Help for Blabbermouths

Raise your hand if you have a boss who talks too much. Blabbermouth bosses exasperate everyone.

Raise your hand if you’re a boss. I bet you talk too much, too. As a general rule…

Leaders talk too much and listen too little.

Blabbermouth bosses talk too much because they:

1. Don’t want others to talk.
2. Believe they are “all that.” You can’t silence self-important prima donnas.
3. Feel strongly. Passion drives verbosity.
4. Love power and control. Research shows the powerful talk more than others.
5. Know too much. Why listen when you already know? The gift of wisdom drops like pearls from their lips.
6. Don’t care about others.
7. Feel fear. Doctors know talkative patients are nervous, for example.

Bonus: Weak leaders talk too much when trying to convince skeptics.

Tips for Blabbermouths:

Forget:

Forget about active listening. It’s beyond you. Just shut up.

Master silent listening before
attempting active listening.

Space:

Silence is space for the words of others. Closed mouths are the first step toward opened ears.

Pauses:

Pauses are thought-time, not permission for you to talk. Shhhh!

Persuasion:

Shift from talking-to-persuade to listening-to-persuade. Earn the right to be heard by hearing others.

Ears, not mouths, make people feel understood.

Reciprocity:

Align your talk with their talk. If they ask a question, ask them one. When someone shares a personal moment, share one of your own.

Reach beyond informing.
Use talking to connect.

Time:

Shorten responses. Limit talking to 90 seconds segments, at most. Additionally, if they speak briefly, speak briefly yourself.

Why do leaders talk too much?

What practices help leaders listen more?

15 Ways to Make Your Voice Matter

Pathetic talkers – talk after listeners check out. Blabbing leaders have something to say and it doesn’t matter that people in the room have turned to bored, lifeless manikins. They keep blabbing.

Talkative leaders talk long past
listener’s capacity.

Distracting talkers – tweak, guide, correct, add, and adjust ad infinitum ad nauseum. They unnecessarily prolong meetings with irritating jabber concerning insignificant issues, for example. Their drivel often begins with, “And don’t forget… or one more thing.” Gag me with a spoon.

The need to matter makes leaders talk more but matter less.

Please hit mute. (All exhausted followers are cheering right now!) When was the last time someone said, “Please talk at me more?”

But there’s more:

Your voice has power for evil or good.

Make your voice matter by talking about
what matters, when it matters.

Talk more when:

1. Listening occurred first. Listen with your ears and your heart. The more you need to say, the more you need to listen.
2. People need affirmation. You matter most when speaking to hearts not heads.
3. Talking connects you with others. Sharing your heart connects you.
4. Issues are dodged. Call out elephants. Say the tough stuff.
5. The top stifles the bottom. Confront authoritarianism. Free people.
6. “What” not “how” is on the table. Leaders who explain “how” are in the way.
7. You see the big picture and others don’t. (Inspired by a recent conversation with Peter Block.)
8. Blabbers keep blabbing. Interrupt! Please!
9. Urgency overshadows priority.
10. Direction wanders.
11. Values are violated.
12. Information is needed and you’re the one who has it.
13. Curiosity bubbles up. Talk to explore.
14. Confusion reigns. Beware; more talking usually creates more confusion.
15. You’re an introvert. The silence of introverts makes extroverts uneasy.

Bonus: Talk about others more than yourself.

From the other side: 10 Power Tips for Leaders who Talk TOO Much.

How can leaders make their voice matter?

The Power of Second Questions

“Most people never listen.” Hemingway

Questions are gifts. Asking, followed by listening, says others matter; telling says you matter.

Eager to talk is reluctant to ask.

Enemies of curiosity:

1. Disinterest. You really don’t care.
2. Need to appear smart.
3. Hurry. The need for speed, at least initially, stifles curiosity.
4. Knowledge. Those who know don’t ask.
5. Answers. Answers end thought.

Pretend you don’t have the answer, you may find another.

Powerful questions:

1. Initiate listening. It’s hard to listen without questions.
2. Call for answers. Questions create curiosity and engage minds.
3. Ignite self-persuasion.
4. Invite connection. Anyone who says they want to connect but never asks questions is confused or deceived about the nature of connecting.
5. Guide conversations. Don’t tell people what to talk about, ask questions.
6. Teach and open minds.
7. Explain priorities. You ask about what matters.

If you want to change results, change questions.

Second questions:

Second questions matter more than first because they explore what matters. First questions address obvious issues. Second questions explore meaning, purpose, method, and/or value.

