Tag Archive for: Business

You Might Not Be Having the Conversation You Think You are Having

Two Happy Business women outside the office talking to each other.

By Aimee Hansen

You’re not half as good at listening as you think you are.

What’s your first inclination? Dismiss the suggestion? Defend yourself? Conjure up anecdotes supporting just how attentive and caring and compassionate of a listener you truly are?

Would you be proving the accusation true? Most of us aren’t nearly as good of conversationalists as we perceive ourselves to be. In fact, some of the things we think make us great conversationalists might hinder our ability to listen to and support others.

In her book, “We Need to Talk: How To Have Conversations that Matter,” award-winning journalist and author Celeste Headlee, asserts that “conversation may be one of the most fundamental skills we can learn and improve upon.”

Bad communication not only harms our ability to relate to each other. It’s also expensive for business. Cognisco has found that poor communications cost business $37 billion a year.

While good communication, Headlee points out, is profitable: “Companies with leaders who are great communicators have nearly 50 percent higher returns than companies with unexceptional communicators at the helm.”

Here’s a touch of what she highlights in her collection of studies and work and why it matters for relationships of all sorts:

Five ways you might be compromising conversation:

1) You’re not actually having conversations.

Given the choice, over 65% of JPMorgan Chase employees dumped their voice mail in 2015. In 2014, only 6% of Coco-Cola employees kept theirs.

While we’ve culturally shifted to text and e-mails for reasons ranging from speed to control to record-keeping to habit, Headlee writes that research has shown “we are more likely to get our message across through conversation – either in person or on the phone – than we are using a written message.” A 2012 McKinsey study showed that a more selective and intentional use of e-mail would increase productivity by up to 30 percent.

Research summation across 73 studies found that empathy has been in decline over the past thirty years, but especially since 2000. Sitting in front of someone, or hearing the subtle intonations in his or her voice, can build empathy and understanding in a way that bridges gaps and “connects” us again as human beings.

2) You’re keeping your device at the ready.

It turns out that even having a phone on the table during a conversation – regardless of whether you ignore it – has a negative impact on the perception of the connection shared. A British study paired strangers at a table to chat, half the time placing a phone on a nearby table and half the time not. The researchers found that when a cell phone was present in the room (without being touched by either party), the participants reported a lower quality of connection, as well as lower empathy and trust levels for their conversation partner.

We are increasingly lacking real presence in conversations, which mindfulness practices helps us to address.

3) You’re banking on your intellect.

Headlee shares that being smart and articulate doesn’t make you a good conversationalist. In fact, “the smarter you are, the worse you may be.”

“I thought that because I was articulate, I was also good in conversations. But that’s absolutely not true,” Headlee writes. “Being a good talker doesn’t make you a good listener, and being smart might make you a terrible listener.” In fact, it does make you more susceptible to bias.

Headlee says we often fall into what Daniel Kahneman, author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, calls System 1 thinking, which is “quick, intuitive, and relies heavily on patterns we’ve learned after years of experience”. It simplifies by relying on assumptions or mental short-cuts, but short-cuts aren’t always right and are often more emotionally reactive than we realize.

She also points out that “a good conversation requires its participants to use their IQ and their EQ.” Too often we meet vulnerability of emotional sharing with a rational response, which does nothing to support someone who is sharing feelings.

Headlee gives the example of a person sharing vulnerably about his pending divorce and you throw out data on the percentage of marriages that end in divorce in an attempt to suggest it’s normal and okay. It doesn’t help provide the emotional support requested.

“Approaching emotional problems with logic is a strategy that is doomed to failure,” Headlee writes. Assuming you get it without really listening can be another.

4) You’re not transparent in expectations.

One of Headlee’s tips is to “explain what you want and what you expect, and be honest.” She asserts that it puts the other person at more ease when we are transparent about what we hope for from a discussion – and it makes you get clearer on that yourself.

She gives this example from her experience: “I’ve called you in to give you an official reprimand. But that’s as severe as this gets. You’re in no danger of being fired. I want to start this discussion by saying how valuable you are to me and the company. My goal is to help you succeed and make you aware of some issues that might be holding you back.”

It’s also important to be transparent with yourself about your own feelings, before you go into conversation, checking in on what you’re really bringing into the talk.

5) You are dropping out at the first hint of disagreement.

“What bothers me is that we don’t talk to each other but at each other,” writes Headlee. “and we usually don’t listen.”

Western countries are becoming unreadily polarized. A 2016 study found that “most Americans now believe people who disagree with one another demonize one another so aggressively that it’s impossible to find common ground.”

