Title: So You Think You're a Good Listener. By: Barwise, Patrick, Meehan, Seán, Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Apr2008, Vol. 86, Issue 4Database: Business Source Premier
Title:
So You Think You're a Good Listener. By: Barwise, Patrick,
Meehan, Sen, Harvard Business Review, 00178012, Apr2008, Vol. 86,
Issue 4Database:
Business Source Premier
So You Think You're a Good Listener
Section: forethought
COMMUNICATION
Boss: Why is Janet leaving?
Colleague: She's been unhappy for months.
Boss: Why didn't she tell me?
Colleague: She tried.
Conversations like that are all too common. Why is it that
bosses often seem unable to hear tough messages? A key reason, we
found, is that managers have skewed perceptions about their
openness to challenging news.
In 360-degree surveys, managers typically rate themselves higher
than their colleagues do on most measures of performance. This
well-established pattern holds both for ratings of specific
behaviors such as "Keeps people up-to-date with information" and
for broader performance measures such as "Is an effective manager
overall." Furthermore, the most positive ratings from colleagues
are typically from the managers' bosses, followed by those from
subordinates, and finally those from the most critical coworkers
their peers.
Our research based on Personnel Decisions International's
surveys of over 4,000 U.S. managers across various industries and
functions revealed an important additional pattern: The gap between
managers' self-evaluations and colleagues' assessments is widest
when it comes to gauging receptiveness to hearing about difficult
issues. The difference is clear in ratings of behaviors such as
"Encourages others to express their views, even contrary ones" and
"Listens willingly to concerns expressed by others."
What's behind the divide? The primary explanation, we believe,
is that in most boss-subordinate relationships, superiors
overestimate their openness to receiving difficult messages and
simultaneously underestimate the extent to which the power
difference discourages subordinates from speaking their minds. Put
simply, managers often unwittingly signal that they don't want to
hear bad news for instance, by changing the subject or avoiding
interaction and subordinates tend to censor themselves.
The hazards of stifling communication are well known. Our
research confirms that managers' misperceptions and the behaviors
that reflect them create barriers with peers and subordinates.
Those obstacles inhibit the flow not only of useful bad news (for
example, about quality problems or service failures) but even of
positive ideas for improvement that just might be perceived as
criticism. Managers should assume that they are less open to
unwelcome messages than they think and recognize that they may be
sending subtle signals that discourage frank input.
Many organizations are already using employee surveys to uncover
general impediments to communication; we recommend that they use
the kind of 360- degree surveys described here to cast the problem
in sharp relief. The data that those tools generate are specific to
individuals, making it hard for managers to deny that the findings
apply to them.
Reprint F0804B
By Patrick Barwise and Sen Meehan
Patrick Barwise ([email protected]) is an emeritus professor
of management and marketing at London Business School. Sen Meehan
([email protected]) is the Martin Hilti Professor of Marketing and
Change Management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.
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