Hear all the voices in the huddle
If you want people to feel like they are part of a team, they
have to feel like they have a voice. To Phillips, giving them that
voice comes from two-way communication. That begins with
your ears.
“Learn how to listen,” he says. “You can learn a lot more when
you listen to people than when you’re talking yourself.”
That process is about pairing the mental and physical aspects
of listening together. The basics are to shut your mouth and
make sure you look attentive and are paying attention.
“You make eye contact, you let them finish their thoughts before you speak, some basic ideas really,” he says. “You let them finish
their thoughts, their ideas — even if you disagree, you don’t immediately criticize. You accept, you try to add other points and give
them a different direction to think about.”
It’s also about giving employees a more comfortable work
atmosphere where they can be heard. It’s always hard for CEOs
to break down walls with employees, but make sure you take
the time to say hello to people in the hallways or during lunch.
“Yes, we have an organizational structure, yes people know
that I’m the CEO, but I like to treat my direct reports the same
as I treat my lower-level employees and try to engage people,
even if its just a couple of minutes during the day in the hallway,
just so they feel that they, too, are an important piece of the
organization,” Phillips says. “Everybody needs to feel they have
some input; everybody needs to feel that their job means something.”
For Phillips, that process sometimes means giving his funniest
two minutes of stand up. When it comes to breaking the ice with
people, it helps to have a few good jokes — or at least jokes that
you think are pretty good.
“People need to enjoy their job every day because people
spend so many hours in the workplace, and so I do believe in not
taking yourself too seriously,” he says. “You have to laugh at
times. You have to use humor — especially in a situation where
you’re negotiating something with somebody. Oftentimes,
humor can be used to diffuse tension in a certain situation.”
The second part of two-way communications is checking for
clarity. You have to ask people questions to make sure that you
heard what they said and they understood your response.
Phillips likes to clarify points when there’s some disagreement
by asking people to repeat their points more concisely and then
follow up by giving summations of his own points.
“I also try to encourage people to understand that just because
you say something, the key is, did the person you’re talking to
hear it the way you intended it to be heard,” he says. “And if you
don’t ask questions of people, you don’t find out those kinds of
things sometimes until it’s too late.”
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