Tips for Engaging with People Who Matter Most
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20 complimentary copies available.
Leave a comment on this guest post by Rodger Dean Duncan to become eligible to win one of TWENTY complimentary copies of, “LeaderSHOP.”
(Deadline: 12/16/2018)
We can wrongly believe we’re effective when we’re missing the point. It’s easy to miss the cues and clues from people we serve.
- Are we providing what they need?
- Are we reaching them?
- Are we lifting them?
Snickers:
One summer my wife Rean and I went on a drive. It was hot; I stopped at a convenience store. I returned to the car with two bottles of cold water and two Snickers candy bars. My wife thanked me for the water and said it was thoughtful of me to be concerned for her thirst.
“Did you notice that I bought your favorite candy bar?” I asked.
Rean replied: “Honey, Snickers is your favorite candy bar. I don’t like Snickers. My favorite candy bar is Milky Way.”
I was married to a wonderful, caring woman but I never noticed that her favorite candy bar was not the same as my favorite.
Ask and listen:
If we’re not accustomed to asking, they’re probably aren’t telling. So we need to ask. Then ask some more. And listen.
Effective leaders are careful to break through the information quarantine that surrounds them.
Actively seek negative feedback as well as positive. They understand that peak performance requires a full range of information — even when the information doesn’t feel good to hear.
Tips for connecting:
- Ask for specific feedback on how you can improve
- Listen to understand, not to rebut
- Express genuine thanks for the honest feedback
- Make a sincere effort to adjust your behavior
- Return later to request follow-up feedback
- Rinse and repeat
Continuous improvement should be a hallmark of every relationship that’s truly important to us. And sometimes our best coaches are the very people we’ve been asked to serve.
It’s not called “servant leadership” for nothing.
What tips for connecting with people who matter most could you suggest?
About Rodger Dean Duncan
Rodger Dean Duncan is a sought-after speaker, consultant, and executive coach. He’s been advisor to hundreds of leaders ranging from cabinet officers in two White House administrations to C-suite executives in top companies around the world. He’s the bestselling author of LeaderSHOP: Workplace, Career, and Life Advice From Today’s Top Thought Leaders and founder of Duncan Worldwide.
“Listen to understand, not to rebut.” This alone would solve many of our communication problems.
Isn’t that the truth! Thanks for reading.
Leadership is influence and it’s difficult to influence someone unless you have a sense of what they need from you to grow.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com
Listening is at the heart of servant leadership—listening to learn, to understand, and to grow.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com
I was just talking to my fiance about this situation at work where I’m not connecting with the highest paid members on my team. Then this morning I read this, “And sometimes our best coaches are the very people we’ve been asked to serve.” The timing on this was perfect, thank you.
That post is spot on. I’ve found that once you’ve asked for feedback a couple of times more feedback often automatically follows. I asked the boss a couple of times on how he thought I did and now from time to time I get spontaneous “Friendly coaching tip” emails after certain interactions. The key is to be open minded to receiving feedback, assume people are trying to help you improve and not catch you out and don’t be defensive (if you go on the defensive you immediately start thinking about your response and then you’re no longer actively listening)
Ask and listen- could there be any better advise-
Would love to read more!
…asking for ‘specific’ feedback — a powerful idea in world where we often think we’re asking for feedback by asking the more simple question: ‘…so, how’s it going?”
Empathy followed by reflection followed by CORRECT Action.
I’ve also noticed I can’t expect specific feedback if I don’t invest in giving it!
Actively listening and seeking to understand, asking questions and paying attention to the answers.
Servant leadership is the heart of what we should be doing as leaders.
LEADERSHOP
It’s challenging not to start formulating your reply before even letting the person talking to you complete their thought. By doing this we can miss the best part of the dialogue! I genuinely want to hear about areas I can improve over the things I may be doing right. There is no other way to grow.
Rinse and Repeat – Often those we lead are not comfortable giving us constructive feedback. But as they see a sincere effort on our part to improve, feedback will be more freely given the next time.
“Tip Zero” is perhaps to first identify the people who matter the most?
It is not about me. As President, one of our companies Core Value’s is Love For Family. Asking, knowing and investing in their family is living out our Values. This is one way to lead and serve your team and ministry.
Steve, this book could make a great holiday gift (and thank you) for your employees.