This is exasperated by the “halo and horns effect”, she writes: When we approve of one thing about a person, we generally judge everything about them more positively. When we disapprove of something particular, we’re more likely to judge them negatively in many other ways. We all make incorrect assumptions due to bias.

We are less and less willing to connect with people we disagree with, but Headlee asserts, “the need to have difficult conversations has never been greater” and on top of that, “there is no topic so volatile that it can’t be spoken of.”

“Listening to someone doesn’t mean agreeing with them,” she writes. “The purpose of listening is to understand, not to endorse.”

Despite different opinions, we need to bridge through our humanity, being able to empathize with the other person, including cultivating the ability “to see other individuals who face daily challenges that are equal to mine”.

Disagreement can’t be the end of discussion. It needs to be a basis for it.

“It only takes one good conversation to change your understanding of someone else’s world, your world and the world at large,” writes Headlee.

What Makes for Good Conversation?

Headlee raises ten strategies for sharing better conversations, and they all involve taking stock of your role in co-creating the conversation.

One example is becoming aware of our habitual compassion to switch the conversation back into our control and make it about ourselves, even when it seems like we’re “listening” – what Sociologist Charles Derber calls “conversational narcissism”.

In the Huffington Post, Headlee shares how she attempted to comfort a grieving friend by sharing in the experience of losing a father, but actually what she achieved was to turn the conversation around to herself in a way that made her more comfortable with the topic area and detracted from her friend’s pain and need for support in her grief.

Rather than support what the person is saying to us by seeking more insight into their experience, we’ll often shift and relate it back to our own. Because our minds seek convergent information, we’ll scan and find an experience that’s comparable and begin to mentally overlay that on rather than simply listen, which also means we may distort what is being shared with us.

Another behavior we can become aware of is unnecessary and harmful repetition, especially when it comes to negative feedback. Headlee points out that the chances of remembering something increases for you when you repeat it, but not necessarily for the listener. It usually just serves to create aggravation and can even prompt people to lessen their attention.
Those are just a couple examples of many ways we can improve our conversation skills in a profound way.

Overall, thinking we are great listeners or conversationalists doesn’t at all mean we are.

Like many things, however, we can train ourselves to improve through awareness, and dramatically elevate the true quality and effectiveness of the conversations we share.

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Better Your Business with Better Storytelling

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Elise Valmorbida Guest contributed by Elise Valmorbida

The business world is full of people telling other people that they must tell stories.

They’re right in a way, because we like a bit of drama. We resist or resent dull information. Our attention is more and more a scarce asset. None of us has time or energy to spare. And a brand is nothing if not a story.

But the word ‘story’ gets tossed around like litter in the wind. The great story mavens—from Hollywood screen-writers to wilderness faith-healers—are quoted wantonly in business environments everywhere. Urged to tell stories, well-intentioned organisations too often grow narrative moss: pseudo-stories, shaggy old news pages, voiceless forums, scattered chatter across any kind of social media, unread newsletters, explicit claims of brand “passion” that seduce too few…

Whatever tale you need to tell—elevator pitch, brand history, personal profile, case study, script scenario, project proposal—you can use these tips from the world of literary storytelling to boost your brand success.

Deep-vein authenticity.

Why are you telling a story—this story? What’s at its heart? Think philosophically about the essence. Think, really think, until you unearth its unique truth. If you find a paradox or contradiction, chances are that’s the narrative crux. If embellishment is needed, it will emanate from the heart.

Fresh, not stale.

Samuel Beckett wrote his best plays first in French. He must have been fairly good at French, but it was a foreign language. So why did he do it? He wanted to stop the fluent from flowing. It was a defence against cliché. He compelled himself to think quite carefully about every word, rather than lapsing into lazy ideas or phrases. Try to “think fresh” when you make your verbal and visual choices.

Plot.

Just for now, I’d like you to pretend your brand is a cat.

The cat sat on the mat, and then it sat somewhere else, and then it had a nap, and then…

Yawn.

Instead of “and then”, it’s better plotting to think “so”, “but” or “meanwhile”.

The cat sat on the mat, so the dog had to sit somewhere else.

The cat sat on the mat, but the mat reeked of dog.

The cat sat on the mat. Meanwhile, the dog lurked behind the door.

Concrete nouns.

Welsh-noir author and creative writing teacher Malcolm Pryce writes: “Concrete nouns are judgement free. They don’t tell you what to think, they give you the information and allow you to form your own opinion. Rather than tell me the food was disgusting, which is an instruction to be disgusted, imagine you told me instead, the cook ran out of stock, so she took the bandage off her foot and put it in the stew. Presumably this image arouses disgust naturally within you. This is really what we mean by show not tell.”

