Welcome back in Your Leadership. I'm Chris and I'm Lorenzo. And Lorenzo.
In this episode, I want to go over an article that I found on the Forbes Leadership section about common leadership problems that that leaders face when it comes to their teams. And there are four different problems mentioned in this article, and I don't think we can we can cover all of them in a single episode, so I want to do it over over the next few episodes because I think that there it's important enough to really dig into each one and not just kind of gloss
over anything or or or summarize the articles. I think we have a lot of personal experience to add to these things that can that can help the listeners. The article is written by Sam Atayami. He's the CEO of a leadership consultancy firm, and the article is just called four common leadership problems and their Solutions. We'll put a link to the article on the podcast description. But the first of the four problems that the article talks about
is when your team isn't listening to each other. And you know, when I when I think about this, I think about the you know, my team isn't listening to each other. You know. The the article kind of puts it in the context of that, you know, hey, sometimes people forget things after they've been told. It's hard to remember a lot of stuff that you've been given or downloaded to or or you know, summarized by a leader by a team member to remember that over a long
period of time. And that's probably true. But the main issue that I see when it comes to this is if my team isn't listening to each other because they've stopped put placing value on what someone else on the team has said. And that, to me is the is the deeper issue than just oh, I forgot something because it's been too long.
Yeah, No, it's it's a great call.
And I think there's been a lot of dialogue around like the art of active listening shout out to Heather Younger and the importance of actual listening to understand versus listening to respond.
But I think it's bigger than that.
I think I think this is much much bigger than that. I think that you know and then talk to a little bit about in the article, how do you identify this behavior?
And while it's like.
There's moments when you can kind of watch or see you know, who's paying attention maybe in a in a meeting or in dialogue. I look for much bigger things, like I'm looking for who's taking notes and and like that. That's a really clear example of something that shows me
kind of an engagement of leadership. And when you're talking about like your team versus like if you lead leaders if you're in a formal setting, that's where I think it's really important to set the ground rules and talk through what does it look like to not just be a great listener, but to make sure that we're getting the right information.
To all of us.
And I think that we all talk on the podcast, and you know, we share all the time how we tend to write our notes down. And I carry a journal with me and a notebook and a pendant pay and I really do my best to role model that and actually, you know, to give notebooks to people, give pens to people, have that available when it comes to meetings or things, because I think there's a different level of attention when it comes to writing things down versus
typing them on technology. And again, sometimes it's all you have is technology, and I take a ton of notes on my phone or on my computer based upon the scenario that I'm in. But I think that if you're truly trying to go into the aspect of listening to each other, I think that element of, you know, trying to get away from technology that can create a lot of distractions, and like, look, I'm not going to throw
stones from a glass house. Right when you have a phone and you might be taking notes on a phone or a computer, there's also email that pops up, There's a notification that pops up, there's a text message that pops up. There's plenty of things that happen when we're on our technology that take us away or take us out of the moment when it comes to being able to actually listen to people that are talking to us
versus the pen and paper route. But I think that's a really big part of how I'm looking to understand Number one, like do these meetings have value? Like do people take them serious? Do they feel like they're getting something out of it? And number two, are they listening to one another? And then are we sharing in such a way that it's adding value and that we're able to get something from the dialogue that we're having.
And I think for me.
That's that's the foundation of them really stepping into like how do we listen to each other on different levels? How do we listen to each other when not informal settings? But I think you have to really start it with the formal settings.
Yeah, I agree with that.
The first time that I ever was given a notepad to in order to take notes on when it comes to these types of you know, meetings or or one off conversations, it was by a leader who had used one for a lot of their lives and they gave the a little note bad to me and it was nice, like it was a just fit in the back pocket of my pants. And that was the goal of it was if you had to carry it around, then you could put it down somewhere and.
Not have it with you.
