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Listening

REPOST

ROUNDUP: Curiousity

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. Are you curious about curiosity?

Ron’s Short Review: I just love the idea of curiosity and use it often to help myself and clients learn to listen better.  Brian Grazer (Ron Howard’s movie producing partner) makes a great case for how intentional curiosity has helped him live a richer life.  I did take a few notes but I think the book could have been written with at least one third fewer pages.  I think the books “A More Beautiful Question” and “Learn or Die” have a little more meat on the topic.

Ron’s Short Review: This one really convinces you that managers have answers, true leaders have questions, provoke questions and teach their teams to constantly question.

Ron’s Short Review: Many organizations rely on getting better, faster, and cheaper, others rely on innovation to drive growth. Both require learning.

Are You Curious?

Be careful how you answer, it may define your chances of success!

Source: Beverly & Pack, Creative Commons

Source: Beverly & Pack, Creative Commons

I’ve been reading A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life by Brian Grazer.  Most of us know Brian because of his movie making partnership with Ron Howard.  Look at their film biography sometime.  All great films.

But the reason I started reading the book was not because of who Brain was but because of the title, A Curious Mind.  For much of my consulting career, the word curious has been an important concept in my work.  One issue that I seem to be working on with many leaders and in fact the one that seems to gain them the most traction in becoming better leaders is listening.  I try to help them grasp the concept and practice of listening with an intention to understand rather than listening with the intention to respond.  It really makes a difference in people’s lives and in our learning ability if we can make this shift to listening to the other person to completely understand what they’re saying and what’s behind or driving what they’re saying.  Stop trying to figure out how you’re going to respond to the person and just listen to understand them.

When my clients ask for help at getting better at listening to understand I talk to them about curiosity.  Everyone seems to be curious about something.  Everyone seems to have at least one topic that they enjoy, are passionate about, never tire of learning about, and are tremendously curious about.

What happens to your mind when you’re pursuing that curiosity?

  • How are you thinking about the topic?
  • Why do you want to learn more about the topic?
  • What happens when you learn a whole new aspect of the topic?
  • What happens when you learn something that seems to be counter to what you’ve learned in the past or thought you already knew or understood?

What’s happening is that you’re unleashing your curiosity.

Humble leaders listen to others with curiosity.  They want to learn.  They want their beliefs challenged and upset.  They’re gaining new perspectives.  Warren Berger really fleshes this out in his book A More Beautiful Question.

A few of the quotes that caught my eye from Brian included:

  • “Life isn’t about finding the answers, it’s about asking the questions.”
  • “I’ve discovered that even when you’re in charge, you are often much more effective asking questions than giving orders.”
  • “I’m a boss—Ron Howard and I run Imagine together—but I’m not much of an order giver. My management style is to ask questions. If someone’s doing something I don’t understand, or don’t like, if someone who works for me is doing something unexpected, I start out asking questions. Being curious.”

Are you curious?  Are you a leader?  You won’t be good at leading if you’re not good with curiosity!

This post was originally posted here on September 24, 2015. These reviews were originally posted here, here, and here on September 26, 2015, January 25, 2014, and May 24, 2014.
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LeadershipREPOST

REPOST: Listening With the Intent to Understand

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

The next time you’re listening to something, especially on a topic where you don’t necessarily agree, try this experiment: Use part of your brain to pay attention to what you’re thinking when listening to the other person. It’s okay. Your brain has a lot more capacity than your think. You can actually listen to another person at the same time as you act as an observer to watch what your own brain is doing. I know you can.

If you’re like most of us, you’ll find your own brain developing some sort of checklist:

  • Those two points support my side of the argument so I’ll immediately respond with those.
  • That point is not supported by fact, so I can instantly discount that.
  • That reminds me I need to pick up dog food on the way home.
  • I can’t believe they actually think that point is valid. How could they be so naive?

Then the moment happens. The other person pauses; they may not even be finished with their point of view, but just pausing a moment to collect their thoughts or even pausing a moment before presenting their obviously convincing closing statement. It makes no difference; it’s a pause.
So you jump in:

“Let me reinforce a couple of statements you made earlier because I believe they make my point exactly. And let me also clarify another conclusion you reached that is counter to all the facts we have.”

And on and on and on until you’re forced to pause and the cycle repeats.

If this scenario reflects in any way what you are experiencing while “listening” to other people, then you listen with the intent to respond. Most of us do it. Most of us do it most of the time. It takes a conscious effort and some practice to actually start listening with the intent to understand. But what a difference it will make in your life if you even get marginally good at it.

When you listen with the intent to understand, your curiosity kicks in. You’re not trying to catalog the points you’re hearing. You’re wondering:

  • I wonder why they believe that?
  • I wonder what experience they’ve had with this in the past?
  • I wonder who they trust on this and why?
  • I wonder what they believe will be the best outcome?

