LISTEN TO ME! I found myself screaming at someone the other day. It was amazing – everything I said to him seemed to steer him right back to what he wanted to talk about. I was simply the guy on the other end of their conversation. If I’d been replaced by someone else, he’d have said the same things. Like a two-way radio stuck on transmit only.

And they were trying to sell me something!

Yak Yak Yak.

Hysterically, this person finished my sentences for me, but in so doing revealed that he didn’t know what I was going to say…!

He probably thought he had the gift of the gab. He’s probably been told that. And thought it was a complement. The thing about the gift of the gab is it isn’t a gift. It’s a pain in the neck for those who have to listen to this type of market stall drivel.

So I screamed at him LISTEN TO ME. But I’m reasonably well behaved these days so I only screamed at him in my head. If he had listened to me, he might have made the sale. I actually wanted what he was selling. But I was not going to reward him – I’ll reward someone else who has similar stuff but actually listens.

So, how to listen?

It’s not that hard, but like everything else, you need to want to do it. You need to understand that really listening is the right way to behave, and not just when you’re selling.  No degree of discipline and technique-honing will make you a good listener if your real reason for doing it is as a sneaky tool to get what you want.

So, what to do?

Firstly, listen attentively without interrupting. Don’t finish people’s sentences for them. Maintain eye contact. They are trying to communicate with you, so let them do it.

Secondly, when they stop talking, pause before replying. Don’t just rush in. Don’t be afraid of a second or two of silence. And if you’ve been formulating your brilliant repost while they’ve been talking and are waiting for a microsecond’s break to launch your sparkling reply into the conversation like a cruise missile, go back to the first step.

Thirdly, seek clarification. “What do you mean by…?” “Explain that to me again…” Get their message: loud, clear and accurate.

Fourthly, play back what’s been said to you; allow the other person to correct you or confirm you’ve got it right.

That’s listening – attention, pause, clarify, repeat. It’s not linear, you can skip around.

Two things happen when you listen properly.

One – you actually understand better, which is calming.

Two – you’ve been respectful and they’ll like you for that. We all need to be understood. You will stand out as someone who seeks to understand.

As I said, you cannot do this as a manipulative technique, so if that’s where you are – don’t waste your time.

But if you do actually wish to understand your fellow human being as we career through this life…give these simple techniques a try. Take the time.

Most people accept that having goals is better than not having goals. But then very few people actually have goals. Why the contradiction?

This is what people say:

I’ve got goals already!

I want to be slim, rich, travel to Australia, run the London marathon. These are not goals. They are dreams.  Dreams are fine. A lot of goals start as dreams. But goals are different. They are written, precise, measurable, have an associated plan and a timescale for completion.

I don’t know how to set goals.

This is sadly believable because we are not taught how to do it at school. There’s a process for generating and delivering goals. The process is not fool-proof. But life isn’t a game of perfection. It’s about stacking the odds in your favour.

I think I’ll fail.

Well, don’t set a goal that you think you will fail to achieve. In order to be motivated we need to believe we have a pretty good chance of success. So set a goal you can achieve. But here’s the good bit – in time, this repetition of success will embolden you and you will set more challenging goals until you are routinely achieving goals that would have seemed impossible a few years ago.  And in any event, it is not setting high goals and failing to achieve them that is the worlds’ problem, it is setting low goals and achieving them.

My friends will laugh at me when I tell them my goal.

So don’t tell them. And, in time, get new friends.

I don’t need goals; I know what I’m doing.

You do, to an extent. But you can stagger around in the fog, sort of heading in the right direction and you will, in the round, make progress. But having goals is like driving on a sunny day with clear views and a map. You will also make progress, but an awful lot more of it.

I have goals…in my head.

See above.

Life is too unpredictable.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’re going to take off and then make a right turn until the nose of the 747 is pointing directly at London. Then, we’re going to relax for the next 7 hours. The cross winds, turbulence and general lack of order in our atmosphere means we may land anywhere from Reykjavik to Algiers. But hey, life’s unpredictable. Thank you for flying with Unpredictable Airways.”

Don’t get me wrong. Sometime we have to simply react to external events. But let’s not sacrifice all self-determination because occasionally life throws us a wobbler.

Goal setting starts are a chore, becomes a discipline, then a trusty tool. By that point you realise goal setting is the greatest skill you can learn. And the thing about skills is – you can learn them!

Success comes from goal-directed action.

Start small – have one goal. Set it now. What would you like to achieve by the end of this week that you would not have done if you had not read this blog post.

Do it now – take 2 minutes. You’re worth it.

I was inspired to write on this topic by Brian Tracey www.briantracey.com. Despite sharing a surname, he isn’t one of the Thunderbirds, but if that was his goal, he’d be one.