Emotion.

Try the cook’s stew above.

Poetry.

Think of a representational still-life painting, where a fly appears to have landed on an apple because the apple looks so real; it’s almost a photograph. Now, think of a more abstract painting—say, a group of apples by Cézanne—and you’re invited to notice the brush-strokes, the gestures of the artist, the qualities of the paint and grain of the canvas. That’s how I think of poetic prose. Beyond the job of information, there’s pleasure to be had in the movements and textures of language itself.

Dialogue.

Voiced utterances are like opening a window and letting in fresh air. “I love spoken words!” the reader says. Think quotation, endorsement, testimonial, user review…

Less is more.

“I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time”—so wrote the 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal. When you edit, your story will probably get shorter. That’s good. Each remaining word (or image) will work harder for you. Bonus: your audience will feel respected because you haven’t wasted their time.

Other people’s shoes.

When I write fiction, I imagine the world from each character’s point of view. They have their own beliefs and reasons for doing things—they are not me. Imagine the situation of your reader as they read your story. Don’t tell them what you think they should feel.

Tell your story to one person.

A business doesn’t read your story, a person does.

Action, reaction.

Be clear about your story’s purpose. Are you inviting people to feel, or understand, or spend, or take some kind of action? Don’t overload the narrative with too many wishes—they’ll cancel each other out.

The end is the beginning…

When we finish reading the last words of a good story, we feel a pleasurable little grief. Perhaps we want to read the whole thing again. Perhaps we want to share it with others. Our world has shifted subtly on its axis. We think about things differently now.

About the author

Elise Valmorbida is a communications consultant, multi-published author and teacher of creative writing. Her latest novel The Madonna of the Mountains (Spiegel & Grau, USA) is a New York Post “must-read” and The Times (UK) Book of the Month. Bestselling author Sara Gruen describes it as “powerful and entrancing, a riveting adventure for the soul.”

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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The Business Case for Gender Diversity: Necessary But Not Sufficient

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diversity

Image via Shutterstock

Guest contributed by Lisa Levey

The business case or economic justification for gender diversity is front and center in any discussion of the subject.

Yet as a veteran diversity consultant, I don’t see the business case is getting the job done. It’s not that the business case is unimportant. Clearly, it’s critical but while the business case is necessary, it’s not sufficient.

There has long been evidence of the links between gender diversity and positive business outcomes – enhanced financial performance, greater creativity and innovation, and less risk among others. In 2008 the U.S. and the world fell into an economic downturn of epic proportions. Yet as late as the spring of 2007, the International Monetary Fund or IMF was messaging continued optimism for the global financial markets.

How could the IMF – explicitly tasked with monitoring the health of global financial markets – have missed the signs? An independent study found that ‘groupthink’ fueled by lack of diversity in perspective was to blame and gender diversity is a powerful means to bring that diversity of perspective to the table.

In June 2011 Christine LaGarde became the first female leader of the IMF replacing her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn who was at the helm in the run-up to the global financial crisis. In 2016 LaGarde was unanimously voted for another 5 year term.  

The IMF example powerfully illustrates the limitations of the business-case only bias characterizing our current approach to justifying a focus on gender diversity. If bringing the world’s economies to their knees does not provide sufficient evidence of the business case for diversity – and the economic hazards of homogeneity – it’s clear the business case must only be a piece of a bigger puzzle.

Most white men approach gender diversity, all diversity truth be told, with trepidation. They experience the topic as harmful, fraught with conflict and risky. For some men, the very idea of enhanced gender diversity elicits anger. They perceive women’s initiatives as reverse discrimination and see support for greater gender diversity as undermining their professional security and status. Gender diversity makes many men feel awkward, confused and guilty; they keep their distance thinking, ‘I’m not one of those guys. I’m a good guy. I’m not doing anything wrong.’ But of all men’s problems with gender diversity, the biggest barrier to their involvement is indifference and apathy. In their mind’s, gender diversity is a women’s issue.

But that is where they would be completely mistaken!

Diversity is about evolving work cultures so that men can be the far more engaged fathers they long to be. Diversity is about men being able to take paternity leave – without career penalty – so they can experience the profound bonding with their child in his or her earliest days. Diversity is about men’s wives and partners being paid equitably, so she can contribute more financially, and he can feel less financial pressure. Diversity is about men’s mothers being able to reenter the workforce after divorce so that she can support herself and rebuild her self-esteem, in many cases. Diversity is about men’s sisters who want to leave unfaithful or violent husbands but don’t feel financially able to do so.

