Understanding Listening Strategies

Listening is one of the most valuable skills a leader can have.

Many people assume that listening is a passive experience, but it actually requires active participation. There are a variety of methods for effective listening, including:

• using attentiveness, silence, and neutrality
• reflecting and summarizing
• sorting and patterning
• noting gaps and interruptions
• expressing feeling and testing for responsibility.

When people talk, they expect others to listen to them, but they generally give little thought to what this means. The following are some first steps to good listening:

• Focus your attention on the person who's talking. Maintain eye contact. If your body language says you're not interested, the person will sense it.
• Remain silent, except for recognition that you're following along, such as a semi-verbal "uh-huh" or a head nod. This says you're paying attention.
• Maintain a neutral frame of mind. This means not judging or attempting to control the conversation, not suggesting or correcting, and not praising or criticizing.

There are two other techniques for making people aware that you are paying attention. First, use reflective statements. These are words that echo important words or phrases that the patient uses. Second, summarize what you have just heard and repeat it back to the speaker.

You can also wait for a break in the narration, and then sort out and find patterns in their experiences. This can help to sort out the differences between symptoms and deeper problems.

Try to notice inconsistencies in narratives. What is left out of a conversation can be as helpful in analyzing a situation as what is included.

Toward the end of a conversation, you can encourage the speaker to step back from their story and summarize it for themselves.

Remember that effective listening requires active participation. You should use attentiveness, silence and neutrality when listening. It's important to use reflective statements and summarize the employee's message. You should also sort symptoms from deeper problems, note gaps and interruptions in your employee's story, encourage your employee to express feeling, and test for responsibility.

Understanding Good Questions

To accomplish your goals as a businessperson and leader, one of the best strategies is knowing how to ask key questions.

Key questioning strategies can help you:

• uncover the problem in front of you
• identify the purpose of your actions
• discover the premise you're following
• determine the resources you need
• determine customer interest
• gather the data you need.

One questioning strategy used by Japanese teachers of quality is the use of Why? They suggest asking this question five times to discover the underlying causes of a problem and then finding solutions.

Another key question is aimed at discovering the purpose of any action. For example, whenever someone suggests a new project or product, you could ask, "What is the purpose of this?"

You should also subject every suggestion or idea that is presented to a question concerning its premise. A premise is the belief or attitude that forms the basis of an assumption.

Every new project, idea, or suggestion that is presented to you requires effort and resources to be carried out. To help employees figure out how to convert these thoughts into actions, you should ask them questions about resources.

Occasionally, your employees will come to you with a suggestion that you know they have not researched. Instead of dismissing the idea, use questions designed to encourage employees to come up with the data they need.

You can maintain a thriving business by knowing how to ask good questions that engage your employees in the process of improvement.

Understanding Leadership through Questioning

One of the most important things that you can do to improve your company is to ask the right questions in the right way.

Questioning strategies that improve the way employees and production process work include:

• collaborating
• experimenting
• educating
• reviewing.

Collaborating
There are many different ways that leaders can approach working with their employees. In the old style of organizations, leaders would direct rather than collaborate.

Leaders who direct have a hard time learning to ask questions. They tell others what to do and pack unsolicited advice into their conversations with subordinates. On the other hand, leaders who collaborate with their team do so by asking questions and using what they discover to improve the way the team operates.

A good piece of advice is to learn the difference between opinions and facts. Employees and co-workers are much more likely to be drawn into dialog with someone who knows the difference.

Experimenting
Leaders who understand what they don't know take the experimenter approach, using questions to learn. Leaders who think they know everything use their opinions as facts and don't listen to those who actually know.

Educating
Another hallmark of leadership is educating. When teachers start giving advice, they have failed as teachers. When leaders spell out what they believe to be true, with no room for inquiry, they are telling others what to do. But when leaders use step-by-step questions designed to let others figure out answers for themselves, they are educating.

The trickiest questioning strategy has to be employed when there is something wrong with someone's work. In the old school of management, leaders often served as inspectors. When they found a mistake, they pointed it out. "This is a mistake," they'd say. This accusatory manner makes people defensive and works against positive solutions.

Reviewing
Leaders who use reviewing as a questioning strategy learn how to ask the questions that get others to see the flaws in their own work. "How can you stop this problem from occurring?" or "What can you do to track down the source of the problem?" are inquiries that encourage participation and involvement.

By using a variety of questioning strategies to involve others in the production process, you can significantly improve quality and efficiency at your organization.

Understanding Group Communications

Group communications are essential to successful organizations.

Leaders can improve group communication by:

1. increasing team communication
2. improving organizational communication
3. using informal communication networks.

Increasing team communication
There are a number of things you can do to improve the way your group shares information. Some of these are shown below:

• Use a variety of formats to get the team together to talk, including team meetings, informal chats, and scheduled informational discussions.
• Ensure everyone understands the purpose of these sessions.
• Ensure that the group understands how proud you are of their work.
• Some people in a group can be bashful about raising questions, so you could attempt to anticipate their needs when responding to others' questions.
• You could use newsletters, bulletin boards, and e-mail to communicate with your team.