Exceptional leaders ask second questions.

First question: What’s your mission?
Second question: What makes your mission matter?

First question: Who are your customers?
Second question: What made them become your customers?

First question: What’s frustrating?
Second question: How can you address your frustrations?

Before:

Clarify before answering.

Never simply answer when someone asks, “What’s your story?” Always ask, “What do you want to know?*”

Save time, establish priorities, and narrow focus by inviting questioners to declare themselves.

Answer questions with questions, before giving answers.

Avoid:

Some questions are better than others.

1. What’s wrong with me?
2. What did I do wrong?
3. What went wrong? (KaChing)

A favorite question:

I hear what you don’t want. What do you want?

Added resources:

9 Unexpected Questions that Create Engagement

10 Questions that Give Vitality to Beginnings

15 Questions Guaranteed to Create Clarity

*From: “Power Questions,” by Sobel and Panas

How can leaders learn to ask questions?

What are some useful second questions?

Stop Browbeating – Enhance Capacity

I browbeat people when I “know” the path forward. I tell them what I want, before thinking about what they need to hear.

Additionally, I pressure people when I’ve made up my mind. At least that’s what others tell me.

Honestly, I don’t see Browbeating Dan. I see myself as Pussy Cat Dan.

Burden of knowledge:

The burden of knowing – even if you don’t – is nearly uncontainable. Thinking you “know” is enough to close your ears and open your mouth.

Alternative:

Slow down and say what they need to hear not what you need to say. Help people hear by enhancing capacity.

Give:

1. Hope if you expect boldness.
2. Purpose if you expect endurance.
3. Confidence if you expect change.

Boldness:

You need to say, “Be bold.” They need to have hope. Hope precedes boldness. If they don’t believe projects can be completed on time or goals completed within budget, they won’t act boldly.

Boldness rises when success is likely.

Those with hope believe wins are possible. It’s hopeless if you can’t win. Without hope everyone goes through the motions. But, people with hope move forward.

Hope fuels boldness.

Endurance:

You need to say, “Keep going – endure – don’t quit.” But, they need purpose. They ask, “Why keep going if it doesn’t matter?” “What’s the purpose?”

People endure when goals matter. Stop saying, “Endure.” Start explaining purpose.

Profound purpose fuels endurance.

Change:

You need to say, “Embrace change.” They need confidence they’ll fit in after change.

Freedom to change comes from believing you’ll still fit in.

Rush:

Leaders rush to explain what to do, while neglecting the capacity of listeners. You think, just do what I say! But, telling babies to walk doesn’t enable walking. Leadership by proclamation isn’t leading.

Capacity:

Successful leaders explain challenges and increase capacity.

How do you understand the relationship between capacity and the ability to accept challenges?

How can leaders enhance the capacity of others to rise to challenges?

Imagine how boundaries extend results. This weeks best FREE leadership development opportunity is a LIVE conference call with bestselling author Dr. Henry Cloud. INFO

Three Qualities Traditional Leaders Reject

Image source by Petr Kratochvil

Regurgitating and recycling what you already know bores others, antiquates leadership, and destroys organizations.

Get out of yourself before you shrivel and die.

Growth, innovation, and future-building centers on what you don’t know and haven’t done.

Three surprising qualities of growing leaders:

#1. Receptivity:

Traditional leaders are unwelcoming. Traditional leaders expect you to receive their ideas; they don’t receive yours. Power, prestige, and position thrive in unreceptive, threatening environments.

Tell-me-more leaders, go further than,
I-already-know leaders.

Stop looking down your nose at outsiders, front line employees, and new hires. Adapt to them; don’t force them to adapt to you.

Growth lies around and outside.

#2. Withholding judgment:

Traditional leaders make judgments; growing leaders withhold judgment.

Judgment crushes baby ideas.

Quick minded decision makers inadvertently destroy growth. Stow what you think you know in the attic. Judgment ends growth and begins stagnation.

Keep in mind, stability requires decision making. Withhold judgment, don’t end it completely.

#3. Curiosity:

Traditional leaders fear looking foolish. They need to know. Curiosity celebrates what isn’t known. Courageously look foolish.

Emptiness is opportunity.

The downside of curiosity:

1. People want to know what you know as well as what you don’t.
2. Questions feel pushy and threatening when filled with expectation.
3. Constant curiosity spirals inward and downward.
4. Creating options causes confusion.