Diversity is about men’s daughters having the same professional opportunities as their sons and their sons having the same opportunities to be involved parents as their daughters. Diversity is about men’s daughters not having to deal with the sexually inappropriate norms that are pervasive in the workplace. Diversity is about men’s female bosses, many incredible mentors, not getting the opportunities they deserve because they’re deemed too nice – or not nice enough – to be a senior leader.

Diversity is about men recognizing that many of their seemingly harmless behaviors – assuming a new mother is not up for the challenge of a new job or stretch assignment without even asking her, making sexual jokes that demean, talking over women in meetings, paying the women you manage less than the men because you can – don’t just affect those other women. They affect his women [and girls] too by normalizing and perpetuating the status quo.   

While gender diversity is the smart thing to do in a business sense, it is also the right thing to do in so many ways. We shouldn’t be so reluctant in the business world to say that aloud! Helping men realize the connections between gender diversity at work – and in their lives outside of work – has been an enormous missing link. Gender diversity is not just about men helping women to thrive at work. It is about men being full partners in driving change because they know just how much gender diversity at work is connected to so many parts of their lives and has repercussions far beyond their workplaces.   

My vision is for white men to be an important voice at the diversity table, listening, sharing, and working to co-create new norms. Gender diversity is not a zero-sum game. It’s about evolving the work world for the 21st century in ways that improve the lives of women and men.

When we talk about gender diversity, in addition to articulating the economic case, let’s also talk about how it deeply affects men – the people they care about, the values they hold, the lives they want to lead, and the world they want to create for themselves and their children.   

Contributor Bio

Lisa Levey is a veteran diversity consultant, having worked with leading organizations for more than two decades to assist them in realizing the underutilized leadership potential of women. Her current work focuses on engaging men as allies and partners. She led the design and development of the Forte Foundation’s Male Ally signature resource platform for engaging men in diversity work and architected a pilot program to launch corporate male ally groups. She blogs for the Huffington Post and the Good Men Project on gender norms at work and at home. In the spring of 2018 partnering with her husband Bryan, Lisa is launching Genderworks, a coaching practice for dual-career professional parents to support them in navigating the obstacles to gender equality at work and at home. Lisa earned an MBA with highest honors from the Simmons School of Management and a BS with distinction from Cornell University in applied economics.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Business Travel Hacks: Europe

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Woman travelling - airportYou’ve likely taken an international business trip or two where you wished you’d been more prepared; whether it be learning about that new travel app, electronic item, or the insider scoop on the best modes of local transportation. Below are a few suggestions to keep in mind for your next professional venture to the United Kingdom and/or the European continent.

Travel Preparation

Make sure you have the following items in your luggage: European travel adaptor, dual voltage hair dryer, and travel iron. The UK and Ireland has different voltage to the rest of continental Euorpe. Toiletry items generally need to be stored in less than 100ml containers to take them in hand luggage on the flight.

When it comes to communication, a lot of travelers aren’t aware that they can stay connected to their U.S. mobile phone without paying international penalty fees. Google Voice has a ‘Hangouts’ app that requires an unlocked phone and a prepaid SIM card. You can pay as little as $13 a week for unlimited calls and limited data, and some SIM cards are available for $30 a month or under.

The hardest thing about going this route is unlocking your phone, since most smartphones are locked when you purchase them. There are a few easy ways around this.T-Mobile offers a free unlock code within 40 days of being a customer, and AT&T will do the same after 60 days, up to five times a year. You also have the option of paying a one-time fee through a third-party service which usually runs around $20.

Luckily, we live in the age of the smartphone, which allows you to pack much lighter with apps that help you with casual translations, exchange rates, jet lag, packing and organizing your trip schedule and more.

Out of many free and useful smartphone apps, there are a couple in particular that may help you while in Europe. iStone can swiftly help you in a translation debacle. It records and translates into 12 languages and carries more than 300 useful phrases in its data arsenal. It also features a native pronunciation feature. Better yet, it doesn’t require Wi-Fi. Worldmate is also handy for business travelers, combining all your travel booking info (flights, hotels, cars, etc.) to create both business travel and meeting agenda itineraries. The app also aggregates smartphone features such as world clocks, maps, weather info, and both Outlook and LinkedIn options so your itinerary can be shared among colleagues and peers.

Finally, make sure you are aware of the UK’s emergency number (999) and keep in mind that the current exchange rates change everyday.

