Darrell L. Browning is a principal founder of BrowningLaFrankie LLC, a Philadelphia-area based company specializing in helping companies manage crises, train leaders in media and presentation skills in addition to facilitating strategic change through leadership development and organizational development workshops. Browning is the trainer-of-choice at The Wharton School MBA Program at the University of Pennsylvania in crisis communications, media training and business writing. A journalist by profession, Browning has more than 20 years of media experience with CBS-Radio, daily newspapers and national magazines. He holds degrees in Journalism and Social Sciences from The Ohio State University. For more information see http://www.browninglafrankie.com.
Think Baseball to Improve Listening Skills
By Darrell L. Browning
Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn came up with a great analogy for how to listen better in their book, For Men Only. Although written for men who, ahem, may not listen as well as their counterparts, their advice to think baseball when you need to listen more effectively hit a home run with us. And despite this book focusing on improving the relationship between couples, it works in business too. After all, business is about relationships first and foremost. So let's talk about you.
You can't score until you get on First Base. To do this, you need to deploy Physical Attention. That means maintaining eye-contact for credibility and believability purposes and establishing a "human" connection. It also means--during conference calls-- staying in the same room. How many of us have heard someone shout out to us that they are listening while going in the next room to do something else? They may say they are listening, but they are not.
Second Base is where you need to use Mental Attention. Don't be working on something else on your desk pad during a meeting. And concentrate: you can't be mulling something over and over in your mind and listen with any degree of effectiveness. The Feldhahn book points out that most of us think when we are "listening" we aren't really doing anything, but we are. If you really want to listen, put other things aside.
Third Base is where you have to Listen to the Right Thing--the clues that will get you all the way around the bases. What third-base runner doesn't pay attention to hand signals? Be open to what others may be thinking or feeling. The real work comes last:
Home Base. Any baseball aficionado knows that sluggers who try to hit nothing but home runs strike out a lot. That works in the real world, too. The Feldhahns call for Acknowledging and Affirming as the rule to complete the trip around the bases. To that we add acknowledge with empathy and sincerity.
Watch out for running interference: shut off your cell phones and iPods and don't let someone else entering the room disrupt the communication. Treat the conversation--and the other person--with respect.
For more information see http://www.browninglafrankie.com.
©BrowningLaFrankie 2009
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