The Silent Power: Listening to Relate, not to Respond

The beginning of each year sees SAP’s leadership coming together to align on priorities, interdependencies, and generally, to make sure that all our 100K+ employees move in formation in pursuit of one set of clear and unifying goals.

Once again this January, I was truly energized by, and reminded of, a critical leadership trait that had made SAP, and many other organizations who do this well, as successful as we are today:?effective communication that is rooted in clarity, full transparency, empathy, active listening and a genuine interest to have productive and true two-way dialogues.?

As I reflected on the value this brings to our leadership and talent communities alike, I was immediately reminded of ?a leadership anecdote from years ago when I rowed with the Canadian leadership team in Banff, Alberta - an experience that continues to inform and inspire how I lead and collaborate with my teams and colleagues today.?

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Watching the team row in unison, with impeccable precision, was a sight to behold. The effortless synchronicity completely belied the hard work that went on, on that boat. BUT it took us considerable effort to get there - as the instructor (or leader if you well) belted out the instructions, only a couple of us got it right at first, and I certainly wasn’t one of them - it took us quite a bit of time to get everyone to move as ONE.?How does this happen if everyone is given the?same instructions, and everyone heard them clearly?

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As I reflected on my various leadership roles over the years, I realize today that it all comes down to communication, and how such instructions (or corporate strategic direction) go through the prism of our individual priorities, and all of us interpret them very differently if they’re not communicated in the context that we can relate to - or as John Maxwell puts it:?Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.

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Some require more clarity: should we start rowing clockwise? with oars pointing high or low? Others get concerned about how their rowing and sitting affect others. Do my?neighbours have enough space? Could anyone get hurt? Am I inappropriately taking over others’ roles? Some are (admirably) completely focused on themselves and their individual roles, with an intent to get their part right, but at the detriment of the rhythm everyone else on the boat is going for. All this considerably impacts the harmony of how the One Team operates, despite everyone’s best intentions.

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It’s all about how we communicate - not only what we say and how we say it, but how we listen and relate. Effective leadership is not a monologue, it is the ability to communicate in the relevant context the audience care about, and equally, it is for the audience to connect through active listening, geared towards understanding where the other person is coming from. When we feel heard and understood, we feel that we matter - and we tend to trust people to whom we matter. It makes us genuinely motivated to do what it takes to accelerate towards a common goal.?

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Leadership, rooted in empathy, gains the power through the clarity of such meaningful communication, and it is in this context that I was truly fascinated by John Maxwell’s approach of understanding the communication style of those we interact with. Having the empathy to understand such communication styles and adjust ours to accommodate,?is a good recipe to be heard and drive joint understanding, and therefore, have better and faster outcomes.

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1. Relaters?communicate to forge relationships. They will do everything to get along and?avoid conflict. Sometimes, this comes at the expense of the desired outcome.?Encouraging the Relater to move in the right direction is directly reciprocal to our ability to create trust - even through disagreements and challenging situations.?
2. Reactors?tend to respond?immediately, instinctively?and emotionally.?These are some of the most?passionate members on our teams, but their all-in commitment, leads them at times to react?strongly to disagreement. Having the emotional intelligence to say, ‘let’s think about this and come back to it in a couple of days’, is the best way to give a Reactor the time to think and come back to the discussion with calmer approach and a fresh perspective.?
3. Accommodators,?do not know how to say no. They?strive to meet the needs of others, often?spreading?themselves too thinly, eventually burning out. These are some of our hardest contributors in the team, and carefully listening to the soft clues, like a tiny pause before they wholeheartedly agree to taking on a new project, goes a long way to offer them more support and letting them know that you’ve got their back - even when they, themselves, might not.?
4. Analyzers?carefully process their thoughts before speaking. They often come across as collected and highly pragmatic, but potentially also cold, calculative and sometimes unmotivated to put their team’s agenda above their own. Understanding their motivations and being able to subtly map them to those that the team is pursuing, creates harmony in any given team - on an individual and group level.?

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When we listen to understand, instead to respond, we are saying: ‘what you care about matters to me, and your wellbeing is genuinely important to me’ - we instill trust and forge connection that allow us to truly hear the real questions, problems and ideas – those, that remain unspoken. And this is the real secret to moving thousands of people to sit together, to start together and to row together across the finish line.

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Huge shout out to that Canadian leadership team who taught me to row in harmony, as one, in beautiful #Alberta years ago!