We accomplish more by listening and asking the right questions… Unfortunately listening (really listening) is something that I still trying to master…
It can be hard to receive honest feedback, because many people will tell you what they think you want to hear. Hire and retain people to have a mind of their own, and create a safe place for them to share their ideas.
These are great tips! I have found that when I ask for specific feedback I must be quiet and wait. There is rarely a quick answer, but if I stay quiet they usually do come up with something.
“If we’re not accustomed to asking, they’re probably aren’t telling. So we need to ask. Then ask some more. And listen.”
We all could benefit from asking more questions, and seeking first to understand.
So important to ask for feedback – the hard part is taking it in and doing something about it. Be reflective and open to change!
Assume nothing. Explore everything always.
Speak impeccably. Listen with excellence.
It’s not just you. Take nothing personally.
Just do your best. Leave nothing in the tank.
It may not last, but It’s very real, what we have.
Would love to read this
Quoting: “Continuous improvement should be a hallmark of every relationship that’s truly important to us.” Two pieces of important advice are included in this quote: (1) Everyone can always improve – nothing is ever going to be perfect. And (2) relationships that are important require our attention / effort – they don’t ever just happen.
Ask, then ask again for clarity! Then we need to listen twice as much as we speak.
Best counsel: ask, then listen.
“WHO COULD ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE.”
Wow, this hit me. I need to do a better job of checking my assumptions.
When my kids were young and they would run to the car, I would ask “Is the house door locked?” and they would answer “I think so”. I would tell them to go back and know so. As they got older, they would come to the car and say “The house is locked and I know so!”
Great post — thanks for sharing!
Would love to learn more by reading the book.
How many snickers I blindly provide?
I try to make those I am talking to feel like they are the most important thing on my mind as we are talking. Actively listening, eye contact, non-verbal cues are all helpful.
We tend to focus on the answer, but need to also consider the question, If we always ask about the outcome, we may miss the actual things that drive to that outcome, the things that are really important to the other people, like your wife’s candy bar. It is not just “what” or “how”, but sometime “why” that really matters. And listen very carefully to the answer to learn what other questions to ask.
The most productive people are those that genuinely seek feedback!
A phrase I learned a long, long time ago is “Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions” and I have striven to implement that philosophy in both my professional and personal life, and encouraged others to do the same as well.
Intellectually I know this AND it is so hard with the pressures of the business, urgency of initiatives and a calendar and “to do” list that is all consuming. That said, I need to be better at this on an ongoing basis vs. 1 or 2x per year. Thanks for making me pause and reflect.
Great post-thanks
WOW great example. Just because I have the “big picture” does not mean others don’t see something that I am missing. Thanks.
There were 4 members of a sub-team that ultimately report up to me. In a few larger team meetings and casual conversations they made soft remarks that some metrics data I was showing or sending out was different from what they saw when they ran their queries. I and their direct manager both knew there were some extra values in my numbers that were being accounted for otherwise. After about 5 months of this, I sat down with one of the 4 team members who proceeded to show me numbers indicating results of my queries were 10X low.
The combination of ongoing assumptions on my and their manager’s part coupled with them never providing specific data to illustrate what they were saying, cause the whole team to operate in a false sense of security for 5 months.
1) listen to the small voices
2) ask for specific data
3) when mistakes happen, start with recognizing your own role in keeping the train on the wrong tracks, then ask yourself and everyone what we could have done better to avoid this
4) turn and look forward, having learned
Thanks for the guest post – much appreciated!
Great suggestion. I’m reminded often that we have 2 ears to listen and only 1 mouth to speak. There’s a reason for this. 😊
I am trying to work on these steps daily. Trying to join a team that has been together for several years is a constant work in progress. “4.Make a sincere effort to adjust your behavior” is my biggest struggle when I feel my effort isn’t being appreciated or even matched.
Thank you for your insightful and thought-provoking post, Roger! It takes humility, self-awareness, and a genuine concern for others to be a servant leader — in both our social and professional relationships. Self-interest — even to the point of self-obsession and selfishness — is natural. It takes a power and a vision greater than ourselves to rise above our self-serving nature to a grander role of serving, mentoring, supporting, and loving others. What an inspiration! All the best. .
Thank you for this article!