If you’re truly curious and wondering, then your response when that inevitable pause comes will be totally different.
Your first reaction to the pause may be to simply wait to see if there is a conclusion or further thoughts.
You may actually ask if there is a conclusion on further thought.
You may express your wonderment and curiosity and begin to ask questions or clarification or deeper understanding or more background.

Whatever you’re response. If it’s driven by curiosity and wonderment, the other person will immediately know that you’ve been listening to understand. You want to understand, you want to know their viewpoint. This sparks a very different reaction on their part.
A few key things happen from their point-of-view:

  • Once they realize you’re trying to understand their point-of-view, they become less rigid in their stance and more willing to admit it’s just their point-of-view.
  • They become more open to questioning their own point-of-view because you’re honestly questioning it in an attempt to understand and not with the intent to control or discredit it.
  • And most importantly, once you’ve fully listened to and attempted to understand their point-of-view, they’re much more willing to listen to and be open to your point-of-view.

Steven Covey, in his The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, indicates that one of the seven habits is to “seek to understand before being understood.” This is what he was talking about.

Listen with the intent to understand. Practice it. Use it often. You’ll be amazed at how much people are willing to share with you and how much they’re willing to listen to and understand your point-of-view.
Try it. It will be refreshing.

And one more solid point: In my book, Trust Me: Developing A Leadership Style People are Willing to Follow, the number one trait of great leaders is humility. The foundation of humility is the willingness to listen with the intent to understand.

What’s your reaction when someone actually listens to you and truly wants to understand?

This post was originally posted here on January 15, 2015.
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BlogLeadership

Leading Change

by Ron Potter

The basis for this blog is a Harvard Business Review article by Patti Sanchez titled “The Secret to Leading Organizational Change is Empathy.”

I’ve had several experiences in my consulting career and personal life that emphasize the importance of empathy. One of them was a personal experience.

The Association

We moved into a new city several years ago to be closer to one daughter and her family. This particular family lived in the Middle East for at least ten years and we wanted to spend more time getting to know our grandkids before they went off to college. After looking at several possible locations we settled on a small community of condos within a couple of miles of our daughter’s house.

After a few years, I was asked to be the association president. The president before me had been in that position for several years and it seemed to him he was constantly dealing with conflict. When I agreed to run and won the presidential position, his words to me were something like, “Good Luck. This is a rough crowd.” He felt like there were competing desires within the homeowners and there was no way to reconcile them.

There were only sixteen homeowners in the association, so the first thing I decided to do was get to meet and listen to the needs of each of them. I had no agenda and no particular goal. I just wanted to listen and show empathy.

I visited each of the sixteen families and just listened. No goal. No timeframe. No rush. Each family invited me in and talked with me about their situation and desires. I made no attempt to correct or guide them, I just wanted to hear them. I left each visit with no promises made. I had just listened.

There were a couple of difficult issues that the association faced. After those visits, I formulated my plans (with the executive team) and let the residents know what I was going to recommend for a vote at our annual meeting a few weeks later. They had been controversial issues for a few years and I wondered how the discussion and vote would go. There wasn’t much discussion, so we put the issues to vote. All the issues were passed by unanimous votes. People felt they had been listened to. In fact even now, several years later, one of the residents who had been the most controversial and vocal calls me “the best president they ever had.” Why? Because I listened to her with empathy.

Who’s the Boss?

Another issue I remember is related to my consulting career. The CEO resided in the US but they had major operations in Europe and SE Asia. The European leader for the company was Irish and resided in Ireland. He was an authoritarian leader. People did what he told them to do or else. After our team meeting about leading with empathy, I was hoping he would change. Unfortunately, not.

When I began to talk with him about being a leader, I asked him to describe what a leader was like. He proceeded to tell me about the British ruling Ireland. The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland by English kings happened in the last 1100s. His view of being a strong leader went back nearly a thousand years. But to him, a great, strong leader was based on England ruling Ireland. He wasn’t about to shake that image that a ruler was someone who came in and subjugated people to do what they were told when they were told.

Experience

Question your own thoughts and motives. What has your experience taught you? Who empowers you as an employee, that controlling boss who keeps you under his thumb or the empathetic boss who makes you feel like you’re a part of what’s going on?

Most often people think of an empathic leader as weak and a controlling leader as strong. That’s not true. A great empathic leader is one who helps you grow, develop, listen, and help your team make decisions. A controlling leader is one who makes all the decisions and expects you to respond. My observation over the years is that good people will leave a boss like that as quickly as possible. The people who stay under those conditions are sometimes referred to as “yes men” and all the creativity leaves the organization. Believe me, now and in the coming years creativity will become more and more required. Without it, companies will die quickly.

