I’m currently working my way through the excellent Daniel Croyle book The Culture Code. In the book, I’ve been struck by the parallels between what Croyle points out as how to create cooperation in small groups and individuals and the coaching habit Michael Bungay Stanier promotes in his book The Coaching Habit.
In The Culture Code, Croyle details how Roshi Vivechi of IDEO, an international design firm located in Palo Alto, California works with teams to help them navigate the design process. She uses what she calls “Flights,” or all-team meeting that occur the start, middle and end of every project, similar to an after action review in the military. Givechi’s “research” largely consists of conversations to learn the issues that the team have been struggling but both logistically and inter personally.
Once she has concluded researching the project, she gathers the group and asks question design to expose friction and aid the group in reorienting or clarifying their objective and the best way forward. She uses the term “surfacing” for this process.
“I like the word connect,” Givechi says. “For me every conversation is the same, because it’s about helping people walk away with a greater sense of awareness, excitement, and motivation to make an impact. Because individuals are really different. So you have to find different ways to make it comfortable and engaging for people to share what they’re really thinking about. It’s not about decisiveness–it’s about discovery. For me, that had to do with asking the right questions the right way.”
This is reminiscent of Michael Bungay Stanier’s book The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More and Change the Way You Lead Forever. Basically the book teaches that our advice is not as good as we think it is and that by asking questions before rushing to offer a solution we reduce overdependence and resistance while helping to improve the quality of decision making from those that we oversee.
As Stanier says in the book, “Even though we don’t really know what the issue is, or what’s going on for the person, we’re quire sure we’ve got the answer she needs.”
Bob Metcalf the founder of 3Com and inventor of ethernet tells a story about the first operations meeting after being replaced by Bill Krause at the CEO of the company Metcalf had founded. During the meeting, Bill spent the entire meeting writing on a pad of paper. Out of curiosity Metcalf walked behind Bill and noticed what he had written a hundred times was, “DNT.”
After the meeting had concluded, Metcalf went to Bill and asked what “DNT” meant. Bill’s reply was, “Bob, I talk too much and the way I keep myself from talking is writing, ‘Do Not Talk.’” Taking notes while others were talking did make them feel like what they were saying was important, however, by reminding himself to not talk, he was enabling himself to be a better listener.
A 1984 study by Howard Beckman and Richard Frankel found that the average time to interruption for doctors was eighteen seconds suggesting that Bill Krause’s system for listening would be a good practice for others to adopt, including coaches. People in general don’t really listen so much as they listen for an opportunity to share what they are thinking as well.
Whatever your role, becoming a better listener is probably an area that most of us could benefit from developing. I know that for me as an athletic director and as a parent/husband, need to spend more time developing this skill.
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