I believe that the first step in order to engage people, is understanding their own needs and expectations! We must always have in mind the personal development of them through anything they do! Of course talkig is the only way to do that!
Great share! This is such an easy thing to do, but is often forgotten in the business of the day.
Thank you for the share! This is such an easy thing to do, but is often forgotten in the business of our day to day.
Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can offer. When we interact with others, we are given a priceless opportunity to see into their hearts, to show them that they are understood and valued.
Put down your phone (turn it off it you possibly can), turn away from your computer and really listen-I mean really listen-don’t be thinking in your mind what you are going to answer. Make them repeat back to you what they think they heard you say. Don’t assume they understand what you said & in what way you said it. If you are not in the same office-return their calls and text messages-do not ignore your top performers requests for one on one conversations-they need your time. Sometimes the ones that frustrate you the most are the ones that need your time & leadership to grow the most and your return on investing in them will be tremendous. If they ask you to mentor them and they are in your top leadership, spend the time with them to help them grow-do not ignore them just because they are producing so you think they do not need your help and mentorship. Know their personality types and how they like to be communicated with and to.Humility on your part is foremost. If you cannot humble yourself-you will never be a great leader.
Seeking honest feedback cannot be undertaken by those who are not ardent practitioners of vulnerability and humility, corner stones of effective leadership. Thanks for the great post!
Love the Snickers story. My wife is a Milky Way girl. I learned that early on in our relationship.
Really, truly listening is challenging. It is hard work. It requires setting aside distraction. It requires not thinking about your next question but engrossing yourself in the answer being given. I think back to a book I read last year, The Zen of Listening, which framed listening in terms of putting yourself in someone else’s movie. Concentrate. Focus. Be fully present. Seek to understand.
I think the most difficult thing to do is to seek to listen without adding the “…but I don’t…” or what you (I) want to return to the person providing me feedback.
Active listening and then responding is part of my every day job as a CI manager. I have adopted a CI mentality in my life and it brings me joy to help others improve. Servant leadership is also big key to our success.
People talk to much and it is usually rather selfish – I, I, I, I , I, I, I, etc. Listening is a lost art and one we need to re-discover.
Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for sharing!
Always trying to use your words of wisdom. Helped make my last event even better! When that one volunteer offered suggestions, we used them and I thanked her that night in an email. It made our event run so much smoother. You are helping me to see the bigger picture and thanking others for great ideas!
Love this…easy to apply….need to make it a habit! Thanks for the opportunity to keep learning!
The thought of using this type of habit can solve a lot of miscommunication problems, also a big part of this is knowing personality styles for every individual what are there likes and dislikes also what is there number one need in order to keep them engaged.
Asking for, and setting expectations – not only for your employees – but more importantly – for yourself from your employees is vital to building a cohesive team. When employees (people) feel heard and understood – it is like magic!
Servant leadership is all about them. How can we serve by continually asking questions, listen, listen with the heart, and respond to help them do their job. Ensure we are giving and return to validate they are good. Then ask another question to get to the next level.
Love this and is simple reminders of what all of us can do to serve others.
Very true! It is never easy to ask for negative feedback…I have achieved this part, but i think it is quite difficult for some to say it to me. Something to work on!
What I find transformational is having someone (leader, coach, mentor) that I can trust in this arena. This opens the door to being able to try different things and being open to feedback in a constructive way. Thank you for this insightful post.
Dan. I’ve been really blessed by some of your book recommendations in the past. I’m sure this one would benefit me as well!
Thanks!
Look forward to reading!
Humility. That is the virtue required to grow. To acknowledge I’ve not yet arrived.
Fantastic article and spot on. This is a skill that the majority of people lack, listening to listen not to respond. The more we listen to each other, the more we learn. The more we listen to respond the more we lose sight of the value and input
everyone has to offer. Thank you for sharing.
I once had a boss in a previous job who practiced the exact opposite of servant leadership but THOUGHT she was doing it. So many important and powerful conversations that could have contributed positively to the growth of the organization and the morale and productivity of the employees were destroyed by her listening just to rebut.
Be polite, firm, caring and have high standards for what you want, what you do and what you expect from others. Let it be clear that is who you are and how your interact with others.
Are we providing what they need?
Are we reaching them?
Are we lifting them?
Most leaders do.