Improving organizational communication
In addition to improving communications, it is important to contribute to the communications of the larger organization. The following are examples of how contributions to organizational communications could be made:

• Every organization needs a dependable internal communications program. In larger companies, someone is usually in charge of this. In smaller companies, it can be a collective function of leaders at all levels.
• Good organizational communication means that the members are well informed on all significant issues which affect them, including business challenges, policy changes, and operational and strategic issues.
• Other issues which are included in organizational communications include organizational structure, customer service, workplace improvements, and the use of information technology.
• Leaders should always be searching for ways to improve communications outside of their immediate realms. You are also responsible for correcting any misinformation about your subordinates or department.
• It's also necessary for a leader to actively communicate with other departments to discover information that you need but has not been given to you.
• Another way of improving communications among different groups is to suggest a shared function such as a potluck lunch or weekend social activity.

Using informal communication networks
Another means used to communicate is to use informal networks. This is not much different than what is commonly called the grapevine. Leaders can use this type of communication in the following ways:

• An informal network, or grapevine, can complement or detract from other group communications.
• Accept the fact that grapevines can't be eliminated and are very difficult to control. They are, however, easy to use.
• Talking informally or casually with your subordinates and others can provide you with a vast amount of information about your organization.
• As a leader, it's your responsibility to correct and dispel any incorrect information that you discover in the grapevine.

You can use a variety of methods to improve communications among your group and between your group and the rest of the organization. How can these techniques improve your own group communications?

Improving Personal Communication Skills

Improving leadership abilities is intrinsically connected to improving communication skills.

Factors that improve personal communications include the following:

• face-to-face communicating
• listening to others
• speaking well
• presenting effectively
• writing clearly

Most staff interactions, like most business communications, occur one-on-one and in small groups. You should try to increase the quality and quantity of these small encounters because they are the most effective means of delivering his message.

The following four suggestions can be used in this setting:

1. One key in getting people to come to you when they need your help is to be approachable. Do this by adjusting your speaking style to more closely resemble those to whom you're speaking.
   
   
2. Be understanding and sincere. Being empathetic towards others and trying to understand their motivations and concerns helps create a two-way relationship.
   
   
3. Consistency in the way you communicate to others improves communication. If your approach to others is erratic, this sends confusing and conflicting messages.
   
   
4. It's also valuable to repeat your important messages from time to time to make sure that they are received and understood. Also, having your instructions mirrored back to you helps when you're having a difficult time communicating with certain people.

In addition to the face-to-face communication skills, there are other skills that would improve communication abilities:

• Leaders should aim to spend more time listening than talking. This is an active, not passive process in which you try to understand the other person's perspective. Let your ears be the gateway to others' strengths and concerns.
  
  
• Leaders need to communicate clearly. Proper speech and grammar, along with easy-to-follow points are vital to your effectiveness. Seek help if this is a problem for you.
  
  
• Making presentations is part of being a leader. Being natural, using visual aids, and including humor are all part of good presentations. Rehearse with someone whose criticism you value.

Writing skills are another area that should be considered important to your development as a leader. Learning to write correctly takes time, effort, and a real commitment. The following are tips to improve your writing:

• Visit a library or bookstore to see the resources available. In addition, write whenever possible.
• Make note of the purpose and main points of your document before you begin to write it.
• Consider who will be reading what you write, what they know about the subject, and what you want them to do after they read the document.
• Avoid using phrases that make excuses, lack confidence, or suggest incompetence.
• Keep your language simple, use a minimum of jargon, or specialized words, and be as brief as possible.
• Reread what you've written at least twice and make whatever corrections or improvements you can.
• Have an assistant or associate review the document for effectiveness, clarity, and correctness before you send it.

Finally, you should learn to improve your awareness of what you communicate nonverbally.

People are naturally aware of your physical actions when they are contradicting or working against what you're saying. Tapping your pen out of nervousness, avoiding eye contact, or looking bored all work against effective communications.

On the other hand, you can use nonverbal communications to your advantage by relaxing, maintaining good posture, staying energetic, and directly addressing others. Videotaping one of your presentations can help you correct bad habits.

The continued success of your company is due, in part, to the effectiveness of your personal communication skills. Consider which of these skills would improve your abilities.

Understanding Clear Messages

For executives, communication is a critical part of leadership.

The essential elements of sending clear messages include:

1. conceiving your messages
2. sending your messages
3. monitoring your messages.

Conceiving your messages
There are a number of steps that you can follow to create a clear message. These are shown below:

1. The first step in creating a clear message is knowing why the message needs to be sent. You could be requesting information or asking for a specific action. Carefully consider the reason for your message before you craft it.
2. Focus on who it is you're contacting. The greater your awareness of that person and his or her concerns, the greater the effectiveness of your message.
3. Believe that the details of the message already exist within you. Learn how to let this information come to the fore, and distinguish between the details that are important and those that are extraneous.

Sending your messages
The second stage of communicating her message is choosing the means of delivering her message and actually sending it.

If the message dictates a personal delivery and you can't go yourself, consider a spoken form such as a messenger, a telephone call, or a videotape. However, if the message is nonpersonal, technical, or routine in nature, then consider delivering it via letter, e-mail, news release, or organizational publication.

Monitoring your messages
The last step that you have to consider before sending your message is how you are going to monitor the receipt of the information and whether or not it was understood.

The following are a few key ideas about following up after the message is sent:

• Set up a way to check whether the message was received, understood, and retained.
• If the recipient didn't receive the message, find out why and correct the problem.
• Make sure you have the attention of the person to whom you're sending the message.

By carefully following the steps to sending a clear message and understanding the key elements of the process, you can effectively communicate information.