We often hear second-stage business owners express frustration over constantly needing to tell employees what to do rather than seeing them take initiative and solve problems without prompting. Granted, having proactive employees is partly due to hiring — getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats. Yet I also believe that the ability to listen plays an important role in enhancing your team’s performance.
There’s an old Chinese folktale* about a young prince who is sent into the forest by his mentor with a deceptively simple mission — to listen. After a year, the prince returns and tells his mentor about the many sounds he has heard, from birds chirping to bees buzzing to the wind blowing. Yet this doesn’t satisfy the wise man, and he sends the prince back into the woods to listen again. At first the prince hears the same sounds, but as he strives to listen more intently, new sensations become apparent: flowers opening, sunshine warming the earth, grass drinking the dew. The prince returns to his mentor and relates his findings, and the wise man nods with approval. To be able to “hear the unheard” is an essential skill to lead effectively, he says.
Listening is a fundamental skill that benefits everyone, though we often take it for granted. This occurs for a variety of reasons, such as believing we already know the answers or being in a hurry to move forward rather than consider new information that could change our direction.
And as the story suggests, deep listening goes far beyond hearing the actual words being spoken. It’s often about what’s not being said. For example:
- People tell you things that they think you want to hear, but not what they believe.
- People tell you things that may be a small part of what they’re feeling, but not the core.
- People don’t tell you anything. They may be afraid to speak due to a lack of trust or not feeling confident they’re in a safe space.
So, how does one become a better listener and hear the unheard?
A couple of things have been helpful for me. In 2021 I started a program for our employees called Meaningful Leadership, which is geared to strengthen participants’ leadership skills as individuals and as a group. The program spans 12 months, and we meet monthly to discuss different aspects of leadership, from collaboration and communication to emotional intelligence and personal growth. We’ve graduated three cohorts, each including 6-12 employees from different departments, and we plan to launch a fourth cohort this fall.
Another recent initiative is conducting one-on-one conversations with everyone in our organization, something I began last year. The goal was to strengthen current relationships, gauge employee morale, gather honest feedback on our organization and address any concerns. These discussions were so beneficial that I held a second round this year and plan to make it an annual commitment.
Although Meaningful Leadership and the one-on-one sessions have different objectives and structure, they share some common outcomes related to building relationships and trust. For example, I’ve heard things I never would have otherwise about what was going on in employees’ lives, both at work and at home. I learned about challenges and issues that people were dealing with, which have given me a far better understanding — and appreciation — of the individuals I work with.
This has, in turn, helped me defuse some potential problems before they escalate into larger issues. For example, I’ve learned that slowing down on a project to make sure other perspectives are understood is often the key to ultimately moving faster.
True listening goes beyond hearing words; it’s going deeper, which requires trust. Building trust takes time — and requires spending time with people on different levels.
Going back to the story about the Chinese prince, I equate spending time in the woods to spending time with people. As a result, you develop the kind of relationship where you can ask, “That’s not really why you’re saying that, is it?”
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*From “The Nature of Leadership” by Stephen Covey, A. Roger Merrill and Dewitt Jones.