The most common question from the trenches is, does the person I am following really care?
Is it possible for a leader to provide, reach and lift without truly caring about the person / people they are leading.
Love the “Rinse & Repeat”…this isn’t a one and done arrangement. Thanks for sharing.
This is so helpful – pertinent not only to your staff but to other relationships – currently re-working a program and using much of this – but now will use it all! So timely!!
I was just talking with a peer today about our annual feedback sessions and how to be most effective. Very timely!
We often think that what we love or prefer is what others will also. Although our intentions are good, it can leave a bad impression. Asking questions is key: a great communicator is first and foremost a great listener. Thanks for the post !
I absolutely loved this today. Sometimes when we ask for feedback, we aren’t asking for specifics. You won’t get it if you don’t ask for it. Thank you!
In this hurried world I look forward to reading your 300 words or less, your advice seems to steer and help me navigate life with purpose. I think we all appreciate the gift of time and that is essentially what is most valuable. Listening is sharing the gift of time and without that relationships will suffer. A good listener equals a great leader and a thoughtful response to let a person know you are engaged is priceless. We all could be better listeners at times.
I hope to get better at the ebb and flow of meaningful conversation and focus less on myself and more on others. Thank you
I saw an announcement on LinkedIn yesterday from Mr. Duncan about his new book. I look forward to this interesting and educational read. I enjoyed your Snickers analogy which really drove home your point of how we miss opportunities to listen in everyday situations.
I like to ask people to describe in “one word” how they are feeling about .. the team, the meeting, the project, etc. They almost always answer with a word and then justify there response with the the most important words…why they used that word. It is great for listening to really understand.
Loved this! Knowledge is power when you know the right questions to ask & are willing to receive the answer without a preconceived idea of what the answer might be
Being acceptive of the feed back that you asked for. People want genuine.
I find that to engage with another person we must take interest in them and their lives.
I continue to appreciate your work and would love a copy of the new book. Thank you!
Loved the Snickers/MilkyWay story. It becomes very tough when the person you are “guessing” about acts in ways that are so accomodating to your preferences that you then think those are their preferences as well. You really need to listen and clue into the small details that may be released every so often by them.
I’m intrigued with the idea of actively seeking negative feedback as well as positive. In my experience, some of the greatest gains in communication and change agents have come from what was once viewed as “negative feedback”. I guess it’s all in how you look at it!! 🤔
So true! Many times I am so caught up on thinking that people will enjoy something just because I enjoy it. I have to make a conscious effort to both listen and learn about those around us so I can then help prevent these inadvertent mistakes. Active listening can really help us learn about and understand those around us. Great advice!
Good info. I read somewhere before that I use a lot now is to ask “what can I start doing or stop doing to make things better for you or help you be more effective?” I then be quite and listen. Sometimes they say they don’t have anything and other times I get really good responses to items I had not thought of. But to your point, you have to seek and ask for it.
I ask my students to tell me what I did that made learning difficult for them and what made it easy. I sit and wait and sometimes get good feedback.
Thanks so much for sharing your insights Rodger.
Observation: To ask is to be vulnerable. Many managers think that their role is to look like they are in control (know what they are doing) and others think that to show vulnerability is to risk their position.
Why ask? Everybody has a different map of the world – we all process things differently and this is why teams are so amazing. It is impossible to know what is going on in someone’s mind unless you ask them. We must encourage team members to speak up and put their thoughts and ideas forward. Build their confidence and empower them as an important part of the team.
Make it OK to share and most importantly OK to be wrong. This is part of how we achieve high-performing cultures.
Great leaders encourage and teach people to think and expect them to contribute – this all involves asking people lots of questions and more than that, challenging their thinking. Vulnerability is key to this.
“Ask for specific feedback on how you can improve”
This is probably the hardest thing to do yet the most effective. The response could vary as not everyone is brave enough to express what they feel as some cultures are more reserved than the others and/or some people would not exactly say how they feel as they fear that they might be fired if they say things negatively.
Look to the people who annoy us the most. They are the source of our greatest lessons.
Thank you for the reminder! “We don’t see the world the way it is. We see it the way we are.” The part about listening to understand rather than rebut is the most important piece for me. So much more easily said than done, and always worth the effort!
Dear Dan,
An interesting post with thoughts to ponder!
