I just tripped across a blog post by my friend George Roberts, a partner with OpenView Venture Partners and former EVP of Sales with Oracle.  His post was about an article in the USA Today Money section about John Lechleiter, CEO of Eli Lilly. John shared his top tips for CEOs. They’re too good not to pass along:

• Listen before you speak.
• Treat others the way you’d like to be treated.
• Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. And remember that there are always two sides to every story.
• Decide on the few things that really matter and do them really well.
• Business is hectic. Find time to sit and think without distractions.
• Laugh out loud at least a few times a day. If you’re doing something that matters and that you really enjoy, it ought to be great fun.

All of these sound relatively easy.  Ah, if only that were the case.

Take listening for example.  How many times have we:

• Concentrated on what we were going to say next and missed was being said?
• Didn’t ask a clarifying question because we were afraid of looking stupid?
• Assumed we understood a concept only to find you didn’t and then failed to ask a question?
• Refrained from uttering the words: “Tell me more”?

Listening is hardly second nature

Most of us assume we know how to listen. It’s a native skill, right?

For me, learning to listen was harder than learning how to read. That’s saying a lot. As someone with ADHD and dyslexia, learning to read was no cake walk. In middle school, I was tested to have zero reading comprehension — nada, nix, nothing.  I didn’t learn how to read with any fluidity until college.

In my early thirties, I had the opportunity to engage in executive coaching through the Center for Authentic Leadership (www.c4al.org).  What I learned was that I had spent a lifetime of trying not to look stupid, crazy or like a failure.  In the process of managing my persona, I failed to listen to just about anything and everything that was being said to me.  I was too worried about how I appeared.

Having befriended many successful executives over the years, I have found that my experience is nothing unusual. Many execs struggle with the fear of having their persona fail them and looking weak, ignorant, insert your adjective here: _____.

The very good news is that we all have these fears in common. The even better news is that you can learn to move through the fear and actually hear what others are saying!

Here are my favorite tips on how to listen better:

• Keep repeating to yourself: “I have no idea what this person is going to say!”
• Any time you feel the urgent need to speak, instead say: “Tell me more.”
• Remember, only people truly comfortable with their intelligence say: “I don’t understand. Could you explain this to me again?”

I invite you to try one and test it out for a week.  My personal favorite is #1 – particularly with slow talkers!