Book Review

How To Be Smart With Your Time – Duncan Bannatyne

This is the fourth book by Dragon’s Den star Duncan Bannatyne, a man who didn’t get serious about business until he was 30, but has since spent three decades building his care home and health club empire.

This book gives us Bannatyne’s spin on how to make the most of our time, a commodity that is allocated equally to us all, he points out, unlike money or good looks.

In the first part of the book he gives a simple but effective processes for identifying our goals in all areas of life: home, work, family, love, friends, money and passion (he takes it for granted that we all want good health). I’ve seen this process before and it really is effective. To establish a goal for each area of life is an essential starting point.

Then comes the killer bit. You take all the goals, bar one, and throw them in the bin. We can only do so much, he argues. One major goal at a time is enough.

Bannatyne runs through a lot of good stuff on how to fulfil this goal. Lots of advice that can be summarised in pithy aphorisms: innovation is expensive, so copy what works; perfectionism is the enemy of the good – second best is close to ideal; play to your strengths. The list goes on…

And that’s the end of Part 1 – you have selected a great goal and got some good advice.

Bannatyne then moves into Part 2, where he focuses on action and the efficient use of time. This is all about time management, or personal productivity. Do the important stuff first, he says like so many other time management experts, and eliminate the trivial. Be efficient and focused.

He quotes research by the Institute of Psychiatry that shows multi-tasking lowers your IQ by 10 points! I just love that, it is a great lesson to learn. In my experience multi-tasking only works at a trivial level. And, of course, you shouldn’t be spending your time on trivia in the first place.

No doubt this is a good book, but there is nothing new in it. I supposed this does not really matter because we don’t need a new system; we simply need to implement what is already available. My experience over 20 years has shown that people spend 15% of their time doing what they need to do to get what they want to get. But really successful people don’t do this. They spend 70 to 80% of their time on these high-payoff activities.

But there is more to being smart with your time that Bannatyne does not even touch on in the book. I cannot agree more that doing the important stuff is critical, as is getting rid of trivia and delegating like crazy. But we can easily go wrong because we do not identify all the high-payoff activities that we must do to achieve our goals.

Or if we do actually spot everything we have to do, too often we then only do the tasks with which we are comfortable.

We can spend 80% of our time selling, for example, but if we do not spend some time prospecting and marketing (or have someone who does it for us), we will suffer feast and famine.

So, I would like to add to Bannatyne’s premise that we must spend our time on the important stuff. We must make sure we do all the important stuff.

With this small gripe aside, I enjoyed the book and its two central messages: define your goals; be efficient and effective. Simple, yet elusive, and undoubtedly the secret of success.

This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on Teams.

I’ve been working with a particular team performance model now for a few years. I have found it very effective, intuitive and easy to understand. It’s by The Table Group.

Would you like more tea…

The thing about teams is that they often seem to be doing fine but really they’re just being civil. You know, polite. But when they come under external threat, or have a significant, contentious issue to deal with, they very quickly fragment into factions.

This is because the team is not really built on sound foundations. The individuals can be superstars but teams are teams – they need a different kind of behaviour and this behaviour needs to be fostered.

Trust…

It starts with trust. What is trust? “I can trust you to be 10 minutes late!” That’s not trust. That’s predictability. Trust is about feeling able to be vulnerable in front of others. Being able to show weakness. And to know that the weakness won’t be exploited. Now or in the future.

Conflict is good for you…

If a team trusts itself, then fear of conflict is diminished. This is important because conflict will almost certainly arise when major issues need to be addressed. These issues require full debate. If the team members fear the natural conflict that will arise and will not talk openly, then they cannot get to the next stage.

Yes, but, we didn’t really consider…

No conflict (and its resolution)…no commitment. The team may well say they are committed, but when they are challenged by others outside of the team, they find it difficult to vigourously defend the decision if the natural conflicts within the team have not been resolved. This leads to a break down in cabinet responsibility and the projection of an image of fractured and inconsistent leadership. You see it all the time, particularly with politicians.

Commitment leads to accountability…

Once committed to a decision, people are more able to accept accountability and to hold their fellow team members to account. It is impossible to accept accountability where there is no commitment to the decision.

At last! What we’re here for…

Without accountability, there is an inattention to results. And that’s what the team’s for. To get results.

Only at this level, with a trusting team, fully debating issues, building commitment and through that accountability, can all the team energy be focused on getting results. These teams are at the top of their game, but it doesn’t happen by chance. It isn’t some kind of interpersonal magic. It isn’t something that happens in time, “once we get to know one another”. That’s just familiarity.

True team effectiveness is 2 + 2 = 5. It’s a source of competitive advantage. Leaders make it happen.