Our image of leaders is often of someone giving orders or pontificating about what is supposed to happen. Our leader monologue is always one way traffic and we may be laying down golden advice in English or our imperfect Japanese, but is it being received, understood, digested, accepted or employed? In this modern, stressful, super busy life, we give the team a rapid burst from our content firehose and then we move on, because there is a lot for us to do. Subsequently, we discover what we wanted wasn’t done at all or was done incorrectly or was taken off on a tangent we never imagined possible.
This is more common than it should be and we must be cautious when we are engaging in linear communication with our teams. The content is often published rules and regulations, policies and procedural guidelines. We may have developed Standard Operation Procedures which outline how things are supposed to be done. We send out our memos, emails, text messages using various broadcast media. The good thing is it is written down, so for Japanese team members, it is easier to absorb than rapid fire conversation. These are some typical ways we launch our missives into the void and we are never sure if people actually read, noted or understood what we were saying.
We are the boss right, so they have to take careful note of what we say, especially when we take the time to get key messages in front of everyone. We are busy people, so this type of activity by its nature will be reserved for the most important content. Therefore, everyone should know that communication hierarchy and treat these contributions carefully and thoughtfully. Except they don’t always do that, do they. Why? Like their bosses, they are drowning in information, are subject to a constant bombardment of emails, messages on Teams or Slack, etc., updates on social media or from any of the other burdensome abominable conduits piling on the workload and filling up every minute of the day. And it was in English.
So yes, we have to be articulate, concise and clear in our communication but we also have to use questions to clarify understanding and operate at the highest levels of listening capability. Asking clarifying questions is relatively easy, but are we actually good listeners? We assume we are, simply because we are too busy to pay any attention to how we listen. Let’s explore the five levels of listening and see how we stack up.
Ignore.
We might be thinking, “I never ignore the team member when they are speaking”.
Is that true though? The person may say something which triggers a strong thought in our mind. We are now completely diverted from what they are saying, to what we are thinking.
In effect, we are no longer paying any attention to them, because we are consumed by our own thoughts. Effectively, we are ignoring them.
Pretend.
In this case, we are polite, considerate and very boss like. We are nodding our head and looking like we are concentrating, but we may not be fully taking in what we are being told. Again, our mind may be busily crafting what we are going to say in our clever response to their points. Or we may have been given an indication from the team member about something that interests them and we are getting ready to give them the benefit of our genius ideas and brilliant experiences. If we hear something that sounds like resistance to our idea, that gets an instant counter response. We are now mentally consumed with getting our evidence ready, so that we can go into an argument with them. We want to sort them out, get them to fly right and get them to agree with our “correct” opinion.
Selective.
Bosses have a highly tuned ability to hear agreement with their opinion and may miss key information. Our listening skills are directed only to hear a “yes” or a “no” response regarding our ideas and nothing else from subordinates. There may be key information attached to that “yes” or “no”, but we are certainly not listening for that. We are filtering what we hear, according to our interests and preferences. Effectively, we are only partially listening to the person. We are standing right there in front of them, but they do not have our full focus. My wife assures me I am doing this at home too and she is probably right, so more work to be done here.
Attentive.
In this case we are giving the team member our full attention. We are not filtering for signs of agreement or resistance. We are not cutting them off, finishing their sentences or redirecting them mid-sentence. We are patiently and politely waiting for them to finish what they want to say. We then paraphrase back to them what we heard. We are not shortchanging them, thinking what we are going to say, because we are fully absorbed by what they are saying.
Empathetic.
This is the highest form of listening, where we are listening with our eyes as well as our ears.
We are reading what is going on behind the words. We are conscious of what is not being said and we are listening to the tone of how we are being told the information. We are trying to meet the person “in the conversation going on in their mind”.
Churchillian long bursts of our brilliance may make us feel good, I certainly enjoy giving them, but as leaders we should be aiming for more interactive communication with our team. We need to have them respond to what we have said to ensure we are on the same wavelength and that we have actually heard each other correctly. If we discover there is a gap in understanding, then that reflection allows us to correct it on the spot. “I never said that”, “That isn’t what I meant”, “No, it is the other way around”, are all exchanges we want to avoid having to engage in. When we are each speaking in another language, the opportunities for misunderstanding are rife. Both sides never have enough vocabulary to completely frame entire thoughts and communicate the subtleties of the language in its original form. English is very confronting and direct and Japanese is often vague and circuitous. Checking for understanding becomes obligatory.
However, even the act of checking is no guarantee. If I don’t completely understand what I am being told in Japanese, I may be smiling, nodding and looking like I get it, because it is tiresome and embarrassing to admit my linguistic skills are not perfect. My Japanese team members do the same when we operate in English, so the linguistic bear traps are many. We need to have our team members feed back to us what we think they understand, to see if it is a match. Empathetic listening and habituated checking for understanding have to become our firm habits in Japan.
