The Hindu Business Line : Listening is the key!

We do not realise often that a manager's work is nearly all about communication. One way of finding this out is looking at one's own day in retrospect, or better still keeping a diary. Much managerial time is be spent on seemingly endless meetings, listening to people dropping in, speaking on the phone, or writing or reading reports, mails or SMS — mostly asynchronous forms of communication. Most of the time, we have to try to persuade somebody in favour of a decision, negotiate an agreement or facilitate a compromise resolution - between departments, individuals, customer and the company and so on.

Is there a single most powerful tool that helps a manager do this job better and better all the time? It seems as though all we need is skill in the use of language, and the arts of clear, precise, persuasive and even at times emotional conversation. True, but there's something far more important to be attended to first.

Think about the last few times you were stuck with an impasse over a business situation; you will most likely find that it was a problem of differences in perception and understanding or expectations between two people. How often have we wrung our hands in frustration, thinking "if only that so-and-so would get off his high horse or drop his prejudice and show some empathy, or give in a bit!" From resolving difficulties in settling an inter-departmental wrangle to the mess in our relations with some neighbouring countries, all such issues boil down to such difficulties. And they are all about people hearing but not being able to listen!

Yet, some people seem to thrive in these situations, and appear to suffer less emotional wear and tear on the whole. What is the secret of their success? Experience, and fairly extensive observation, suggest that three factors seem to be crucial here: the quality of listening, the ability to keep a balanced tone of voice and mind as well as the capacity to ask the right questions - keeping personalities in abeyance. Well, that does seem a mouthful, but it is not rocket science. And there are methods that help one progress along this route, which of course has no end, as life is inevitably a path of continuous learning about people and relationships.

The next logical question is: what lies behind these factors? Listening, keeping a balance and objectivity in questioning or exploring all demand a degree of detachment and freedom from anxiety or fear about the outcome, and that is the nub of the issue. Here is what most of us find so difficult to accept or absorb — the more anxious and concerned we are about winning our point, the more difficult it is for us to get across to the other party. Equally the more our focus on them, the less is the attention on the issue at hand. The demanding challenge is to learn complete focus on the issue without sacrificing any of one's persuasive powers, while keeping oneself at ease.

Although much of the recent research into emotional intelligence and soft skills, which have attracted a good deal of attention in industrial management, tells us clearly that listening is the key, it doesn't go far enough in explaining the fact that this is not a trick. It demands a genuine change in our mindsets, in our frames of thinking. Good listening, of course, is the essence of communication and it takes effort — not so much physically as emotionally.

Another error we fall into is to think of it as a separate skill to be practised and learnt. Listening calls for simply doing it! Be continually aware of and acknowledging one's own reactions during the communication. Yes, it is one of those things in life that is easier said than done - and perhaps looks simple in retrospect not while doing it! We shall discuss the impact of this on dialogue and on resolution of problems in later chapters of the series.

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