Good listeners tend to make better decisions, based on better-informed judgments, than ordinary or poor listeners do—and hence tend to be better leaders.
For leaders, listening to the insights and opinions of other people–including other top executives–is a critical part of strategic decision making, not only during unprecedented crises like the COVID-19 pandemic but also in ordinary times.
“ Intelligence isn’t a substitute for knowledge. Being smart doesn’t mean you’ve taken the time to be informed.
Knowledge isn’t a substitute for wisdom. Being informed doesn’t mean you’ve developed good judgment.
Good judgment requires the humility to know what you don’t know.”
– Adam M. Grant
Listening is a valuable skill that most executives spend little time cultivating.
To harness the power ideas, we must fight the urge to “help” more junior colleagues by providing immediate solutions. Leaders should also respect a colleague’s potential to provide insights in areas far afield from their job description.
Most executives are naturally inclined to speak their minds. Still, you can’t listen if you’re too busy talking. Many struggle as listeners because they never think to relax their assumptions and open themselves to the possibilities drawn from conversations with others.
To counteract these tendencies, the author of a classic 2012 McKinsey Quarterly article proposed three principles for better listening:
- Respect other people.
- Keep quiet and let them speak.
- Open yourself to their ideas by challenging your assumptions.
Good listening takes practice. It takes self-awareness. It takes a book like Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of Them All by Bernard T. Ferrari, to help us understand just how valuable listening skills are…or how detrimental it is to not refine ours.
What sets this book apart from other books on listening (of which there are plenty) is that Ferrari, a business consultant with a long history at McKinsey & Co and also as a health care provider, is interested in “listening for the purpose of arriving at a better business decision.” Why is listening critical to business success? Ferrari makes his case:
Listening can well be the difference between profit and loss, between success and failure, between a long career and a short one. Listening is the only way to find out what you don’t know, and marks the path to making good decisions, arriving at the best ideas. If you aspire to be better at your job, no matter what it is, listening may be the most powerful tool at your disposal.
To improve our listening skills, we must learn what’s keeping us from seeking and hearing the information we need.
For more on this fundamental subject, read “The executive’s guide to better listening.”
This McKinsey Quarterly timeless article includes a fantastic “Field guide to identifying bad listeners.” Describing six of the more common archetypes of bad listeners:
The Opinionator
The Opinionator has a “tendency to listen to others really only to determine whether or not his ideas conform to what the Opinionator already knows to be true”?
The Grouch
“The Grouch is blocked by the certainty that your ideas are wrong.”
The Preambler
“The Preambler’s windy lead-ins and questions are really stealth speeches, often designed to box his [conversation partner] in.”
The Perseverator
“The Perseverator may appear to be engaged in productive dialogue, but if you pay attention, you might notice that he’s not really advancing the conversation.”
The Answer Man
The Answer Man “is the person who starts spouting solutions before there is even a consensus about what the challenge might be, signaling that he is finished listening to your input in the conversation.”
The Pretender
“The Pretender isn’t really interested in what you have to say.”
The author recognized that any of us could demonstrate these archetypes at different times and under other circumstances. He even admitted that he showed all six, sometimes on the same day.
Actionable advice
During your business conversations this week, see if you recognize any of these kinds of bad listeners—or recognize them in yourself—and track the results. If you can use the descriptions below to set up some alarm bells for your off-putting behavior, you’ve taken the first step in curing what ails you.