Fortune 500

Only sixty companies remain that were in the Fortune 500 after WWII. Why is that? One of my beliefs is that after WWII, most of the companies on the list were being run by officers from the war. They knew how to “command.” They expected their commands to be carried out without question. Companies were generally not creative. In order to survive the coming years, companies (leaders) will be required to be creative.

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BlogPersonal

Change

by Ron Potter

This is an interesting dilemma of the human race: “I would like change but I’m doing just fine the way I am.” The basis for this thought comes from Bob Beusekom, a program manager, consultant, and coach.

As I think back, my first reaction is that I’m the same person I’ve always been. But that’s not true and, in fact, when I think about it, I’m glad I’m not that person from years ago. (I believe) I’ve grown more mature, have more patience, and think about the world in a broader and more comprehensive sense.

Part of that broader and clearer sense of the world around me comes from spending time all over the world. I once added up how many countries I worked in during my consulting career. I don’t remember exactly how many it was, but I did work on three continents. I circumnavigated the globe on one trip. That time around the world with different cultures helped me form a much better view of the world and the people who occupy it.

Grandchildren and Horses

I have four grandchildren. All four of them have lived in different countries of the world. You can see already that it has given them a broader and more tolerant view of people. I’m proud of them (as we all are with our grandchildren). They have seen different cultures, been exposed to different people groups, and know multiple languages.

Growing up, I never left my small hometown in Michigan except for one visit we made to Kansas. One of my dad’s best friends moved there and he wanted to visit. What an experience for a nine-year-old boy who had never left the state prior to that. A ranch in Kansas was an entirely different world. The ranch hands were hard working from dawn to dusk. I was introduced to horses for the first time.

My dad’s friend had a couple of daughters about my age. We would pack a lunch and go to the barn in the morning and saddle some horses (with help, of course). Each day we would head in a different direction and ride until lunchtime and find a large rock or a fence post that would help us back on the horses after lunch. After lunch, we would saddle up and head back to the barn. I was on a horse every day. And though I found it a unique and fun experience at the time, I’ve never gotten on a horse since. I experienced a part of the Kansas culture but never had a desire for more. Different cultures for different people.

Tribes Cause Wars

One definition from Merriam-Webster describes tribes as a “social group composed chiefly of numerous families, clans, or generations having a shared ancestry and language.” If you look back at just the two World Wars, tribes were at the root of them. When I was growing up, there was not much global travel. Our fathers came back from WWII and, for the most part, just wanted to be home (with their own tribe). Our biggest rival “tribe” was the community next door we played sports against. There was not much love lost between these tribes. I created a bit of a stir when I married a girl from the neighboring (and rival) tribe. When I see old friends and family who still live in that local community (tribe), they often have a much different view of the world than I do.

My wife has a Dutch heritage which led us to Poughkeepsie, New York, during one trip. When the Dutch settled Poughkeepsie, they had to negotiate with something like 30+ Native American tribes. Simply getting through negotiations must have been a major ordeal.

Dying Tribes

When I was a kid, one of our Michigan vacations included a visit to an American Indian cemetery. You would still see a few Indians in the towns “up north,” but very few. When we stumbled across this old cemetery, it was haunting to me that a whole culture was dying. There was an old Indian at the cemetery. He seemed very sad and my thought was his tribe had died and he was the only one left.

What Do We Need to Change?

As the cartoon says, we all want change but none of us wants to change personally. And yet, we have lots of evidence that resisting change can have unwanted consequences. Here are some things that need to change:

  • Your attitude. Check your attitude. If you believe the only “right” view of the world is yours, you may find yourself sad and alone when your tribe dies.
  • Your understanding. When your understanding of the world (or a piece of it) doesn’t fit with what you’re seeing, witnessing, or hearing, don’t assume that your understanding is correct and everyone else is wrong.
  • Your listening skills. I’ve said before: listen to understand, don’t listen to respond. When you’re trying to understand, although it may be different than anything you’ve experienced, your learning will grow. Learning is a lifelong endeavor, don’t stop.
  • Your surroundings. As I’ve said, I’ve worked around the world. I could have said they were doing things wrong just because that’s not the way we do things in the US. But the population of the US is pretty small compared to the rest of the world, and there are even pockets in the US who would think that Michigan thinks entirely wrong about a subject.

Where do you need to change? What’s it going to take to help you realize you need to change? Without change, you die (intellectually, emotionally, and physically)!

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BlogLeadership

CEO Quotes

by Ron Potter

I came across an interesting article the other day that talked about the important work of a CEO.

This particular CEO wanted to develop a particular type of platform and started the development in his living room.  Today, over 830 million people from around the world are members and use the platform regularly.

