Shut Up and Listen
July 6th, 2003 by Hal
Team Building Made Easy: Shut Up & Listen, a Business 2.0 interview with Noel Tichy in the July issue. Unfortunately, Business 2.0 left this article out of their online version. It accompanied the pullout section on The Business 2.0 Dream Team, their picks for the best of leaders from all the business functions. So now you have a good reason to subscribe, just $7.49/Yr!
Noel Tichy is best-known for the work he did at GE creating the workout process for their Crotonville training center. Tichy describes the success of workout coming from people who came to speak with the boss unafraid to share their views. That would result in a nonhierarchical exchange of criticism and ideas. While the interview was about company leaders the advice seems to fit the project leader too.
Tichy advises to build your team then aggressively listen:
(T)he leader has to use command and control to build the team — but once it's together, he has to share that power, becoming totally nonhierarchical and participatory so that team members speak with one voice and become leaders themselves.
He indicates that whether your company or team operates conventionally or not, when we convene a team that includes a number of companies we are likely to include people who have been systematically shut down.
(C)ompanies…still employ the old top-down system, where management wants to just talk and not listen Members become alienated, no one wants to talk because no one wants to listen, everyone becomes increasingly misaligned, and the company becomes progressively dumber. And that's still the majority of companies out there.
Each project team and its organization is temporary. Take the time to organize it based on the strengths of the team members then systematically listen. For more on this read (5R) Protocol for a Listening Workplace.
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