Archive for June, 2012
Elon Musk, Simplicity and My Soapbox
Elon Musk at the Tesla grand opening in Menlo Park. Photo taken by Brian Solis.
SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, as reported in Time Magazine, June 18, 2012, successfully launched and landed a rocket, in record time and with streamlined resources. While I read the article I kept correlating the situation with my thinking about workplace productivity.
It’s perfectly clear to me that communication is a major factor in their ability to pull off such an impressive fete. I hope I can make the connection for you.
First of all, there’s Musk’s call for simplicity: “If you want to change something or fix something, just stalk to Elon. It keeps the signal-to-noise ration high.” When the lines of communication are narrow like that, there’s less room for misinterpretation. Think of how different it would be in many organizations if an employee has a question and can go to the person who is most equipped to answer it, rather than to someone designated on the org chart.
Simplicity also shows up in design. I’m not as interested in the mechanics of the rocket as I am in the process behind arriving at those mechanics. They’ve hired people from other venues who had to have prior experience with bloated and convoluted decision-making, so what’s different here that there’s so little bureaucracy? Musk says, People ask how it’s possible to be safer but also more cost-effective. It’s possible because complexity is the enemy of both.” At his three companies the norm is to ask questions, inquire, debate, prototype, problem-solve, challenge until everything is stripped down to the essence—the simplest form. From there they build, adding as little as possible to achieve the required results.
I know all this because Tesla Motors used to have a showroom here in Boulder, and I had the opportunity, as a member of International Business Circle, to spend an evening with some headquarters staff people and Elon on the phone (he could not attend in person because he was in a tobogganing accident). No doubt what he told us about the development of the Tesla automobiles applies to all his ventures.
Secondly, there’s consistency of purpose. I know some people who work at NASA and they talk about constant changes in messages, decisions, and priorities. In Musk’s case, although I don’t know this first-hand, there’s a clear direction and unwavering drive to arrive at it. “I believe,” says Musk, “that I have a design in mind that would enable the colonization of Mars.” Remind you of John F Kennedy’s famous race-to-the-moon speech?
Finally, there’s the Control issue. When I’m on my soapbox I say that Creativity loves Structure and hates Control. Most of the employees of SpaceX don’t have offices, including Musk, but they have discipline, rigor and priorities, so they don’t have to spend their creative juices trying to figure out boundaries. They don’t have creative constraints and rules, rules, rules, so there’s little that gets in their way towards innovation.
Streamlined, uncluttered, open communication is worth billions of dollars.
How do you think this kind of work environment would effect listening skills?
Listening Skill Creates Energy
“I’m totally zapped. I’ve been in this meeting for two hours and I can hardly focus.”
“What a talker. I can’t even get in a word and it’s torture.”
“What’s my problem, I almost fall asleep on the phone whenever Ms. Boss calls.”
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to hear these remarks, and they might be the genesis of the well-meaning label Active Listening (AL). The point of AL is that the listener should be an equal partner in an interaction, not a passive bystander like the three people who made the above comments.
The problem with AL, as you’ve heard me say many times, is that it’s a one-size-fits-all model, and the techniques can easily be faked to make it appear that someone is listening.
My purpose in this post though is not to debunk AL; instead I want to focus on how deep, true listening creates energy for the speaker and receiver.
The reason the three people above find listening to be tiring is because they are actually not engaged in the interaction. They are not much more than a backboard—flat and absorbent.
Energized listening involves:
Increased space for exploration. The best negotiators tell us that the more they can get all sides to ask, “What if, how might we, other options,” the more likely it is that settlement can be made. When a negotiator (or any listener) is asked to look beyond polarized positions, the space for possibilities gets much larger.
Decreased ping-pong effect. What does happen though is that speaking and listening is often a power struggle—the person with the most power serves the “ball” first and the only way to keep up with the game is for the opponent to return an equally as powerful shot. The result is a game of one-upmanship with only challengers, but no winners.
Balanced Inquiry and Advocacy. No wonder people get weary when they’re only the receivers, and receivers of someone else’s diatribe at that. That speaker uses the engagement as a platform to advocate a position, with little regard for what anyone else might think about a subject.
Equalized Sender/Receiver expectations. When I worked as a consultant in the early days of Saturn Motor Division of GM, we helped them devise a process for holding meetings. The process was simple, clear and powerful; Tell, Sell, Consult, Consense. Everyone who came to a meeting knew their roles and responsibilities and was prepared to participate according to the pre-established expectations.
So, what are some tips to keep listening skills energetic?
- Establish Listening Ground Rules (posted 6.12.12). Unfortunately, people take listening for granted; therefore it is often sloppy and rife with bad habits.