In the article, this CEO states that he could not have had success without the help of his friends.  He says that “friends will be absolutely central to your sense of happiness, connection and meaning.”

Most people would assume he experiences happiness through his success in business.  He says happiness comes from the connection of friends, regardless of financial success.  Following are four lessons he learned from his friends.

Appreciate Other Perspectives

Early in his career, one of his colleagues stated that he seem to know nothing about how women thought and acted.  He realized there was an entire perspective of the world around him that he knew nothing about.  He asked his colleague to help him out.  His reaction was, “When there’s something important you don’t know, real friends will tell you about it.”

Realizing Your Purpose

Soon after leaving college, he was grappling with the question of “What do I want to do with my life?”  Again, another friend said, “Don’t sit there feeling like you don’t know what to do.  Go do something.”

I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that many people don’t do anything because they don’t feel qualified.  Notice the quote above.  It doesn’t say go get qualified to do something, but go do something!  I had three major careers in my 40 years of business.  I didn’t feel qualified to do any of them, I just started.  If I had waited or worked at becoming qualified, it’s likely I wouldn’t have accomplished any of the three.

Saying “No” to Yes Men

Here is what the CEO is quoted saying: “We all seek validation or approval in one way or another.  While it’s good to have friends that support what you do, it’s more important to have friends that can tell you the truth, even if it may hurt.”  He also says, “Friends will tell you not what you want to hear, but that you need to hear.”

Helping Your Friends Help You

The CEO says that the most important lesson is that “Your friends help you the most by letting you help them.”

That CEO is Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.  I don’t know Reed and I have never worked for Linkedin, but I’m going to trust that Reed not only believes but lives these lessons.

I did consult for a multi-billion dollar firm several years back.  The CEO used much of that same language.  However, he thought of himself as a teacher.  He didn’t need to learn these things, he needed to teach others.  I watched as he would meet with people below his direct reports to impart these wisdoms.  However, with his direct reports, he acted as if he knew it all and didn’t need that “friend” described above.  His direct reports never cared for him and his tenure with that company was short-lived.

These are great quotes from Reid.  Just make sure they apply to everyone in your life.  You may have worked for three or four decades but that brand new employee is capable of asking the question that helps you.  Apply it to friends, family, and others that you encounter along the way.  You’ll learn and grow from each encounter.

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BlogRegrets

Regrets – Connection

by Ron Potter

In Daniel Pink’s latest book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, Pink lists four core regrets:

Connection seems to me to be one of the most impactful of the regrets.  It’s the time you never spend on those relationships.

My Friend

I had a friend who was the oldest friend of my life.  Our parents were friends after WWII.  We knew each other from the time we were months old.  Then our lives took different roads.  While I was off to engineering school, he ended up in Viet Nam.  While I didn’t think bad of those guys who ended up there, it did take our lives in very different directions.  Our paths never seemed to cross much after that.  Until one day he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  He ended up at the Univerisity of Michigan hospital near where I was living at the time.  After that, our lives crossed many times as I visited him in the hospital and those old feelings of friendship returned.

Then one day the doctors declared that he was in full remission and was able to go home.  Unfortunately, the cancer soon returned and other seemed to be nothing left to do.  But, I felt very blessed that we had connected again and many of the old memories of growing up returned.

Then I received a call from his son that my friend was dying and only had a few days left.  I immediately headed for his home and got there in time to be with him in his last days.  My friend slept most of the time that I visited and his wife told me that he didn’t recognize his surroundings or the people around him.  However, with I went in to see him and stroke his forehead it seemed to me that he recognized me.  It may have been wishful thinking on my part but I did feel like he knew I was there.  The next day his son called again to let me know he had passed away.

Connections

This is what Pink was referring to when he identified the fourth regret as connections.  They’re fleeting.  They slip away easily.  They take an effort to stay connected.  Here was my oldest friend and, just because our lives took different directions, we lost some of that connection.  I’ve made many new friendships around the world since then but, because I didn’t make the effort, I regret that I let one of my oldest relationships slip away.  Like many of these lists, the last is often the most impactful.  It’s that way with this list of regrets.  Letting connections slip away from us created the most regret in the end.  Don’t let it happen.  Evaluate your connections.  Some of them are shallow and the effort is never made to develop a strong bond.  However, others are worth the effort to put in the time, make that call, and keep the connection alive.

Worth the Effort

As I said, I have worked all over the world and made “friends” in many corners of the world.  But with a few of them, I have developed long-lasting relationships.  I was having dinner with one connection that I cherish and have developed over the years.  During dinner, he began to cry because of a tragedy in his life.  When we finished dinner and he got his emotions back under control, he admitted to me that I was the one person he had cried with about the tragedy.  I felt connected.