A leadership effectiveness can be measured with the type of faith and trust subordinates keep. It is a slow but steady process by understanding the needs and aspirations of people to get their adequate support and commitment.
A leader can look for good intimacy with fellow colleagues and subordinates with frequent asking and listening on their hidden needs and the required support. It will finally result in a win-win situation, if handled well by a leader showing the empathy from time to time.
Express genuine thanks for the honest feedback. Tis a welcomed point ’cause feedback tends to fall with engagement tangle. To connect with those that matters you must build up your engagement formular and thrive to be creative with answers to get a positive result. I love the slide with Servant Leadership.. THANKS DAN!
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your friends and/or team members.
Good refresher!
I actually don’t know my wife’s favorite candy bar. Finding out today!
“Are you sure Snickers isn’t your favorite candy bar, dear?” Haha! Love that story. Thanks, Dan, for another insightful post. I really like the simplicity of suggesting an effective leader continually strives to be effective.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your friends and/or team members.
LeaderShop sounds like a great book… listening is an important key to relationships, but having the same goals, similar work ethics, and the desire to grow play roles, too. I have been really focusing on my own listening skills and finding ways to make life easier for all the important people in my life – at home and at work!
As a young leader with little experience, I think that this could really help my development
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your friends and/or team members.
Listen to understand, not to rebut…the conversations where I can sense the other person chomping at the bit for me to finish my thought so they can jump in with theirs are SO stressful… the absolute worst! More listening = more effective communication!
“Listen to understand, not to rebut.” So important and this action requires real effort.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your friends and/or team members.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your friends and/or team members.
Kuddos to you Dan for thinking of your wife and trying to something spontaneous and thoughtful! Listen to understand, take notes to remember. I am curious if your wife had told you before that Milky Way was her favorite, but you forgot. ?? Sometimes I will listen to understand, but then with life’s other curveballs….I will forget the specifics of a conversation. I often refer back to my notes to fresh myself and make sure I followed through accordingly. After all…if I ask a question, I better make sure to follow through.
If the closest people to you love and respect you the most, you are successful.
Thanks for reading! For free personal & professional development resources, go to http://www.MyLeaderSHOP.com You also might consider this book as a holiday gift (and thank you) for your team.
4. Make a Sincere Effort to Adjust Your Behavior – I had a person that reports to me mention that he would really value any additional time that I cold spend with him. WOW…I was first embarrassed and then totally humbled by the thought that people that work alongside me want me to spend more time with them – I took the challenge and we now have a scheduled 90 minute lunch discussion every month – in addition to other less formally scheduled interactions throughout each week. This sure made me re-think how I am allocating my time – especially with great performers – they want their share of time too!!!
One of the best ways to strengthen any relationship is to listen, really listen to someone. It is weird that, even though we think we are paying attention, most of the time we are only getting the surface details and are thinking “what will I say next.” Instead, take a second to really listen to what someone is saying. In time they will notice, and there is nothing better than the feeling that someone actually cares what you think that makes you like them.
Connecting to people is such an integral part of being a leader, and also something that will sink you if you don’t focus on it. I love this post and would love the opportunity to read this book!
Thanks for the notes! Always, always ask where you can improve. It is the number one question when I meet with leaders and followers. What can I do to help you!
This has the potential to shift the way I see my role as a leader/manager. Thank you. Can you suggest examples of questions to ask?
The practice I use is to always have 2 or 3 followup questions to the first one.
Purple tend to protect themselves behind superficial answers. But once they see one is interested for more, they start sharing deeper answers.
Followup questions create the space to allow people to be more vulnerable
Very effectively written article! I’m trying to harness me to be successful right now.
I’ve been working to improve in serving those I support, but I realize now, I need to ask for more SPECIFIC feedback . . . and about specific projects that we are handling.
Maybe what I should be asking is: What is it that I need to learn to help support you and your work better? Will you help me with this so that our team improves?
From the time I started reading ‘Lead True’, I have become a big fan of Bill George posts. This would be yet another must read!
I am keen on gaining insights on such areas of professionalism that would enhance my interpersonal & technical skills.
Regards
Ruheena
This is a very simple concept that can be easily applied. Thank you!
We do need to be grateful for feedback and then we need to take what we learn and apply it. Great thoughts!