But if it was small enough to put in your back pocket, then it would be always available to you, you know, to be able to use. And again this isn't for formality. It's truly just so that you don't have to task yourself with remembering every single thing that was said to you by a team member or a coworker or or somebody you were meeting with, you know, because you might you might meet with, you know, one to seventy people in a day, you know, like any
number of that. And and if you are a leader and you have a large team, it's very difficult to remember everything that said to you by the people reporting to you. But each of those people only had one meeting with their leader that day, and that was you. And and I promise you they remember everything you said to them, even if you don't remember everything they said to you, because it blended in with a dozen other
meetings that you had with with their peers. And so having that notepad available to you is it's really valuable. And the first time it was given to me, I thought this is ridiculous, and I didn't use it. I carried it around with me because the person who gave it to me would would have, like, you know, give me a little side eye if they did had not seen it.
So it was there.
But what made me realize the value in it was actually being in a situation where I had to remember something that I had been told a few days earlier and not having the answer and having to say to myself, I can get the answer, give me a second, let me figure that out. And I had to go ask the person again, and it wasn't a big deal, but it was this kind of light bulb moment of uh, I could have totally just written that down and I would have had it right in the moment when I
was asked. And again like you know, you know, Lorenzo just said, you know, talked about technology versus the you know, the writing it down, And I agree, if I write something down, I'm more inclined to remember it than if I type it. But the purpose of writing it down isn't just about remembering it. It's about being in the moment with the person. And it's also about that you don't want to look at these notes as as a formality. You want to look at them as just for you.
And so if you're if you're in a setting with an employe where you're holding them accountable for something, right, if there's something where it's something has to be documented, where you're talking to an employee, you're thinking to yourself, Okay, I need to make sure my teas are crossed and
my eyes are dotted. That's when you use the technology, but you use it in front of the employee and you and they can see what you're typing and they can see what you're any so there's there's transparency in that the notepad doesn't have to have the teas dotted and the i's crossed right, like this is just between you and yourself in order to make sure that the person you're talking to understands that you're trying to be in the moment, but you also want to make sure
that you remember these things for later on, so that that's very important.
But I want to go back to the.
Idea of when your team has stopped putting clout into what they're each other is saying. And so I think about the the old adage, you know, failing to plan is planning to fail. They're they're the same thing. If if you apply this kind of note taking strategy to that,
it works as well. Because if if a team doesn't seem to be listening to each other, but they're also not taking notes when they're talking to each other, or or taking any steps to kind of you know, listen actively and you know, hearing what the person is saying and writing it down and those kind of those kind
of steps. If they're not doing those things, then it's possible they don't think that there's value in it, or it's possible that they don't actually care what that person has to say and they're just waiting for their turn to speak. And so as a leader, it's important that you're that you're positioning yourself in a way that lets you view these interactions and and see how they're going.
Because you can listen to the responses, you can tell if a person responded from a standpoint of hey, I heard what you just said, let's talk about that, or if there was responding from a standpoint of okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, now let's hear what I have to say. And as a third party observer sometimes it's even easier to tell if that's what's being is that's what's happening. Then if you're a person actually in the conversation.
Yeah, no, it's it's a great call.
And I think as you were talking through that example, I was thinking about how do you how do you create space or how do you as a leader, validate that active listening is happening. Besides like the formal settings and the dialogue, and I think that yeah, being able to observe and listen and like and I think more importantly kind of like recap the conversations with both parties or with the person who is supposed to be listening. I think most of the conversations that I'm listening to
is like it's back and forth. And sometimes when it comes to like listening, when I when I think of like the the opposite of this, like this being something that is a problem for teams, like like people are not listening to each other, I'm like, where.
Does that show up the most?
And I think it's in places of like disagreements or debates where something needs to be solved for and people have different opinions, people have different perspectives or quite honestly, like maybe somebody shares like not a great idea and it gets challenged on it, and then some ego takes over and then it's kind of you play that game like that's not what I said, Well that's exactly what
you said. Well that's not what I meant, Okay, Well then you know say what you mean, Like like those are the times when I think that when people say, like nobody's listening to me or my team doesn't listen, Well, I think it's in those moments where there is disagreement or debate and as a leader, those are the moments in those of the times when it is best to to to make sure that you're a part of some of the dialogue where you can or bring the people together.