Another client was having difficulty talking with me about a certain topic.  She finally admitted that her boss (years ago) had raped her and she had never been able to share that with anyone except me.  I felt connected.

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BlogLeadership

Humility isn’t a Byproduct of Heroism, it’s a Precondition.

by Ron Potter

I recently read an article by Sam Walker in the Wall Street Journal that had an amazing headline.  That headline: “In a Life-or-Death Crisis, Humility is Everything”

In the article Walker writes about:

  • Alfred Haynes, the pilot that brought the DC-10 to a landing after the rear engine blew up and took out all three of the planes independent hydraulic lines
  • Chesley Sullenberger, who ditched a plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality after losing two engines. (Tom Hanks made the movie “Sully” based on the accident.)
  • Luis Urzua, the forman at the Chilean mine cave-in that helped his team survive 10 weeks before a rescue could happen.

Humility was the Common Denominator

The common denominator in each of the cases was the humility of the leaders.

In the first example, Captain Haynes was faced with a hydraulic failure that engineers pegged at roughly a billion to one chance of happening.  When Haynes asked his flight engineer to look up the procedure for steering a DC-10 under these circumstances the flight engineer replied “There isn’t one.”  Haynes didn’t get angry, he just went to the next possible solution.  Capt. Haynes spoke calmly and clearly to ground controllers and even thanked them for their assistance.

Six days later, he was healthy enough to be wheeled not a press conference.  “There is no hero,” he said, “There is just a group of four people who did their job.”

He never took any personal credit.  He placed all the credit on his crew doing their job.  He was humble.

In the second example, Sully, in his first public statement said that after losing both engines and ditching his plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality said, “We were simply doing the jobs we were paid to do.”  He was humble.

In the last example of the Chilean mine cave-in, Luis Urzua, after being trapped below ground for ten weeks insisted on being the last man out when rescue finally came.  He was humble.

Humble Business Leaders

Sam Walker suggests that many of these celebrated leaders have a remarkable mix of courage and humility.  On the surface, these two words seem to be the opposite of each other.  Can you be courageous and humble at the same time?  Can you display courage while being humble?  Yes, you can!

In fact, it’s important that you exhibit and live both.  Most business leaders seldom face situations where they make life or death situations.  At least not in those terms.  But often leaders face situations where the work lives and livelihood of many of their employees lie in the balance.  It takes courage to make and then stick with those kinds of decisions.

Several years ago one of my clients faced that kind of decision.  They were going to have to terminate the jobs of a large percentage of employees.  It was a gut-wrenching decision.  This company had facilities all over the country.  The employees didn’t work in one location.  Based on that dispersion of employees around the country that would be losing their jobs, they decided to rent jets so that they could visit every location over the span of two days.

In those two days, they sat with the employees that were going to be impacted and listened to their feelings and concerns.  They didn’t explain why the decisions had to be made or the logic behind the decision.  They just listened.  After each meeting, the employees still felt bad about what they were facing but they also felt that had been listened to and understood.  They had experienced humble leaders who were making courageous decisions.  In the end, those employees moved on quicker and felt better about the culture of the company.  They had experienced humble leaders.

Courageous and Humble

It takes both.  Courageous decisions are often without the needed ingredient of humility.  In this case, humility requires listening and empathizing.  It also takes courage to provide both of those.

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BlogTeam

Reality Is Constructed By Our Brain

by Ron Potter

Neuroscientist Patrick Cavanagh says that “It’s really important to understand we’re not seeing reality, we’re seeing a story being created for us.”

Brain Stories

What actually creates these stories?  It’s our backgrounds, beliefs, assumptions that have been formed throughout our lifetime.  Dr. Cavanagh says that “Our brains bend our perception of reality to meet our desires or expectations.  They fill the gaps using our past experiences.”

Our brains see what we expect them to see.  I’ve talked before about how our backgrounds and experiences form our belief systems so that we see what we want or expect to see.  Remember the professor in Florida who had his class write down everything they could remember about the shuttle explosion that had occurred the day before? He collected all of their handwritten reports and then tracked down as many of them as he could several years later.  Not one of them agreed with what they had written because their memory was different.

One student actually read his 14 written pages very carefully and then totally rejected it.  He said the report was not correct then proceeded to tell the professor what “really” happened that day.  His mind had created its own reality in spite of what he had written down at the moment.

Curious About Our Brain Stories

If we know that our brain tends to make up stories so that we see and hear what we desire, shouldn’t we be curious enough to explore what the reality is compared to our brain story?

It’s when we don’t have that curiosity about our brain story and simply accept our perception as the reality that creates problems as leaders and team members.

Intellectual Humility

In a Vox article, Brian Resnick said “Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong.”

This is a great statement: knowing that you might be wrong.

