I read this post by Kevin Roberts (founder of Red Rose Consulting; business leader and educator; author and speaker; adviser on marketing, creative thinking and leadership) where he shares his insight on the current state of affairs, which in summary is “Everyone is talking and no one’s listening”.
In his post he also shares that there are 4 types of listeners – People oriented, Action or Task oriented, content focused and fast. You can read his entire post (really short one) here.
I believe that as leaders, it is paramount that we listen and do it well. However, as a leader, the way we listen needs to be a bit different from the way others listen. I learnt this from Matt Church (yes, you will hear a lot of what I learn from him, as I am learning a lot from him).
So, here we go. There are three layers to listening and understanding that we need to master as leaders.
Content:
We listen to what happened. Who did or said what? When did this happen? Why did this happen?
Meaning:
What does this really mean? What did they make it mean? What does this mean for the team, what does this mean for me, for the organisation?
Context:
What is this really about? What is the bigger picture here? How is this relevant in the current context? Does this change the context?
Blindspots:
Are we seeing the full picture or are we missing something? Is there anything else that we need to pay attention to?
Connections:
Is this connected to something else? Is this part of a system? If yes, how does this interact with the larger system at play? Are there any dependencies?
Actions:
Now that we know all of this, does this change anything? Do we need to adjust the model of the world that we have created? Do we need to change any thing as a result of this?
In conclusion:
When we listen at all the three levels, we are able to develop the ability to see the trees and see the forrest.
This enables us to move between the content and the context, between the minutiae and the vision, between the long term and the short term. This enables us to learn how to create a balance and allows us the space we need to make a conscious choice about how we respond to situations, rather than react to what happens.
The side effect of this is that people on our team also learn this ability by observing us do this, which in the long term help them be better leaders.
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