Welcome To Together UP!

Curated insights shared with you to lead, build better teams, and do the little things that make a huge impact on performance.

I am a leadership and team development coach who believes that teams outlast and outperform when built from the bottom up.

I WOULD BE GRATEFUL IF YOU SHARED TOGETHER UP! WITH THOSE YOU THINK WILL ENJOY IT!

The goal is to inspire. No matter what team you’re on

Now onto Edition #11

A “listening tour” is a set period of time where a new leader meets with as many key stakeholders as possible to ask questions, hear concerns, identify barriers, and build rapport.

It’s usually announced by the new leader as their first initiative.

The goal is two-fold. It’s TACTICAL & OPTICAL

Tactical:

• Get a feel for what people are thinking, feeling.

• Get up to speed on the business(es).

• Understand challenges

• Understand what’s working

• Get to know the personalities

• Simply take account from a 10,000 foot view.

• WHAT’S THE VIBE?

Optical

• Show people you care

• Show people their opinion matters.

• Show them you don’t want to just come in and make changes or put “your stamp” on things, but instead you’ll first take into account their feedback.

• You show your face!

• You see their faces!

You establish trust so the people follow your lead.

By allowing for a safe place to share thoughts, feelings, opinions, and gain an understanding of what’s working, the people in the room have a sense that they are heard and seen.

The quality of listening matters.

Yes, you heard that.

Brace yourself.

The “Listening Tour” requires… are you ready?

Listening.

How many times have you had a new leader come in and say:
“The first thing I’m going to do is take some time to get to know the place. I’m going to go on a “listening tour”.

Wonderful!

You’re thinking, we’re going to get a chance to share what we think about where things are at. We’ll get a sense of the new leader - the one who’ll be making a lot of the important decisions that will directly impact my day, my work, my life, my happiness, and my family!

He/she is showing they are willing to listen to us! FINALLY!!

Here’s the thing.

I’m a skeptic. But I do love to be proven wrong.

Not because listening tours aren’t exactly what should be done by a new leader, but because they are typically mishandled.

They are too often more optical than tactical. When it’s window-dressing it can do more harm than its intended good.

Leaders need help in executing this crucial first impression.

Yet too many rely on instinct alone. Their need to exert power and authority from the get-go overtakes them in the short term, impacting what could be a wonderful opportunity for the long-term.

But who is going to tell the new big hire that they’d like to give them advice on how to execute this initiative when the organization is trying to show their trust in the newly appointed leader?

For me it falls firmly in the category of “this isn’t hard” when it comes to things leaders can do - but usually don’t - to leverage this important approach.

Why Am I Skeptical?

My skepticism comes from many poorly handled attempts at this - experienced firsthand.

At one stop in my journey, the organization I was with hired a new big boss to come in and run things. It was needed and we were hopeful.

They were bringing in an outside perspective.

Great!

He had a certain amount of success where he came from, and while we knew the approach would be different, what we had heard about those results was somewhat encouraging.

He announced a listening tour as his first initiative.

He wasn’t going to do anything until he had a chance to meet with and hear from all of the teams that made up the larger organization.

Awesome!!

After all, this is going to be the person who sets the priorities, who establishes goals, who hires (and fires), and who decides to what degree your particular business unit will be invested in.

He wants to hear from us? That matters! This is your life. This is where you spend all of your days.

How this first meeting goes, the feeling you get when you leave the room matters!

But what we learned very quickly in this listening tour, was that this tour was not about him listening to us, it was about us listening to him.

This “tour” like most, involved a series of groups put together in the big conference room, over a series of days and weeks, so he could hear form as many people as possible.

He was there to tell us about his style, his approach, and what he’d be looking to do.

The feedback that was offered to him from those in the room about possible enhancements to the businesses or questions around concerns for businesses that may have been in flux were not met with the feeling of genuine and active listening, but instead through an aura of “here’s what I know, I’m here for a reason, and if things were working, I wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

Ultimately what he was saying to us was “your opinions don’t really matter. I’m in charge and I’m trying to personalize it by getting in front of you.”

Why this matters:

This matters because the way he handled this was a huge red flag, and we would eventually learn why.

I saw a great post today from a former colleague, Sean Dillon a former Navy Seal, who cited the Marines for distilling down in a manual, the difference between leading and managing.