The first part of that statement is “knowing”.  We all assume that our view of the world and circumstances is “correct”.  However, if we mature in our thinking we begin to understand that our view or opinion is firmly rooted in the experiences and history that we have lived.  Having respect for others indicates that we’re beginning to learn that their view or opinion is also firmly rooted in their experiences and history.  And just like snowflakes, no two human beings have exactly the same experiences.

The second part of the statement is knowing that we might be wrong.  I don’t believe that one set of experiences is right and one is wrong.  I simply believe they are each unique.  Building great teams starts with this premise.  With full respect, we start sharing the different opinions and beliefs that we each hold.  Once we’ve shared and understood, it’s then possible for the team to develop a unique response to the situation that belongs to the team.  Not an individual.

Team Unity

It’s when a team reaches this unity that they really begin to become a team.  They made the decision together.  They each had a different view coming into the discussion.  But they come out with a decision that the entire team supports.  Even when others remind us that we had a very different opinion going into the team discussion we can honestly say, “that’s true, I did have a different opinion but as I heard each of the different opinions and listened with respect, we were able to make a team decision that I completely support.”

Team decisions that are made after each person has been listened to, understood, and respected for their opinions are the strongest types of decisions.  Team members all support the decision and people around the team can easily see the commitment to the decision and the trust and respect they have for each other.  This kind of team can lead a company to new heights.

Try it.  It really works!

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BlogCulture

Belonging

by Ron Potter

A recent EY study looked at the power of belonging at work.  Human beings have a great need to be part of a group.  We can look all the way back to ancient tribes to see this need to belong.  We all want to belong to a family, a community, a place of worship, a team.

Whatever the group is, we want to belong and be accepted.

Virtual World

In today’s virtual world, this has become more difficult.  Almost every client I’m working with is asking about how we feel more connected in this virtual world.  Our virtual meetings tend to be focused on the task at hand with little time for socializing or getting to know each other on a personal level.

One of my clients was recently struggling with this issue because he was part of a global team that had no opportunity to be together face-to-face.  In fact, he was gaining the reputation of being a hard charger who needed to be in control of the situation and the project.

Then recently the global team had the opportunity to be personally together at a team meeting in Europe.  He was thrilled with the opportunity and the outcome.  Because they were all face-to-face he had the opportunity to shake hands, look others in the eye, and socialize after work getting to know each other personally.

When the meeting was over he felt much more connected and had an increased sense of belonging that he had not experienced during the virtual meetings over the last year or two.

The Art of the Check-in

The EY study suggested several tips for building relationships regularly.

  • Seize the small opportunities to connect
  • Check bias at the door
  • Assume positive intent
  • It’s OK to be vulnerable
  • Be consistent and accountable

Seize the Small Opportunities to Connect

Connection is much more difficult in the virtual world so it must be accomplished intentionally.  It’s really impossible to accomplish this during team meetings. I have found that you must be intentional about expecting people to get together one-on-one (even virtually) and spend the time getting to know each other as human beings.  These meetings are not intended to work on tasks but simply to build relationships.

Ask questions like:

  • How are you doing?
  • How can I support you?”

You must genuinely be interested in their answers which means that you must listen with the intent to understand.  Truly understand.  Ask clarifying questions that help you understand where the other person is coming from and the perspective they’re using to view the world.

Years ago there was an elderly woman in our church.  If you asked her how she was doing her answer was “I’m doing fine unless you’re really interested”.

Be Interested!  Get to know who they are and what makes them tick.  No judgment.  Just understanding.

Check Bias at the Door

We each carry our own biases.  We just don’t always see them.

By listening to the other person we can often discover our own biases.  It’s natural.  We all have biases.  But the more you are aware of what they are, the easier it is to understand the other person.

Assume Positive Intent

This one is more difficult than it sounds.  Even though we have biases, we tend to accept them as natural and overlook their impact.  But we often assume that the other person is speaking from their own bias and because it’s different than our own, we can easily fall into the trap of assuming they are not speaking with positive intent.

Again, the best way to overcome this issue is to listen with the intent to understand.  When the other person assumes we are truly trying to understand them and where they are coming from, they’ll begin to drop or admit their own biases and start speaking with positive intent.

It’s OK to be Vulnerable

It’s not just OK to be vulnerable, it’s a must.  If we are not vulnerable with the other person, our biases begin to take over and we are not speaking with positive intent.

If we want the other person to take on a positive intent role, we must do it first.  Be vulnerable.

Be Consistent and Accountable

We’ve all heard the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Once again it becomes a “you first” approach.

We must first be consistent.  People should see a consistent approach and demeanor no matter what the circumstances or who we are talking with.

Then be accountable.  People are often looking to shift the blame to another person or circumstance.  Don’t be that person.  Admit where you failed or made the wrong decision and be accountable for the results.  It’s the only way to be a great leader or a great teammate.