“pharmacists are more useful as a contact point for a person whose health is in question in Europe than they are allowed by law to be in the US.”

Customs and Transportation

The European Union is vastly diverse, and even if a country uses English as its official, or secondary language, common customs in Sweden and Portugal may be surprisingly adverse to each other. Here a few European customs to be aware of and avoid:

Free drink ‘refills’ are not customary in Europe. Tipping isn’t a necessity, though if the service went above and beyond, a small tip is customary. 18-20% is definitely an American custom. Keep in mind that if you are driving after consuming alcohol, the blood alcohol levels vary by country, so you may want to review them.

About Travel notes that “pharmacists are more useful as a contact point for a person whose health is in question in Europe than they are allowed by law to be in the US.” If you happen to be closer to a pharmacy than a hospital, you may find the services you need there.

You can check out an array of country specific local customs on Virtual Tourist. The site includes comments from travelers who post things like customary greeting advice. For example, “The Austrian’s don’t greet each other like Germans with “Guten Tag”, instead you will hear a hearty “Grüß Gott!” (it means “Greet God”)” when entering a premises.

When it comes to making dining reservations, Forbes veteran travel journalist Larry Olmstead recommends using your hotel concierge. It is easier to get into the top restaurants this way, as well as saves you the hassle of trying to book online on a website in a foreign language. “Even if you can do it yourself, he writes, “the concierge at a top hotel like the Four Seasons or Peninsula has more clout and is likely to get a better table and the time you want.” He also mentions that it is important to tip the concierge, even if tipping in restaurants isn’t customary.

by Gina Scanlon

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Voice of Experience: Karen Loon, Banking and Capital Markets Leader, PwC Singapore

karen loonWelcome the The Glass Hammer’s “Spotlight on Asia” week! We will be highlighting successful women working in Asia all week long!

Karen Loon, recently appointed as PwC Singapore’s Banking and Capital Markets Leader, knows that making assumptions based on someone’s gender is a mistake. Assumptions based on appearance are often equally misleading. That’s because while some might assume that Loon was born in Asia, she’s actually a fourth-generation, Australian-born Chinese.

That’s why her interest in diversity runs deeper than just gender. “I am passionate about ensuring that both women and those from culturally diverse backgrounds are given the right opportunities to thrive within their organizations,” she says, which makes her the ideal fit to be PwC Singapore’s Territory Diversity Leader.

A Career in Accounting Added up for Loon

Loon began her career after graduating from Sydney University. Her parents were business owners who had business acquaintances who were accountants and encouraged her to consider it as a career.

She participated in vacation internships with other accounting firms, and decided she liked the culture of PwC, which she joined in 1990. She was seconded to PwC Singapore in 1994 when a one-week training in the Netherlands opened her eyes to the possibility of working outside of Australia, coupled with her growing conviction that Singapore was ripe for a booming economy, and decided to stay for the longer term.

The move was less conventional than one would guess, because as Loon says, “Most Australians have a strong affinity for the U.K.” Furthermore, though she is ethnically Chinese, Loon doesn’t speak Chinese. “It’s very difficult to feel like an outsider. I was fortunate to be coached and mentored by supportive people.”

Climbing the Ladder as a Woman

Becoming a partner was not easy to achieve and certainly ranks as one of her proudest professional achievements. In fact she says that though she didn’t realize it at the time, she had never met a female audit partner when she started in Sydney.

“Women partners were few and far between in Sydney,” she says, adding that Singapore was more progressive in this area with some of the women partners having kids. “There is more family support in Asia. The values in Sydney tend toward mothers staying home.”

During a recent two-year return to Australia, Loon reflected on her values and how she had changed — and how other aspects of the firm had changed. “There are now more women partners, but we are still clearly the minority. It made me more passionate about making sure there are opportunities for everyone.”

Diversity Committee Feeds Her Passion

That’s why she finds her work with her Singapore diversity committee to be so satisfying. In addition to her recent appointment as a Territory Diversity Leader, she is also the East Cluster Financial Services People Leader, East Cluster Diversity Coordinator and a member of the Global Financial Services Diversity Steering Committee.

“Being open to diversity is how businesses can retain talent,” she says, adding that the broader issue facing all organizations is how cultural diversity, not just gender diversity, will continue to dominate the discussion.

“Companies have to be cognizant of culture and open to accepting that people come with different values and backgrounds. Companies that continue to focus with a just a western lens will be at a disadvantage. Those who understand different types of clients and environments will be the successful ones. Otherwise it’s so easy to offend someone without even realizing it.”

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