Curiosity is a means not an end. Use curiosity to challenge stagnant ideas and disrupt antiquated systems.

Most importantly, curiosity unearths new goals and next steps. Curiosity builds the future. On the other hand, curiosity without progress is stagnating indulgence.

What traditional leadership qualities stunt growth and innovation?

What leadership qualities inspire growth, innovation, and future-building?

Overcoming the 7 Deadly Results of Meddling

Passion for excellence, demand to meet numbers, slow progress, and fierce competition drive managers to step in and “help.”

Never help without asking, it’s meddling.

Ask first; ask often.

Don’t reserve, “How can I help?” for short-fall situations. It sends a message. They aren’t cutting the mustard.

Build supportive cultures by asking, “How can I help?” first and frequently. Ask when things are great.

Avoid, “Do you need help?”

“Do you need help?” is a yes or no question suggesting failure, distress, or weakness. “How can I help?” implies good will and collaboration.

What if they don’t know?

It’s your fault if they need help and don’t know it? Goals are fuzzy, deliverables are distant and obscure, feedback is rare, or reporting is sporadic. Clarify expectations up front. Ask, “How is your project going?” more often. Meddlers unexpectedly intervene in the middle.

Don’t meddle in the middle; help along the way.

Address a foggy middle with collaborative conversations. Clarify goals and outcomes. Set dates for progress reports. Ask, “How can I help.”

Meddling:

1. Insults.
2. De-motivates.
3. Suggests disappointment.
4. Controls and frustrates.
5. Begins with your frustration and creates frustration in others.
6. Ends thought. They say, “ OK, what do you want to do?”
7. Weakens relationships.

Helping:

1. Energizes.
2. Instills confidence.
3. Releases and frees.
4. Ends frustration.
5. Invites creativity.
6. Strengthens connections.
7. Affirms others and equalizes social status.

Today’s challenge: Ask, “How can I help?” twice before lunch and twice after lunch.

Thanks to the former CEO of Campbell’s Soup, Doug Conant, for his passionate, “How can I help?” approach to leadership. It helps me.

Great insights from my Facebook family: Helping becomes meddling when ______.

How does meddling make you or others feel?

What does healthy helping look like from your perspective?

The Secret Power of Hearing Shadows

Listening is a skill. Making someone feel heard is a gift.

My dad’s first words when I told him about my new job were, “It’s not very close to home.” I was a fresh college graduate in Missouri. He was back home in Maine and the job was in Pennsylvania.

I did the easy thing. I heard words but I didn’t hear meanings.

Pennsylvania didn’t seem closer to him but it seemed closer to me. I resisted his words, observed he was right, and moved with my young family to live in the greater Philadelphia area. I’m not saying I made a wrong decision. But I didn’t hear what dad meant.

Today, it sounds silly that I heard the words but didn’t hear meanings. I totally missed it. My excuses are youth and enthusiasm.

Now that my own children are out and on their own, I know what he meant. It wasn’t geography. It was relationship.

Words are partial truths.
Foolish leaders listen; wise leaders hear.

My dad didn’t say, “I want to stay connected with you.” He didn’t say, “I’ll miss my grandchildren.” He said the easier, less revealing truth.

Most of us say easier, less revealing, less vulnerable truths. We hide our truths in shadows.

You connect more deeply by realizing words are shadows.

Once in a while, dip below the surface and let those around you know you understand their concerns.

The best times to hear are when:

1. New tensions or stresses arise.
2. Procedures change.
3. Business is down.
4. Achievements are enjoyed.

Listen for and hear:

1. Frustrations.
2. Fears.
3. Hopes.
4. Aspirations.

Hearing:

1. Reject the need to give solutions. This may be the hardest thing to do.
2. Don’t make excuses.
3. Withhold judgement.
4. Help them think their own thoughts.

The goal of hearing is making people feel understood. People who feel understood open their hearts to your influence.

How do you listen in ways that make others feel understood?

Mintzberg Rejects Macro-Leadership

*****

“Macro-leadership is just as bad
as micro-management.” Henry Mintzberg.

During our conversation, Mintzberg explained that, “It’s destructive to separate management from leadership. Leaders need to get their hands dirty.”

No buy in:

Mintzberg believes that leaders focused on setting strategy and vision but who are removed from the front lines eventually develop a vision for the organization so out of touch that the rest of the organization fails to buy in.