People Want to Belong

Every human being has the built-in desire to belong.  Belong to a tribe.  Belong to a community.  Belong to a team.

Humans without these positive options for belonging turn to belonging to a gang or a cult or a social media crowd.  None of these are positive in the long run and will eventually lead to destructive behavior for either the person themselves or society in general.

Help people belong.

Help them be welcome.

Help them feel listened to and understood.

It will be the best thing you can do for yourself, the other person, society as a whole.

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BS Indicator

by Ron Potter

I’ve started reading a book titled The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit.  I started reading it just because it sounded like a fun read (my warped sense of humor, I guess).  However, once I started to read the research and science behind it, the topic is fascinating.

The Causes and Consequences of B.S.

John Petrocelli is a social psychologist and professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, who actually studies this issue.  How fun would that be?

He finds that people tend to spread B.S. when they feel obligated to have an opinion about something they know little about—and when they feel they aren’t going to be challenged.  The Wall Street Journal did a fascinating interview with Dr. Potrocelli.  A couple of findings I found interesting were:

  • B.S. is when someone communicates something with little regard for the truth, genuine evidence, or established knowledge.
  • Liars actually know and care about the truth. They need to know the truth so they can distract you from it. The BS’er not only doesn’t know the truth, they don’t care about it.
  • One reason people BS is simply the obligation to have an opinion. People feel they have to have an opinion about everything.  They tell each other what they want to hear to avoid conflict or hurt feelings.

Obligation to Have an Opinion

Why do we feel we need to have an opinion?  We could just as easily remain silent or openly indicate that we don’t have an opinion on a particular.  Even better, if we were to indicate that we haven’t formed an opinion because we don’t know all the facts and haven’t yet figured out the truth.

The WSJ indicates that the main reason people BS is to promote one’s status—to get ahead, appear knowledgeable, competent, skilled, or admired.  Unless these BS’ers are challenged, it can lead to some of these consequences but when challenged properly, their BS is quickly exposed and leads to the failure of accomplishing any of those goals.

Detecting BS

Our ability to detect BS has been dulled through this time of isolation.  We’ve lost some of our natural ability to detect.  The WSJ article points out a couple of great questions that we can ask to retune our BS detector.

  • Ask people to clarify, they’ll often take a step back and think. And a lot of times, they’ll dial back their claim. So the first question is: “What? What are you saying?”
  • “How? How do you know that’s true? How did you come to that conclusion?”  We have often been taught to ask the “Why” question first.  However, Dr. Petrocelli suggests that the “Why” is not a good question to ask. That leads people into the abstract, to talk about their values and the heady stuff. The “how” question gets them down to the concrete, real-world, practical things that we would call evidence.
  • The other question should be: “Have you ever considered any alternatives?” The reason for this question is that if they say no, you know they probably haven’t thought through the thing very well.

The Power of Detecting BS

Something on your radar just pinged and you’re not sure if this person is telling you the truth or just BSing.  Or you might simply be ignorant of the situation, the facts, and the truth.  In either case, asking the questions above will help you, your team, and your leadership be better at what you’re trying to accomplish.  Become a good BS detector simply by keeping your radar up and asking the right questions.

You’ll be thought of as a solid citizen and a critical thinker.  Don’t accept or spew BS.

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Are You a Hedgehog or a Fox?

by Ron Potter

Years ago I was working with a client in Scotland.  It was mid-June so the days were very long.  Because Scotland is so far north the sun rises at about 4:30 in the morning.  This allowed me to play nine holes of golf before my meetings started.  While I was on one hole a small hedgehog came walking out from a nearby woodpile.  He seemed oblivious to my presence and walked right into the line of my pending putt.  I reached out with my putter and “patted” him on the rear end assuming he would scamper off the green.  Instead, he curled tightly up into a ball and held his defensive position.  I watched him for a few minutes but he never came out of his defensive ball.  I then took my putter, treated him like a golf ball, and putted him off the green.  After a few minutes, he got up a scampered off.

So when I saw the Wall Street Journal titled, “The Hedgehogs of Critical Race Theory”, I was intrigued.

Archilochus

Archilocus was a Greek poet and philosopher who said, “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing”. The WSJ article says that the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote an essay in 1953 suggesting that the world was divided between hedgehogs and foxes.  He identified Karl Marx as a supreme hedgehog and Franklin Roosevelt as a restlessly improvising fox.

The WSJ article expresses that the world’s hedgehog population tends to expand in times of stress and change.  Lately, it has exploded in the U.S. with all of them advancing One Big Thing or another, each peering through the lens of a particular obsession. (Italics are mine)

The theologian Richard Niebuhr, explained it this way: “There is no greater barrier to understanding than the assumption that the standpoint which we happen to occupy is a universal one.”