Like it doesn't do you any good if if somebody, if if there's a concern about somebody not listening, and then you listen to both people individuals. I think if you're going to solve that on a larger level, you have to bring the people together. You have to bring the team together, you have to talk through you have to ask them to kind of repeat what the other person just said. Like there's a lot of things that
you can do here. But if if in fact it's not about listening, if your opportunity is that the team's not listening to one another, you're going to have to be much more attentive and involved in conversations that are happening where the listening aspect is the thing that's being shared as a concern.
I think you're spot on with that.
And I you know, when when.
When a person says something, I know I can just speak personally. I've said things before. Where as I finish saying them, there's a part of me that thinks that didn't come out the way that I wanted it to come out, Like I know what I was thinking in my head, and I said it in the way that I thought it was the best way to say it.
But I almost listen to myself saying it from the perspective somebody else hearing it, and the way that it sounds might give off a different impression or a different uh, you know, elicit a different response than what I was intending.
And you know, so when a when a person is is in a situation where a coworker or a peer or a leader and they're having a conversation and and that kind of stress level goes up or the tension goes up because someone is you know, responding in a way that says you know that you know, say to say what you mean, not something else that's not what
I said. If if it's if it's at that level, it means that the relationship is already in a place where the people are not assuming positive intent from each other. They're they're not trying to understand what the other person said. They're trying to pigeonhole that person into the exact words that they used to hold them accountable to those words.
In order to make it in order to invalidate their opinion to begin with, as opposed to thinking about it from the perspective of, Okay, what did the person mean when they were saying this? Can I look at it through you know, kind of their their eyes as opposed to my own? Am I am I trying to wordsmith it in a way to make me right? Or Am I trying to truly listen with empathy and hear what they're trying to say and put myself in their shoes and and meet them where they are as opposed to
just finding a way to win the conversation. And again, you know, intent is everything. If if both people are approaching it from the standpoint of I'm not trying to win the conversation, I'm trying to understand what my coworker has said so that we can meet each other where we are, then that problem will solve itself one hundred percent of the time. If both people are in that spot right there, there's nothing to solve because it will
work itself out in that conversation. It's when it doesn't work itself out, it's usually from the standpoint of, hey, I'm I'm trying to kind of you know, jockey the conversation. I want to make sure that it goes my way and whatever the other person says, I'm going to try to find a way to circumvent that or get around it so that my perspective is the one that that
ends up winning. And if, again, if you're a leader of both of these people who are talking to each other, then it's your responsibility to make sure that not only that you don't don't go into solve that particular problem, but when you go in, it's to solve the issue of what caused the disconnect to begin with, which is the relationship issue, and getting to the root of that problem, because just jumping in and trying to solve the actual issue being talked about will just result in you being
looked at as taking a side between one of the two of them, and that's not what you want to do. You don't want to because let's be honest. If I've been in this situation as a leader and I'm trying to figure out a problem that's happening between two employees, I promise you you like one of those two employees better than the other. You always one of them you will like better than the other. And there's no way that those people don't have a at least a hint
of that, if not outright no that. And so it's be very difficult for you to solve that problem without it being very apparent to them that you just took sides. And so again, it's not about you giving them an answer, it's about you trying to almost play Devil's advocate for each other and and and kind of hyping up each of them from a standpoint of, Hey, what is this
person trying to say? How can you kind of meet you other where each other is at and make sure that the that the the words that you're saying are not falling on deaf ears because you place value on them just simply by the fact that this person is a coworker and they have something valuable to add.
Absolutely, and well that brings us to this episodes of women Hack.
But first a few words from our sponsors.
