A521.4.4.RB - Listening

In your reflection blog, reflect on recent examples when you were an 18-second manager or examples when someone was being an 18-second manager to you. Share how listening in this manner negatively impacted the situation or your relationship with that person. Reflect on how better listening and clarifying language might have positively affected the outcome.

By using the healthcare industry as an example, Peters (2009) points out that doctors on average listen for about 18-seconds before interjecting and giving their opinion. The downside to this is because the patience is the number source in regards to their ailment. If a longer period of listening was practiced, then it would allow the doctor to gain a number of pearls or enough facts and insight from the patient to describe their issue without any interruptions. This prevents the doctor from jumping to conclusions too prematurely and gives time to the patient to speak without feeling rushed. This concept shows the importance of listening in an organization. According to Peters (2009), the single most influential strategic strength of a business is not the plan, but rather the commitment of listening to each member of an organization.

From my own experiences in my career field, I have been fortunate to have managers who were more akin to mentors for me. They were patient enough to allow me to ask questions as a new employee in order to get a better understanding of where I was coming from. This allowed them to hear me out rather than use a listening block such as assuming through mind reading or advising before hearing the whole about the entire situation. This made me feel like my opinions and thoughts mattered and that validated me as a new employee to the team. It allowed me to learn, develop, and assimilate to the team and become a well-informed employee.

On the other hand, I have had experiences with managers in other functional groups who were 18-second managers. An example of this includes our Information Technology (IT) Help Desk that deals with technical problems with hardware and software issues on computers, telephones, and other electronics. The workers in this area are more like 10-second managers because they diagnose IT issues through a series of steps by trying to resolve it through general solutions while progressing to more advanced solutions. It makes it seem impersonal, but they are trying to resolve many common issues that people may face and if the solution they give them are not working then they will inquire further to help fix the problem. They use a mind reading type of listening block that progresses into effective listening when the problem is not easily solved.

Based on these two examples from my experience, there are times when being an 18-second manager makes sense, but other times when it is detrimental to the success of others. As I progress into my career field, it is important for me to listen to other employees to understand what issues they may identify in the organization and to help them out on a personal level when they need it as a friend. By utilizing real listening, it allows us to understand someone, enjoy their story, learn something about them, and allows us to help them if they are in need (McKay, Davis, & Fanning, 2009). This aspect enables us to form bonds and deepen our relationship with our co-workers. This kind of relationship can strengthen organizational morale because we are able to connect and understand each other on a more interpersonal level.

Listening is considered both a commitment and a compliment in communication (McKay et al., 2009). It is a commitment because the listener has to put aside their own bias to hear out what the other person is saying and it is a compliment because it takes times and effort on behalf of the speaker to do so for the listener. Listening make up communication in a unidirectional sense, but becomes two-way when the information is heard thoroughly and the listener is able to respond based on what was said. The four components of effective listening are as follows:

1. Listen actively (paraphrase, clarify, give feedback)
2. Listen with empathy (know that everyone may be dealing with a struggle)
3. Listen with openness (do not prejudge or selectively hear)
4. Listening with awareness (compare with your own knowledge)

By harnessing the power of strategic listening by authentically hearing and understanding what members of an organization are expressing can be the greatest strength of a business. The employees that work with producing the output of a business can sometimes have a different perspective compared to those in upper management and may see things that leaders may overlook. Thus, it is vital for leaders to take the time to listen to hear from their followers in order to gauge their thoughts and opinions that can be vital in making decisions on behalf of an organization and the vision moving forward.

References

McKay, M., Davis, M., & Fanning, P. (2009). Messages: The communication skills book (3rd ed.). Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Peters, T. [Tom Peters]. (2009, December 7). Tom Peters' leadership thoughts: Listening. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwB7NAvKPeo