Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 8 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: 3 Things all good listeners do – Part 1
— From What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful by Marshall Goldsmith
In his wonderful book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, leadership thinker and executive coach Marshall Goldsmith states that “80 percent of our success in learning from other people is based upon how well we listen. In other words, success or failure is determined before we do anything.”
How is this possible?
Goldsmith explains that most of us think about listening as a passive activity, as if we don’t have to do anything but sit back and hear someone out. Nothing could be further from the truth, he says. “Good listeners regard what they do as a highly active process—with every muscle engaged, especially the brain.”
There are three things that all good listeners do, and this is what we will learn in this miniseries. Note that nothing in here is rocket science, on the contrary, every single one of those three things is quite simple. Yet simple, as we know, doesn’t necessarily mean easy. It’s a matter of actively doing it and developing the habit, yet it is well worth it to master listening, as it is one of the most-prized leadership skills.
1. Think before you speak
Again, easier said than done. “You can’t listen if you’re talking. So keeping your mouth shut is an active choice.” We all know that person who can never keep quiet and who has to inject his or her opinion into everything and have the last word, don’t we? Ugh!
Goldsmith refers to Frances Hesselbein as the champion of thinking before speaking. Hesselbein is an exemplary businesswoman who, among many things, led the Girl Scouts and transformed it from a wilting organization into a flourishing one. (Learn how she did this.)
“If you asked her if [listening] was a passive gesture, she would assure you that it requires great discipline, particularly when she is upset about what she’s hearing.” Goldsmith continues, “After all, what do most of us do when we’re angry? We speak (and not in the carefully measured tones of a diplomat). What do we do when we’re upset? We talk. What do we do when we’re confused or surprised or shocked? Again, we talk.”
He points out that when bad news is delivered, “[talking] is so predictable that we can see the other party almost cringe in anticipation of our harsh unthinking autoreflex response.”
“Not so with Frances Hesselbein,” says Goldsmith. “You could tell her the world was about to end and she would think before opening her mouth, not only about what she would say but how she would phrase it.”
“Whereas most people think of listening as something we do during those moments when we are not talking,” superb listening, turns out, is a two-part maneuver, and thus the importance of the last element in the previous paragraph: how to phrase it.
“There’s the part where we actually listen. And there’s the part where we speak. Speaking establishes how we are perceived as a listener. What we say is proof of how well we listen. They are two sides of the same coin.”
Goldsmith defies us to argue that this approach is anything but a highly active, decisive choice. I agree. “Telling your brain and mouth not to do something is no different than telling them to do it.”
Come back tomorrow to continue learning about the other things that good listeners do. If you can master what this miniseries teaches, you will be a great listener in no time.
ACTION
TODAY: Think before you speak. Need I say more? Check out these other posts on listening.
FUTURE: Think before you speak. Always.
And only after you’re done thinking before you speak 😉 please take a moment to share this post — thank you! Email, Facebook, Twitter.