Frustrated buy in:

Mintzberg also believes there’s something worse than failure to buy in. There’s the problem of buying into a pie-in-the-sky vision but being incapable of taking any steps toward realization.

More devastating:

Disconnected strategy and vision is one problem with macro-leadership but there’s something more devastating.

“Arrogance comes from detachment.” Henry Mintzberg

When I asked Mintzberg to share the one piece of advice he most loves to share he said one word, “Connect.”

Humility:

Connecting expresses, creates, and nurtures humility. Withdrawal suggests independence; connecting requires interdependence.

Humility is always practice never theory. Talking humility without practicing humility results in arrogance. When Jesus said let the leader among you be as one who serves, he turned leadership on its head and explained the cure for arrogance.

“Humility is common sense… None of us is an expert at everything… Humility is holding power for the good of others.” John Dickson.

Sources of arrogance:

Facebook contributors suggest sources of arrogance include:

1. Fear.
2. Being surrounded by indulgent “yes” people.
3. Being a talker not a doer.
4. Prior success. You think you know how to make it work because it worked before.
5. Not being okay with saying I don’t know.

See more reader contributions on Facebook.

Mintzberg’s latest book: “Managing”

*****

How do leaders connect?

What prevents leaders from connecting?

Why You’re Wrong and I’m Right

Image source

I think what I think because it’s right. If you think differently, you’re wrong. I never intentionally think stupid ideas or chose wrong options. Do you?

I always choose what I think is right. Research indicates that the act of choosing strengthens my opinion that my choice is right. Even if I’m wrong, I’m right, or at least it feels that way.

Why I need to be right?

1. I view life as a series of destinations that must be reached.
2. I’m a control freak. Believe me; I’m right on this one. I stopped playing monopoly years ago because other players didn’t realize the trade I offered was right.
3. I have good intentions. Isn’t it strange that we can have good intentions but still be wrong?
4. I see. Seeing may be the most blinding thing I do; it closes my mind.
5. I need approval and in order to gain it, I must be right.
6. I can’t get where I’m going and be wrong. I’m paralyzed aren’t I?

The thought that I could be wrong doesn’t sit well. That’s because I’m right!

Slow:

I’ve been wrong enough to know in my head that I could be wrong. But I’m a slow learner. Thankfully, even as I type this, I know I’m right about being wrong.

What if:

If I could be wrong, I:

1. Ask questions.
2. Seek counsel.
3. Listen.
4. Respect.
5. Explore.
6. Change my mind. (Ouch! That one stings.)
7. Defend less. I’ve noticed that my defensiveness invites others to be defensive. It’s impossible to help someone feel understood while I’m defending myself.

Just for today, I’m entertaining the thought that I could be wrong.

What’s dangerous about the need to be right?

How can leaders be wrong in a leaderly way? (I don’t think leaderly is a word. Is it?)

The Revealing Power of Fear

I’ve noticed an unsettling and revealing set of questions that my coach, Bob Hancox, asks.

1. What’s most concerning for you?
2. What makes this so important to you?
3. What’s really at stake for you here?

These questions crush the tyranny of the urgent and cause me to focus on my fears. Bob never asks me, “What are you afraid of?” I’d pull back if he did. “I’m not afraid.”

Values:

Fears point to things we cling to – we don’t want to lose – something we’re protecting.

Fear points to our values in emotional and behavioral terms.

Barriers:

Fear creates barriers. I’ve watched fearful people talk in self-protective ways while, at the same time, they search for weaknesses or faults in others. It may not be intentional but it’s manipulative.

Connecting:

Asking the questions I listed above allows people to get in touch with their values and see core issues. Connect with others through understanding. Be certain you’ll disconnect if you judge. When someone expresses a concern, ask, “What makes this so important to you?”

Avoid:

1. “Why” questions.
2. Judging.
3. Belittling or minimizing. “That doesn’t seem very important.”
4. Quick conclusions.
5. The temptation to fix. The first lesson of coaching is you don’t fix people.

Application:

One application might be asking a stressed out employee (after they’ve calmed down), “What’s really at stake for you here?” That approach sounds better than calm down, doesn’t it? Listen for and connect through the values that come out.

Coaching approach:

You could use five types of questions to advance a coaching conversation:

1. What’s happening?
2. What do you want to happen?
3. What are the next steps?
4. When will you take those steps?
5. How can I help?

Every leader should have a coach and be a coach.

Resource:

If you’d like to enhance your coaching skills, consider “Coaching for Engagement.”

What coaching questions have you found most useful?