How I make sense of all the conversations that take place at work [2/2]
Quick reference: Here is part one of this post, which introduces teaching as a professional competency.
Dear SJ,
Hopefully you’re still with me. I’m sharing my framework with you because it is a concrete way to improve communication between team members. Why this? Here’s an example of a study Grammarly conducted with Harris Poll, assigning a dollar value of to what a business owner loses from employees due to poor communication.
As we talked about last time, there are three skills involved in teaching as a professional competency: explaining, listening, and facilitating. Let’s look at each one now.
Explaining: You talk to others
A good explanation lowers the cost of understanding. You can:
- Introduce your point verbally and write it out
- Illustrate your point with a story to help listeners connect
- Use images to support your story
- Show the point in writing again
A common method for a business leader to explain something is through a presentation. While you’re preparing, think about:
- What does the audience already know/what can I assume? (What is Point A?)
- What do I want everyone to know by the end? (What is Point B?)
- What do I want everyone to “be able to do” with what they will know by the end? (This is how you will set the scope of your explanation.)
I get a lot of “I want them to be able to understand” from leaders and managers. No. Understanding is not doing, and you cannot measure if someone understands.
Instead of, “I want everyone to understand the new procedure for closing up the shop,” you might say, “I want everyone to be able to successfully complete the shop closing checklist within one hour.” You can measure both the completion of the list and the time to completion.
Being clear on the above also means you can keep your explanation focused on only the information required to help people successfully complete the shop closing checklist. You can avoid rambling about the importance of procedures, rule following, a safely closed shop, etc.
Listening: Others talk to you
Listening is more than just hearing. Additionally, just like with other skills, listening is not passive. It also involves:
- Being emotionally tuned in
- Understanding underlying motives
- Giving people space and not focusing on what you’ll say next
Here’s how you can check whether you’re listening. Are you able to:
- Repeat, nearly verbatim, what was said?
- Summarize what was said and also point out what was left unsaid?
- Infer needs and wants of the individual, their stance on the topic, and what they are willing/unwilling to do to affect change?
If you’re not, here’s how you can self-correct, from top to bottom:
- Try repeating words in your head [MIND]
- Imagine you’re meeting this person for the first time [MIND]
- You have two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion [FACE/HEAD]
- Speaking of your mouth, notice how often you open it when you want to interrupt. Try and tuck your lower lip slightly under your upper lip and take notes if you feel like you might forget something [MOUTH]
- Listening postures: open stance; if conversation gets confrontational, tilt your neck and smile; put a pen between your mouth for 15 seconds, it tricks your brain into thinking you’re smiling and it will uplift your mood. (You can create an open mind by taking an open posture) [BODY]
Facilitating: Others talk to each other
It is important to make space for your employees to talk together so that they can learn from each other as much as from you. Talking out loud, or verbal processing, is a way to make sense of new information and connect it to what we already know. (This is why some toddlers are very, very talkative — they are making sense of the world and incorporating new information quickly!)
Facilitation depends on 1) thoughtful questions designed to draw out good conversation and 2) your ability to observe and balance participation.
Thoughtful questions:
- Prompt the student to consider personal experience and/or past learned information and make a connection to the present material
- Are open-ended and make room for input the student offers (rather than yes/no or leading towards one answer)
- Support reflection to ensure new information is received, retained, and integrated (“What surprised you about ____?” “What is still confusing you about _____?” “What about ____ resonated with you?”)
How to observe and balance participation in a group:
- Tactfully redirect or end someone’s response when they start to dominate
- Encouragingly call on students who are quiet or who need support entering a conversation — but don’t obligate anyone. Instead, offer a chance to follow up with ideas or provide input another way.
*There is a lot more to group dynamics that we won’t unpack here, but this bullet point is one dust mite on top of the tip of the iceberg. 😄
- When appropriate, thoughtfully respond to questions seeking a finite answer from you with your own questions to prompt critical thought and construction of own answer/interpretation
For example, if you’re having a team discussion about creating a better shop closing checklist, you might facilitate a conversation about why the current one isn’t working. A team member might say, “can you just tell us what to fix and put a sign up or something?”
You can reply with, “it sounds like you’re in favor of me telling you what to do and just putting up a sign. What is it about that option that you like?”
⭐ Key action: Let’s try to apply what you read to your own scenario.
▶️ How to do it: Think about a time in the past when you had to explain or listen. Facilitating is a trickier one. Walk through the above points on either explaining or listening. How did your behavior match up?
In explaining: did you have a concrete action you wanted people to be able to do by the end? Were you clear how you could measure it?
In listening: how did your behavior compare to the checks for true listening?
💭 Think about it: Even in a perfect world where you always get along with everyone you work with, and who works for you, what benefit to your business and your experience at work do you think you might see from intentionally practicing explaining or listening?
