[MUSIC] So listening carefully is one of the most powerful things you can do to increase the value of your stock at work. One of the really interesting pieces of snippets of research out of the negotiation literature is. That there's a really lovely experiment where, at the end of a negotiation, the negotiators were asked. Can you tell me what the interests of the party on the other side you were negotiating with were? And most of the time the negotiators could not and here's the real kicker. Even when they had been told the interest of the other party in advance of the negotiation. More than 80% often could not tell you the interest of the other party at the end because they got so invested in their own points and their own arguments and their own goals. If you can really listen with attention to the other party, it will really make a difference at work. You will hear things that other people don't notice, you'll have information that other people might not. And those with whom you work, will think that you are respectful, caring and they will begin to like you better and respect you more. >> So listening and asking questions in tough situations is really important, especially in the workplace. The listening part is just as important in as the asking questions but I think that its really important that you take the time to listen to the full report of whatever the situation is. So whether that's a team member giving information on why they arrive late for work or why they were unable to meet performance, expectations for particular time period. I think that is really important that you take the time to listen to the full details from the team member because even in the moment before you've even approached the team member to address the situation. You've already formulated your own opinion of what's happened. And the more or the less that you allowed them to talk, the more that you're formulating your own opinion. So, also allowing them to get through the whole rundown of whatever has occurred. Allows you to really formulate the right types of questions to be able to understand, whatever questions they didn't answer for you. So, whether that's finding out additional details, or dig into that a little bit further for me, or tell me a little bit about I have this additional detail that X, Y and Z shared with me regarding this situation. The listening part of that is very important because you need the full situation. And the types of questions that you ask, just need to make sure that you're not accusing or already placing blame based on the types of questions that you ask. It's really important that the questions that are presented are really about fact-finding, and about ownership. Not just, well did you know that this is my expectation but more, we talked about this is the expectation, help me understand what parts of that you didn't understand. That's not your specific question, but your question should be geared around helping you to understand what parts of that the team member did not understand. >> Sometimes, when you're listening really carefully, and asking questions for clarification, you may find out that the other party is not as sure as they thought they were. The young professional, who was asked to sign names of strangers to the process because he was a man and his boss wanted a man's handwriting. He kept asking questions and saying, gosh, are the rules different in this state than they are? Because when I worked in another state that wasn't part of the process. And he asked his questions respectfully enough and with good enough timing that eventually his boss went and looked up the rules and she came back and she said, wow I'm really glad you asked. I misunderstood or I just assumed, we shouldn't be doing that. You really saved us from stepping in it, thank you so much. One of the things that really made the difference in this interaction with him being listened to and having an effect on the outcome. Is that he listens to her really carefully first and then, respectfully, he could repeat back and say, so your understanding of the process is, that you want me to do this because? I'm wondering about this because we didn't do it that way before. Are we sure that there's a state law that permits that, or says that's appropriate? So, he listened and asked questions at the appropriate moment, respectfully. Having first heard her out, he didn't start by saying, no, that's dumb, we don't, that's not the way you do it, or I won't do that. He didn't take a stand first. First, he heard what she had to say, and it made all the difference for coming to a really positive conclusion, a constructive conclusion, that raised his stock at work. So if you think about communication and listening remember the ice cream exercise. Remember how easy it is to form an assumption that's completely different than what the other person has in their head and for your communication to start and never converge again. How effectively you listen, how respectfully, how carefully and with what skill will make a huge difference in whether you meet or go off and maybe go off in bad directions. [MUSIC] [SOUND]
