Want to Increase Productivity? Collaborate!

What a great time to be writing about collaboration, I thought as I watched the Winter Olympics!  I saw so many examples of successful collaborations. While there are lots of individual events in the Olympics, it appears the organizers are attempting to build in more and more team events—like the team ice dancing event and team skiing events.

One of the best examples of collaboration has to be team sports like hockey.  Even though the women’s gold medal hockey match was on TV in the middle of the night, I was glued to the action and riveted to the outcome when the U.S. women won gold.  Watching their unselfish play, it was clear they knew that to win, they each had to play their role and do it flawlessly.

Collaboration is essential to business success in our highly competitive business environment, and yes, maybe even to our survival as we are in a global economy. Most of us have learned that silos are deadly, and hoarding knowledge kills collaboration and stifles innovation.

Collaboration at work means having a clear understanding of the goal to be achieved and what role each person plays to achieve the goal. The end result of collaboration and teamwork is often the same—when people collaborate, they’re working together toward a stated goal!

However, one of the things that either makes collaboration effective is when work groups respect what each person brings to the team, and people put their own ambitions and need for personal satisfaction aside order to achieve the team goal.  This isn’t easy for many people in our business world today, but it can make your organization much more productive.

Here are some actions leaders and managers can take to encourage collaboration:

• Set clear objectives for success
• Identify potential obstacles to success and remove as many as possible
• Get to know your team and have them get to know each other
• Take responsibility for mistakes
• Recognize and respect everyone’s contributions
• Encourage open discussion of goals and objectives
• Brainstorm solutions and encourage creativity
• Build consensus on group projects
• Listen to input from everyone
• Compromise when necessary to move forward
• Celebrate successes and learn from mistakes

Collaboration can have a positive impact on productivity and innovation, so encourage it whenever possible. For more information on how to maximize collaboration at work, watch for our latest book, The Manager’s Answer Book, which is available now on Amazon for pre-order and will be released in June, 2018.

Listening isn't Easy

Listening is probably the most misunderstood communication process we use.  Your manager is right to suggest you improve your skills. It takes some work, focus, and patience but it can be done. And, your better listening skills will not only be useful at work, they will help you with any relationship!

Let’s start with what listening isn’t—it’s not, when the other person is talking, waiting for your turn to talk.  If that’s your approach to listening, that means you probably aren’t even hearing what the other person is saying—you’ve focused on preparing what you’re going to say when they finish!

Listening takes concentration and it is hard work for most of us.  We spend a lot of time in school learning how to read and write, but little time on how to listen.  A good listener makes a deliberate effort to understand the other person’s message.  A good listener listens to learn, is interested in what the speaker is saying and lets the speaker know they’re listening.

If you’re serious about being a better listening, consider what’s called “active listening.”  It’s the most powerful way to capture the entire message the speaker is attempting to convey.  Here’s how it works:

While the speaker is talking, the active listener encourages the speaker to share by nodding, maintaining eye contact, a raised eyebrow, or a smile.  These cues let the speaker know you hear them and want to know more.  However, you have to really mean it—if you aren’t sincere, the speaker will probably not want to continue to talk to you!

Another active listening technique is to paraphrase what you heard the speaker say.  “I heard you say that my department needs to respond more positively to requests from your staff. “  Then, if that’s not what the speaker intended, the information can be clarified—but they will know you were listening!

As you work to improve your listening skills, consider what gets in your way. Maybe it is that you’re distracted by external noise or other people. If so, when you find yourself in that situation, ask the speaker if you can move to a quieter location.  Maybe the timing is bad—you’re on a tight deadline and can’t focus.  Ask if you can postpone the discussion until you can give it full attention.  Maybe the speaker uses words or phrases you don’t understand—ask for clarification. Listening is such a critical skill, that we devoted a whole chapter to the subject in The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook.

As John Marshall, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court said, “To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.”

Listening Really Matters

 Winston Churchill said, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

We’ve all heard that most Americans fear public speaking more than they fear death but, until I read the Churchill quote, I’d never thought that it takes courage to listen. I think he’s definitely right.  Most of us would rather talk than listen—even when we have nothing really important to say. Maybe it’s a little dramatic to say it takes courage to listen but it certainly is an extremely important communication skill and one that is vital to success in business or in life.

In a business setting, having good listening skills are critical to success and developing those skills takes effort and, dare I say it—courage.  So many leaders don’t stop to listen to the people around them. They are too busy believing they know all the answers to think they might learn something if they sit down and listen.

Good listening is an active process—it’s not just being quiet until the other person stops talking so you can say what you think.  Good listeners interact with the speaker to ask questions.  Good listeners watch for verbal cues while processing the words they’re hearing.  Good listeners listen for what’s not being said—some call this “listening for the music and not just the words.”

Good listeners must exercise a good deal of restraint and not jump to conclusions based on a few early words from the speaker.  If you haven’t listened carefully to what the speaker is saying, your initial judgment can be the cause of you dismissing the rest of what’s being said and that can be fatal!

Ralph Nichols of The University of Minnesota says as reported in Michael Roberto’s book Know What you what you don’t Know—How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before they Happen-- that he encourages his students to listen more effectively by having a statement at the top of each white board that says, “Withhold evaluation until comprehension is complete—hear the speaker out. It is important that we understand the speaker’s point of view before we accept or reject it.”

There are many things to be aware of that get in the way as we listen or even try to listen:

·       Setting

·       Distractions

·       Timing

·       Beliefs

·       Perceptions

·       Emotions

·       Cultural differences

·       Relationships

·       Word usage

·       Assumptions

In our most recent book, The Essential Workplace Conflict Handbook, we devoted an entire chapter to the importance of good listening skills in managing workplace conflict. We talk about how to use active listening, gestures, eye contact, and reflective listening skills to improve the listening experience. 

So, be courageous and work to be a better listener and see how this improves your working and personal relationships!