Two Ears, One Mouth
Submitted by webadmin on November 28, 2009 - 5:58pm
The good Lord gave you two ears andone mouth for a good reason when managing your employees. When you are conducting performance reviews, soliciting feedback, or looking for creative ideas from employees, use your two ears. Let the employees do 80% of the talking and you will learn not only what needs improving and what they don’t know or understand but more importantly, you’ll get fresh ideas on ‘why’ and ‘how’.
Particularly in performance feedback sessions, instead of using your mouth and offering solutions, use your mouth to ask the employee what you can do to help them improve. Then let them talk. Let there be silence until they speak.
One manager I coached practiced this technique and found out after a few seconds of dead silence in the room, that the employee was off target was because a particular machine used in his work was not working properly and the employee had to spend extra time making repairs. Further listening revealed the employee’s ideas on ‘how’ to reconfigure the machine for better performance and less maintenance.
In another conversation, another manager I worked with was trying to figure out why their new product project was off base. He was angry and ready to give the team the proverbial ‘piece of my mind.’ However, using the two ears and one mouth principle, he called the project team into his office. In talking with the team members about the missed deadline, the team revealed that the delays were caused by the new software package that the manager had insisted they use. It was being adapted to their specific project and even though the new software was touted as the best, it had incompatibilities integrating with their previous project management software. The team, reticent to complain and anxious to be problem solvers, kept working around the difficulties. The manager listened, contacted the maker of the software who made a few critical updates enabling the software packages to be more compatible. From this point on, the project ran smoothly and was completed in record time.
Both of these managers were building bridges with the employees as they helped solve problems. They were using two ears and one mouth.
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