MBGParadigm
 
Joe Mayer
Joe Mayer Ph.D.
 (216) 408 6324  

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Listening skills and Team Performance
During a recent workshop I was talking about high performance teams and how important active listening is to achieve extraordinary results. One attendant asked how I define active listening and how she can find out if others don't listen. 
 

Let me start off with looking at the recent midterm elections. Here in Ohio you could no longer watch a program without being confronted by one or -closer to the election date- two political ads attacking the "flaws" of the opposing candidate. Most of them were very graphic and quite harsh and attention getting. If you now look back at the election and rate the impact these spots had on the voting decision of people, one could feel that they truly helped one or the other candidate. However, when pollsters followed up, hardly anybody (fewer than one percent) who had already made up their minds, changed their opinion! Why? Rationality actually becomes a liability in situations like these because it allows us to justify practically any belief. We turn our rational mind into an information filter, a way to block out disagreeable points of view.

The same is happening when we are monitoring the interactions in most average teams. The players know each other. They know where everybody is coming from when discussing certain topics and they either filter out or rationalize the information not fitting their preconceived opinion. They selectively interpret data until it leads to the desired conclusion. Why is this so destructive? Depending on the side you are on, your excellent arguments are not heard, and after a while great ideas are neither generated nor mentioned in meetings any longer. This does certainly de-motivate especially younger (Generation Y) employees and the company loses, too. By coming up with the same answers over and over again we cement the status quo. The same thinking leads to predictable (same) actions, which not surprisingly lead to the identical outcomes. Missing in this equation is, that embracing new ideas can easily set up new breakthrough outcomes, which changes the game.

How can we escape this vicious circle called certainty trap? For me it all starts with the team composition itself. If we only have team members who think like each other, never disagree... why have teams and why have meetings. The outcome is pre-determined and the meetings are a waste of time. So, what we have to look at is creating teams composed of members with competing view points and even with rivals. Then we need to encourage vigorous debates and discussions. To tolerate dissent and to actively incorporate other ideas in one's point of view opens doors for new approaches and different results. Hardly ever did I see good decisions emerge from false or artificial consensus. The second benefit is, that after a vigorous discussion, all team members feel heard and do not only support but align with the decision, making it so much easier for all team members to defend the decisions made and to publicly push for an implementation.     

So how do we know that we embrace uncertainty? There are two simple tricks listed in a book called "How We Decide". First and foremost we have to look for and entertain competing hypotheses. When we look at the same facts through different glasses we often discover that our beliefs and what we "know for sure" are built on a rather shaky foundation. Secondly we need to continually remind ourselves of what we don't know. We all have blind spots. So check out what you know, what you don't know and only then you or the team can draw conclusions.

 Excellent decisions are born by bringing different viewpoints and opinions together to create an outcome which none of the participants saw coming. Only if we are actively listening, being curious and drown out our paradigms, we can participate in creating something bigger than the sum of the participants.

The realities existing in an organization and solutions to challenges are endless. Let us help you to set up a climate where members feel save to express their ideas and where leaders know how to use those to enhance decision making.