'Thinking Grey' and 'Seeing Double' As A Leader

As part of their 'Executive Edge' series, Soundview Book Summaries recently included a feature on how to "Master the Discipline of Listening” and this extract seemed particularly noteworthy

Contrarian wisdom holds that judgments should be arrived at slowly or not at all. Most people immediately categorise things as good or bad, true or false, friend or foe, but Steven B. Sample explains in The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership that truly effective leaders see shades of grey. The essence of thinking grey is this: Don't form an opinion about an important matter until you've heard all the relevant facts and arguments or until circumstances force you to form an opinion.

Most people are terrible listeners because they think talking is more important than listening. But contrarian leaders know it is better to listen first and talk later. And when they listen, they do so artfully because artful listening is an excellent means of acquiring new ideas, and gathering and assessing information.

If leaders can listen attentively without rushing to judgment, they will often get a fresh perspective that will help them think independently. This kind of leader listens carefully to his or her inner circle and even the most obnoxious self-appointed advisers. Artful listening is important for maintaining contrarian leaders' intellectual independence. It enables them to see things through the eyes of their followers while at the same time seeing things from their own perspective — a process called "seeing double."

Whether one considers listening as a discipline, an art or a skill the importance of it is something that many / most would agree on. At issue then is not that people would not like to be better listeners but that they do not know how to be. The guidance above perhaps highlights the challenge - advocating that people should 'not form an opinion until they have heard the relevant facts' or that they should 'listen attentively without rushing to judgement'. but not indicating how people can overcome existing patterns of behaviour (or habits) to achieve this. 

FranklinCovey has been working in this area for over 20 years and our goal is to make the neuro-science which sits behind how we listen and interpret accessible for the majority of leaders so that if they decide better listening is the way to go, there are some practical ways they can adjust their thinking and their behaviour to get a new and different result.