You LEAD PEOPLE and you MANAGE THINGS.

Inherently, our new leader was there to manage the things that were going into the business and not lead the humans.

But listening is human. A time labeled as, and dedicated to listening, is geared towards the human element.

Listening is communicating.

Listening is directly correlated with having those stakeholders who are in the room feeling valued.

Feeling valued is a human need.

By turning this crucial opportunity to listen to the people into a focus on the assets, the resources, the systems, operations, projects, and the focus of effort, he immediately dehumanized the team.

This was a strategy session, there was no listening.

Fast-forward a number of months, and this new leader’s strategy was to eliminate many senior-level positions. Fire people.

His listening tour took the person out of the process. So when it came time for him to take the people out of the organization, it only aligned with what we “heard” as we listened.

We heard we didn’t matter and he executed on that.

Opportunities like this are very few.

A first impression. A chance to start relatively fresh. A chance to share feedback without consequence.

This was no leader. This was a manager.

As a result, the organization’s morale suffered - as long as this person was in charge, it was going to be about the systems, the resources, and the things in the room.

Not the people.

When you start to forget the people, they start to perform like they are forgotten.

That’s what I felt.

That’s what most felt.

So would it have mattered for this leader’s first intro to be quite different and have him actually listen? Perhaps not. The likelihood is that he was going to operate the way he was going to operate no matter what his first tour looked like.

One thing is for certain, as I look at how this leader was put in that seat in the first place.

Whoever hired him wasn’t listening.

Elements Of An Effective Listening Tour

1. Listen.
   Just Listen.
   Don’t solve, don’t correct, and don’t inject assumptions.
   There’s plenty of time for that.
   Hit your speedbump.
   Just listen.
   Say Thank You.
   

2. Go in with a giving mindset.

   Simon Sinek talks about this in his thoughts on how to present to people.
   Think of listening to the room as a gift to them.
   
   If you could walk in and hand each of them $1,000 wouldn’t it feel awesome? Wouldn’t that make you come across as so generous?
   
   Listening to them is a gift. Their voice being valued is likely worth more than $1,000 to their every day and their career.
   
   Go in with the mindset that you are giving them this gift of having them heard.
   

3. Share what you heard!
   
   One of the easiest ways to diminish the value of the work done in these tours/these first meetings is for there to be no outcome.
   
   It’s okay to say why some of the things you heard may not be achievable yet. But knowing that your voice was heard is crucial to following.
   
   After the listening tour is “finished” share with everyone what you heard.
   An email, a memo, a talk. Size of the org matters - do what gets the message out to them.

   Wrap it up and tie a bow on it by sharing what you heard.
   

4. Be specific in sharing what you heard. Humanize it.
   Thank someone by name for speaking up.
   Thank more than one person.
   Tell a story you heard.

Simply. Show. That. You. Were. Listening.

Want your culture to be one that people feel your door is always open?

Listen with purpose and thank those who walk through that door.

A conversation is between at least two people.

Listening brings those people further together.

Together UP!

Where To From Here?

Three actionable steps you can take today, to be a better leader or inspire others.

1. Understand what it is to engage in active listening.
   I’ve cited Chris Voss, the former lead international hostage negotiator for the FBI and Author of one of my favorite books Never Split the Difference in an earlier edition of Together UP!
   
   I consider him to be very valuable in teaching nuanced communication skills.
   Just today he posted this:

• Stop Talking!

• Use Encouragement!

• Mirror What They’re Saying

• Remember It’s not about you.

• Stay Curious
  (Full Link to Post below)

2. If you have the opportunity to hit the reset button. You’re newly placed in a role. You feel the need to re-establish trust. Whatever the case may be, Use a listening tour as a means to do so.
   
   When people share. Say Thank You.
   Do not look to solve or explain or defend.
   Make the people in the room feel seen and heard.
   

3. Encourage whoever may embark on one of these to seek guidance on executing their tour. You are showing them that you care about their success. You want their first impression to be high impact to the trust and culture of who they’ll be leading. Seek getting it right.

Link to Chris Voss Post:

In a way, Together UP! Is a conversation.

It is me sharing my view, but my view is one side of the conversation.

By reading, you’re actively listening and that makes me feel seen and heard.

So Thank You For Listening!

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