All right, for this episode one, Heck, here's what I want you to do. If you're a leader of people and you have a multi person team, I want you to start by, you know, passing out a piece of paper that has the these two questions kind of typed out on it on a scale of one to ten, how well do I believe I listen to my coworkers? And this is this is the words on the paper. And then the second question is on a scale of one to ten, how well do I believe my co
workers listen to me? And chances are that the results are going to show that a person believes that they listen to their co workers far better than they believe their co workers listen to them. And if you can show these questions should be answered anonymously, by the way, and when you show the results to your team, that everybody is saying that they believe they listen well, but that they believe that their team members and co workers
don't listen well to them, then clearly the issue. There's an issue there, because listening is not about what you think you've done well. It's about what the person you're talking to you thinks you've done well. That's the ultimate judge of listening is the person you're talking to. You can't judge how well you listened to a person you've
had a conversation with. And so if you start from a standpoint of just identifying the problem, it'd be a lot easier for your team to kind of get to a place where they can understand that there is a problem to solve, because if no one believes there's a problem, if everybody thinks that their co workers listen to them, well, then there shouldn't be any issues here. There shouldn't be any communication problems where one person is trying to, you know,
insert their point of view above somebody else's. They should be listening to each other and coming to common solutions or shared solutions based.
On the all the information.
But that's not happening. There is a problem with listening and putting value on what the other person is said. So starting with exercise will help a lot of teams kind of get to a place where they can go, oh, yeah, okay, there's an issue here, and then you can start addressing the issues with everybody collectively, not from a standpoint of this is one person's problem, but rather this is a team problem that if we solve together, we'll see a lot better outcomes.
Yeah, I think it's a great woman at hack, and I like the idea of kind of self identifying from a team standpoint. I think it's important for things like this because so much of like so much of when you say, like, are people listening is a subjective opinion on how we feel about how other people listen to us.
So I love that you kind of call that out.
Because I think that getting the team involved and saying, hey, we're identifying this as a problem or an issue, how do you feel about it? Oh, look at that, you know how you feel about it also aligns with what we're observing. Okay, So then when are these moments happening, What are we going to do about it?
How do we get better at this?
Even if it gets slightly better, the team typically feels like it's better because like we've talked about it and it's something that we're doing, and that.
In itself I think is helpful.
But then I also think that you have to, as the leaders, start to establish some things that will make us all better listeners. Like if you're going to implement, hey, technology down, we're going to do handwritten notes or whatever
the case is. Like when we're in you know, conversations around you know, debates, healthy debates or dialogue on strategies, we're going to get in that practice of repeating what the other person just said before you share your your thoughts like things like that that you can do to establish and start to build in some of this skill.
I think it's really also very important. Yeah, I agree.
And the repeating back part, I want to just double up on that because I think it's so important repeating back what somebody else is saying from a standpoint of you know, if someone if someone says something to me and gives me some information, and I want to make sure that they don't think that I'm trying to wordsmith what they just said or or or change the meaning of what they said in order to benefit myself. Just starting from the standpoint of saying, Okay, I hear what you're saying.
What I'm hearing is.
This and and and say your honest opinion about what you're hearing, not this is what you said.
You can say this is what I heard.
And if I say this is what I heard, and I repeat back what they are saying, they'll know right away whether or not it was accurate, because they're the ones who have their opinion. They're the ones who said it to begin with. So if I say what I'm hearing is you said this and this and this and this, they're either going to say yes, that's EXAs exactly right, that's exactly right.
And if that's the.
Case, then great, you're you're already aligned. Or they might say, no, that's not that's not what I'm what I'm saying, and what they're saying to you is that's not what I meant.
So if you're repeating back literally their words.
To them and they're saying that's not what I what I meant, then what they're saying is they're having a hard time putting their thoughts into the right words.
And it could be because.
They're so passionate about whatever the topic is that that's having it they're having an issue doing that. If that's the case, they might need some time to put their thoughts together. You might have to give them some time to come back to the conversation. And that's fine. You can say, Okay, if this is what I heard and that's not what you meant, I understand that. But I want to make sure that when we go through this together that I am hearing what you're saying and that
we are on the same page. So if we need time to kind of put our thoughts together, maybe write them down on paper, bring them back. I want to make sure that I'm hearing what you're actually trying to say to me and not something that is that is inaccurate. So if you approach it from the standpoint of that the goal is to solve the problem, not the goal is to win again, then you can get through this, even if it means coming back to the conversation at a later time.
Absolutely, and with that it brings us at the end of this episode, this is hacking leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.