- Hire a coach or facilitator to observe communication patterns and provide feedback about how the participants apply the ground rules
- While it’s crucial that people take turns talking and not talking over someone else, application should not be rote (e.g. going around the table the same direction until everyone is heard). Then the person who has just talked might have a tendency to tune out to wait for another turn to speak.
- Move around and/or take a break. Changing seats, standing every half hour, or any other physical change increases oxygen and blood flow.
- Have table toys that don’t interfere with listening, but will diffuse energy. I often have cartoons, brain-teasers and puzzles spread about the room for people to play with during breaks.
- Stop at least once per hour to recap progress towards goals and review of agenda if there is one. It feels good to see how much has already been achieved.
When the listener is involved in an interaction; that is, being engaged because the discussion is interesting and valuable, the results are often stimulating and rewarding. There’s little better than to hear; “Now that was time well spent.”
Listening Skills Ground Rules
In last week’s blog post, Tortoise and Hare Listening, I said that having ground rules for listening might increase the likelihood that people would actually pay attention to the expectations and needs of one another during an interaction and experience improved listening skills.
It’s not such a crazy idea. Groups establish ground rules for meetings and workshops to make assumptions explicit. A ground rule gives direction about how someone is expected to behave. For example, a common one is “Do not interrupt.” Ostensibly, that gives members of the group permission to point it out when someone speaks over others. Just having that as a ground rule indicates to the group that interrupting behavior will not be tolerated, and will heighten attention to avoid displaying that unwelcome trait.
That set me to thinking about listening ground rules that might be helpful:
- Identify the purpose– determine with your partner(s) what you’re both listening for and what you want to get out of the interaction
- Obey the listening golden rule: Listen to others as they would have you listen to them—don’t project your desires and biases on others
- Ask permission to take notes and be willing to share what you’ve written
- Give undivided attention—no gadgets, fidgeting, side-conversations
- Make body language invitational instead of armor-like
- Inquire more, advocate less
- Tell others when you’re losing your ability to listen and request a physical break
I posted these at a recent two-hour meeting and asked if we could try them out to see if it was a good idea and how they’d influence the meeting. Everyone agreed to try them, and afterwards we took an extra fifteen minutes for debrief. There were many more responses than expected, but here are the most frequently said ones:
- The list was intimidating at first because we (5 people) wanted to do it “right,” but after a while we got embroiled in the conversation and the list just served as a guide.
- Everyone really liked the listening golden rule—e.g. “Now I see that I get impatient when people don’t listen the way I want them to.”
- Several people said they wanted to ask for a break, but thought they couldn’t.
- Many noticed that there were more people who allowed others to finish a thought than usual.
- The undivided attention rule was hardest to follow and sustain.
What others would you include? How do you think they’ll be received?
Tortoise and Hare Listening: Defining Listening Skills
Recently when I was conducting a webinar, one of the very insightful participants surfaced a great question: “What’s the right pace for good listening? Since we can listen faster than we can talk, what’s the best balance?” After some probing we determined that what he was really asking was just how much attention must be paid in an interaction before the interaction is too long and interest wanes.
While there’s not a formula for balancing listening to speaking, our webinar attendees did consider who wins the listening race—the tortoise-listener who moves slowly and deliberately, missing very little on the way to gaining complete understanding; or the hare-listener who moves swiftly in preparation to decision-making and action.
The tortoise-listener is the embodiment of the “move slow to go fast” rule. She asks many questions, gathers facts and data, digs for underlying motivations and concerns, and weaves it all together to develop the most comprehensive thorough understanding of the situation before making recommendations or developing a plan.
The hare-listener is seen more commonly in organizations. He asks just enough questions and gathers just enough evidence to make a decision or plan and recommend his ideas as the best path forward.
Can’t you see them both in a meeting? The hare loses patience with the plodding approach of the tortoise, rolls his eyes, fidgets in his seat, checks email, and tunes out. The tortoise looks stoic, ignores the hare’s obvious frustration, and continues to seek more information. Both are convinced they’re right and that the other doesn’t listen. By the end of the meeting, one usually wears down the other, collaboration hasn’t happened, and it’s doubtful they’ve arrived at the best results.
Our webinar group decided the only way to get these two polar opposites to work effectively together is to acknowledge their differences at the start and develop some listening ground rules. (I need to think about what those ground rules might be and I’ll write them up in the next post—it would be great if we could develop a community list.) When teams have taken Hear! Hear? and seen their group reports, they inevitably come away with much deeper appreciation of how their listening styles impact communication. The tortoises and the hares can talk about the consequences of too much inspection or too much speed and how to balance their tendencies to arrive at best fit for the situation.
Too fast and the hare-listeners finish ahead of everyone else, alone and without enough fuel to run the next race. Too slow and the tortoise-listeners cross the finish line after everyone else has gone on to the next race.