideas for you. Don’t worry.