The Opsimath

I hear what you say...

...except that in many conversations that have taken place today, people have not heard what the other person has been saying.

For an awful lot of people, 'listening' is simply the gap between the last thing they said and the next. It is a passive thing, rather than an active experience. If we want to really engage with people, we must work at making our listening far more active. This takes determination, it takes effort and it takes care - no wonder that so many people simply don't bother. 

So what is active listening? Here are a few thoughts:

Observation - giving careful, non-evaluative attention to the person speaking and making appropriate eye contact will enable you to gauge the emotional element of the message that you are receiving. After all, there is always more to the message than the words that are being spoken.

Reflecting Facts - by reflecting back some of the information that you are receiving, perhaps by the use of paraphrases, should help turn listening into hearing.

Summarising - by occasionally summarising what has been said, we can check our understanding and thus gain clarity about the message we are receiving.

Reflecting Feelings - we have heard the words, hopefully understood their meaning and been able to reflect and summarise them back to the speaker. Now we should also consider feeding back the emotional part of the message that we have received.

If we try some of these ideas, it is just possible that we will raise the confidence level of the speaker that they really are being heard by us, and that has got to improve the level of communication that is taking place.

Active listening - give it a try!

Resolutions for (Good) Trainers

Here's my suggestions for the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for Business and Management Trainers:

1. I am a lifelong learner, therefore I will learn from other people - include any people that I am meant to be training
2. I will not be arrogant enough to think that I know all there is to know, so I commit to using the phrase "I don't know"
3. I will treat all delegates with fairness and tolerance, seeking first to know, to empathise
4. I will always seek to try new ways of delivery - stepping outside my comfort zone
5. I will not become dependent on visual media such as PowerPoint, and I will not use it as an instrument of boredom
6. I will check the arrangements, the logistics and my materials in advance - not taking anything for granted
7. I will seek to ask questions, in a way that will aid the learning of my delegates
8. I will try to understand what people are trying to express and not just listen to the words spoken
9. I will prioritise my own development to ensure that I 'sharpen the saw'
10. I commit to adding some value to the experience of the delegates attending the course I am leading

 

Other suggestions are welcome...

Am I though...

 ...bovvered. Am I bovvered?

For those readers not acquainted with this strange language, this is one of the catch phrases of a character invented by comedy actress Catherine Tate - Lauren Cooper. Lauren is a teenager with what can only be described as a 'surly attitude'. She responds to each situation with this classic question, "Am I bothered?" (pronounced 'bovvered').

Now this approach can be surprisingly helpful to any project or programme manager.

Imagine that you have been called to see the new 'Portfolio Director'. She has been tasked with trimming down the number of projects that the organisation is delivering at present. She has asked for a 'brief' presentation from you about your project.

So what do you say?

Many project managers would be tempted to wax lyrical about what the project is going to deliver - the project outputs.

This could be a big mistake.

It might be met with a Lauren Cooper response, because your Portfolio Director does not want to talk the language of project outputs. They are thinking a far bigger picture. They are thinking at least outcomes. They are probably thinking business benefits.

Unless you really want to hear "Am I Bovvered", you need to be thinking this way too.

And as you prepare your presentation think like a senior manager. Think outcomes and benefits. Think like Lauren...

I didn't know that!

Communication is at the heart of directing good projects, and the Project Board must ensure that this communication is timely and effective. Hence the final item in our series: The Duties and Behaviours of the Project Board

8 Ensure Effective Communication

This does not mean that the Board carry out all project communications, but, as champions of the project, they should be responsible for directing the communications and for communicating with key stakeholders.

In particular, the Board should be communicating with corporate or programme management who are effectively sponsoring the project. It is important to manage the perceptions at this level in order to ensure the ongoing visibility of the project within the business. Project Highlight Reports and End Stage Reports can be usefully used in this regard.

The frequency and balance of communications from the project must be carefully worked out between the Board and the Project Manager in order to avoid too much or too little communication.

If you found this series interesting and you would you like to know more about pearcemayfield's Project Board Briefings then please get in touch.

Call us now on 01235 227252 or email me directly at john.edmonds@pearcemayfield.com

Failure is Instructional

So says Diana Laufenberg who teaches 11th-grade American History in Philadelphia. She goes on to say that learning must include an element of failure in order to be effective.

Take a listen...

 

The Power of the Pause - and the Impact of Good Timing

In a previous post called "Reading Speeches - why not to do it" I looked at the dangers of simply reading out a speech, and the damage it does to the emotional impact of the talk.

Like all 'rules', it is great when it is broken, and broken well.

This lady breaks the rule. She reads her speech (which takes place after the prayer), but does it with great style. Her delivery is beautifully dry, and her humour deadpan. But it is the timing and the use of pauses which win the day.

Great speech!

Reading Speeches - why not to do it

Here's an excellent article from the Decker Blog - Lesson from the Hall of Fame: Don’t read speeches!

It contains a couple of examples of speeches being read, and a brief analysis of what went wrong.

Something else to consider if you are interested in public speaking is Scott  Berkun's book called "Confessions of a Public Speaker".

Scott is quite challenging, saying that most speakers are too lazy to improve on their game. I guess that is why we will always have 'speech readers' with us, and consequently we will have speeches like the two you will see on the Decker Blog.

Storytelling is in the telling

I recently read this from communications guru Bert Decker:

"The art of storytelling is in the telling. Maybe you’ve got a great story. A customer testimonial that will knock a prospect’s socks off. But if you don’t tell it well, who cares?

This is something I’ve been working at since I got married – my mother-in-law helped me realize it. My problem is that I tell a story once, and that’s it. I lose my gusto after that. I start skipping the details and deliver the punch line way too soon. But my mother-in-law… she can tell the same story 9, 13, or 27 times, and it loses nothing! If anything, she gains momentum each time. When she tells stories, she nails the behavioural skills around eye communication and energy – facial expression, vocal variety, and gestures (note an unfair advantage: she is Italian).

Whether it’s the first time or the tenth, deliver the story well. On the content side, don’t skimp on the details: describe the pain, celebrate the success. Then bring the content together with the behaviour. Show and tell how the lead character (whether it’s you or someone else) felt at that moment."

Best Practice Congress 2010...

...some things that I learned.

Here is a random list, in no particular order, of some of the insights that came my way during the last two days at the Best Practice International Congress in London.

• Change is distracting to Business as Usual, as well as being worrying, time-consuming and expensive
• Yet Change Management is common sense - it is little more than good management (but how often do we get that?)
• The spend in the UK each year on change initiatives is around £200 billion
• Most organisations are bad at Benefits Realisation management
• Many organisations would benefit from understanding a few, easy, first steps that they can take to help them towards the change they are looking for
• There is a wide-spread lack of understanding of what the various methods for project, programme and change management do, and how they can be used
• And finally, one that I am acutely aware of: almost everyone would benefit by being trained and coached in presentation skills

If you are interested in Best Practice in Programme, Project and Change Management, why not keep an eye on pearcemayfield's website [click here]. We would like to hear your stories too.

Time to Twitter (Tweet?)

O'Reilly and Milstein's book tell me that there are now 10 million avid users of Twitter (besides Stephen Fry), and colleagues and friends tell me that it is an important - vital - communications tool.

So, I guess it's time to jump in and start tweeting.

If you are in this game ahead of me, then you will find me with a username of johndedmonds. I'm off to read the book...