Barrier to Understanding

Do you want to understand or would you rather stick with your hedgehog approach to one big standpoint?  This is the difference between normal teams and great teams.

In great teams, everyone suspends their opinions and standpoints for a moment while they attempt to completely understand each members’ viewpoints.  This requires that we listen to understand rather than listening to respond.

It’s a natural human trait to keep score in our head of the issues that we agree with and disagrees with while another person is explaining their viewpoint.  STOP IT!  It does take a great deal of energy and discipline to fully listen with the intent to understand where the other person is coming from and what is forming their opinion.  It takes hard work.

Work at it!  It will make you a better person and a better team.

Koosh Ball

A colleague called me the other day and asked if I had ever dealt with someone that was so convinced that their opinion and perspective was right that they never stopped talking or interrupting.  And if so, how did I deal with it? My answer was a Koosh ball.

  

It was an exercise I often used when we had a “talker” on the team.  The rules were simple:

  • Only the person who was in the possession of the Koosh ball could speak.
  • When that person was done expressing their opinion and perspective they would then decide who the Koosh ball was tossed to next.

Two things I often observed was the the “talker” still needed a signal to stop talking even though they knew the rules.  I often had to put my hand up to cut them off and remind them that their job was to fully understand the perspective of the talking person.  They still seemed to have a difficult time.  It took hard work on everyone’s part.

The other thing I often observed was that the team was so tired of constantly hearing the talker, they would toss to anyone other than the talker.  It became obvious that we were hearing the other’s perspective for the first time.  Very refreshing and very empowering to everyone.

Opinion and Perspective

It’s OK to have clear and powerful opinions and perspectives.  However, don’t assume that each person sees that same universe.  Every person is unique and comes from individual experiences and understandings.  Just look at your own family.  I have three siblings.  We grew up in the same household with the same parents and were only a few years apart.  And yet, each of us had very unique experiences and developed a unique set of values.

That is why great teams outperform average teams and individuals.  Pulling all of those experiences and unique views of the world together into a team decision is very powerful.  If you haven’t experienced that, I hope you do someday.

It’s incredibly satisfying.

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Is Criticism Slowing You Down?

by Ron Potter

As you’ve probably noticed in my blogs, I’m a fan of Aristotle’s philosophy.  One of his quotes makes a great point about criticism:

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.”

I have seen and met those people.  They are so afraid of what others think that they tend to not do anything in fear of criticism.  Therefore they say nothing that could be constructed as critical or even innovative.  In doing so they become nothing.  They become invisible.  They are never considered for promotion.  They are never considered to lead a team.  Their thoughts are never considered when looking for innovative ideas.  They are nothing.

Criticism Happens

If we think about Aristotle’s quote in reverse:

  • Do something
  • Say what’s on your mind (in a constructive way)
  • Be something.

You are a unique human being.  You bring something unique and different from every other person.  Recognize the value in that uniqueness.

Do Something

Doing nothing can be the result of a boss who is all-controlling.  If that’s the case, look for another position, look for another job, look to a new company.  Being in a position of never doing anything other than what you’re told and how to do it, will suck the life out of you!  You will find yourself a greatly diminished human being that will destroy your self-esteem and it will be noticed by your loved ones.

But doing something will almost always bring criticism.  If you step back and view the situation almost from a third-party position, you’ll often see that the criticism comes from people who themselves have low self-esteem.  The criticism comes in an effort to make themselves look better or feel better about themselves.  It never works.  Healthy people see right through that maneuver and discount the other person, not you.

Say What’s on Your Mind

This one must be accomplished with good self-esteem.  When you’re in that state of mind, you’re not criticizing, you’re just trying to look at things from a different perspective.   Remember that we are all unique.  We all see things from a different perspective.

Teams that can listen and respect each other’s points of view are the healthiest and strongest teams. 

Always stay in a respectful position.  Acknowledge that everyone has a unique perspective and it’s best if we all hear and understand that perspective.  Great teams are not “group think” teams.  We’re not lemmings blindly following the herd off the cliff.  Someone needs to say “I see us heading for a cliff and the results aren’t good”.  Just that simple statement will often get others sharing “you know, I’ve been wondering the same thing.  This just doesn’t feel right”.

Be open, honest, and respectful.  Understand what’s on everyone’s mind.  It can save the team

Be Something

What do you want to be known for?

  • The one who gets the team thinking?
  • The respectful one who always brings the best out in others?
  • The Jerk?
  • The non-existent, silent one in the room?

This is your choice.  Get to know the other team members as human beings.  Help them get to know you as a human being.  We are all unique.  We become the best team when we understand, respect, and use that uniqueness to build a great teams and reach great team decisions.

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