Shut Up and Listen!

If everyone would learn to take that “advice” at least once a day, we would all be significantly more productive.  In meeting after meeting, conference call after conference call, frankly any interaction these days, it seems like discussions have evolved into some sort of competition to see who can speak the most.  People seem to take pride in finishing each other thoughts, even when they are usually wrong.

I’m guilty of it too.  We all are.  Last week, a group of us were interviewing a New York businessman, and as we were nearing the end he tried to get out some parting words of wisdom.  Our group was so focused on expressing our own individual ‘wisdom’ that he was unable to break in.  When he finally did, we got the watered down version.  He was out of energy and we were out of time.  Our last few moments with him were spent with us talking, and not listening.  What a waste.

Next time you are in a meeting, observe how much time you sit back and listen.  I mean actively listen to what others are saying.  I don’t mean sitting quietly while you check your email on your Droid.  I don’t mean sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for your chance to grab the spotlight.  I mean think about the time you spend actively sitting, paying attention, and asking questions of the speaker that you don’t intend to answer yourself.

For most of us, the purpose of attending meetings is to exchange information and ideas.  The exchange is critical.  It may help your ego to walk out with that feeling of “man, I owned that meeting” but it doesn’t help your own understanding much.  Information is very valuable, so why not go into your next meeting with the objective of extracting the most value you can from anyone willing to give it out. Trying adding to the discussion with the sole purpose of creating and extracting valuable information. 

What makes this easy, you can only control what you do.  You don’t need to worry about other people taking over the conversation, or not actively listening.  You can’t control them, and it’s a good rule of thumb to not worry about things you cannot control.  Pay attention, ask questions (there are no stupid questions) and know when to shut up and listen.

Leadership is Eating Last

This past weekend a classmate of mine shared a story.  He was a young lieutenant in the Army, and leading people for the first time in his life.  He told us that it was not his job to tell his squad what to do or how to do it, but to make sure they had clean socks.

On the surface, this is fairly shocking, and kinda funny.  He was preparing his young team for battle.  He was responsible for marching them to fight the enemy to the death in the name of freedom, and his biggest concern was socks.

But this was far from micromanagement.

His job was to make sure the troops had everything they needed to do the job they knew how to do.  He had to make sure these people weren’t marching for miles in wet socks and that they had all their supplies, food, ammo, orders, everything they needed to do the job they knew how to do.

When it came time for ‘chow’ it was his job to make sure his team had what they needed.  They ate first, he ate last.

His job was empowerment.  He was in charge, and that meant putting his team ahead of himself.

Genuine leadership is not entitlement, it’s not elitist, it’s not sitting on top of some golden pyramid.  Leadership is eating last.

3 Tips for Public Speaking

Here's my "secrets" of public speaking.  Like my favorite board game, Othello, this takes a moment to learn and a lifetime to master.  The only way to really improve is to get up and do it. With all the nerves and adrenaline I'm lucky if I remember to do one of the three, but that's OK.  I know that I'm getting better each time I present, and that's my goal: Improvement, not perfection.

1. Breathe. Take your time, take normal breaths. Pause after you make your points, it will seem like an eternity to you, but its just a couple seconds and people need that time to process what you just said. The pause is key. Own your pause.
    
2. Focus. As you are talking, find people in the audience and look them in eye, stay on them like they are the only person there. Finish a thought with them. You look in control when you do this. Don't look at the back wall, and don't pan and scan. Stand still, and focus.
    
3. Make statements, not questions. Use downward inflection in your voice.  Raise your pitch in the middle of the sentence and end your sentences on a low and firm tone.  Have energy, change your pitch, no mono tone.  Think of it like a roller coaster, you start off level, go up and down the hill, and land level.

Show vs. Tell

It was a circus of self promotion. The first day of business school, and everyone was eager to showcase who they were, and assert their position in the pecking order. I went into it knowing it was going to happen. I’m told it always happens. I vowed that I would excuse myself from this exercise. My abstinence lasted all of 20 minutes, I jumped in with everybody.

What I realize now is that it wasn’t really everybody.

It was most of us, but there was a minority of folks who did more listening than talking. More learning about the rest of us than teaching us about them selves.

Further, I see clearly now that those people who sat back and watched the circus were the more established, higher profile, more powerful students in my class, and I was able to figure that out without them telling me.  Their position in the business world became clear in the way they collaborate, in the way they think and respond to questions, in the way they treat others and the way they treat themselves.

These people realized a huge advantage over the rest of us.

We never saw them coming.

We didn’t know who they were until they started acting, making decisions, responding to situations. It wasn’t that the bar was low for them, we just didn’t know where it was.

So when they did act—with no pressure to perform (recall we didn’t know what their expertise was; the rest of us had written big checks that would all be cashed) they all casually and confidently performed exceptionally.

Who are you, and who do you need

I’m more of a thinky/creative type.  I like to think about how awesome things are gonna be when they unfold. I get really excited about a big new shiny object, and I can’t wait to see how fantastic it’s going to make things.

There’s a problem with this.  Sometimes I end up with these: http://budurl.com/gmja

There’s a great example of a company, Optical Distortion Inc (ODI) who came up with a cheap process that would no longer require chickens to be de-beaked, a horrifying and painful process used by chicken farmers.

These guys realized that if they could distort the vision of the chickens, they wouldn’t see each other, so they wouldn’t fight each other.  A creative and simple strategy to solve a problem.

What ODI lacked was the details guy or gal.  The person who steps up and says, “hey, y’all are crazy! You expect contact lenses to stay in chicken eyes?!”

Yep. They tried to sell chicken contact lenses to farmers.  Epic fail.

I have found that success in the real world is the result of mixing people that chase a shiny ball around the room with people who like to calculate the coefficient of friction that is causing the ball to slow down.

The world needs (and has) both types of people. We all just need to take a step back, think about which one of those people we are, and be the best we can be at which ever side we land on.  And if you’re smart (and lucky) you’ll pair up with the other side.

Risk Free Method to Make You Better

Need a strategy to help your career?  Well, this is a simple one, with little downside:


    Work really hard, and be nice to people.


It’s something I try to implement. I’m not perfect with it, but I keep trying.


We face a lot of frustrating situations on a daily basis. Sometimes it’s easier to give up or mail it in, and other times it’s easy to spit out some snide remark to someone, or worse still, through them under the bus.


It’s much more difficult to double down and plow through something no one expects you to, or to react with ‘niceness’ when someone piles on. But that’s just the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. Take it.


You can certainly do one with out the other, but combining these two tactics is what will make you exceptional.  Or, as Seth Godin might say, a “Linchpin.”


Hard work is rewarded, and nice people get the chance to do more hard work.

(Note: This also works in your real life too.  Think about it next time you are driving, or needing to shovel the snow.)