“A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying.  In the end, he may disagree…but he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.”

–       Kenneth A. Wells, author

There is little civil discourse these days.  Lots of discourse, mind you, but little of it is civil.  And, it seems that is likely due to the fact that there ain’t a whole lot o’ listening going on.

People think the Democrats don’t listen.  Or the Republicans.  People think CEO’s don’t listen and CEO’s think their teams don’t listen.  Customers – wow, some of them could really use some listening skills training, huh?

And then, we walk by the mirror.  And we glance.  Just a quick peak. Who was that horrible listener looking back at us?

Dang it!

It’s us, too, isn’t it?  I mean, we can tell you why we disagree – but what was it that the other person really said?  What was it they really meant?  What is it that we disagree with?  Do we really disagree?

If we don’t listen, we simply cannot understand.  And, if we don’t understand, we simply cannot be part of the solution.  If we don’t listen, guess what?  We are the problem.

And, before we go off all half-cocked and insist that others listen first – if we’re to tie listening and understanding together, remember what Covey said; “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Listening makes a difference.

“Until I was 13, I thought my name was “Shut Up!”

–               Joe Namath

This one goes back about six years, but bear with me…this week’s theme is “listening…”

When Wyatt (the Middle of The Three) was 4 1/2, one night at bedtime, he asked, “Daddy, when am I going to be 7?”  He was frustrated, because wise, old, Kate (age 7 at the time) got to stay up until 8:30, half an hour past his bed time.

It had been one of those days.  I was tired.  I was tempted to say what my dad said to me in such situations, “Don’t wish your life away!” I was tempted to offer some other pithy “dad-admonishment” but for some reason, I just said, “Why, Wyatt?”

“Because when you’re seven, Dad, you get to watch a TV show for a long, long time after your brother goes to bed.”  So, on a roll, and armed with this valuable information, I said, “Why else?”  We made it through about five equally compelling reasons that being seven is much better than being four-and-a-half, until he yawned really big and said, “Thanks, Dad.”

“Thanks for what, Wyatt?”

“Thanks for letting me tell you why it’s no fair being littler than Kate.”

Ever wonder what our customers would tell us if we asked them “Why?” more often?  Ever wonder how much easier the job would be if we asked and listened, instead of anticipated and “told?”

How much of a difference would that make?

“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”

–     Booker T. Washington

Last night at the Target store near the intersection of RR620 and FM2222, just up the road from where our new home is being built, I was wandering around, evidently looking like a 51-year-old man who was moving in to a rental house a month before his wife and kids (or any of his belongings).  The kind of guy who knew he needed a table and chair, a couple pillows, some toilet paper and paper plates — you get the picture.  The kind of guy who’d waited 6 hours for Texas Gas to show up in their five-hour window to turn on the gas in the aforementioned rental house.  I looked tired, irritated, tired and tired, would be my guess.  But that’s not the point.

Enter Abel, Assistant Manager.

“Sir, you look like you could use some help.”  (Duh!)

Four minutes later, I had everything I needed (including three items I needed but didn’t remember that I needed), and Abel was carrying half of it towards my car.  But that’s not the point.

“Hey, Abel,” I said.  “My washer and dryer are still in Wisconsin with my wife and kids.  I can’t find a laundromat anywhere, and I am encountering a shortage of clean skivvies, if ya know what I mean…”

Abel spoke confidently in to his little Target-Assistant-Manager radio doohicky.  “Kim Fox, come in, please.”  In about two seconds, sorta like Captain Kirk out of the transporter, Kim Fox appears.  Abel shared my dilemma with her, mercifully not mentioning my skivs.

“Washatopia,” Kim said.  “It’s close to your office (Abel had shared that location with her).  Best laundromat ever!” she raved.  “You can drop it off and they’ll do it, and they have free wi-fi, oh, and they have dry cleaning…..”  This woman loves her some Washatopia.  But that’s not the point.

This morning, I arrived at Washatopia.  Jami greeted me.

Look, I know I’m spoiled but the last time I used a laundromat, it took about $63 worth of quarters and five weeks to do a load.  The floor felt a lot like the floor of a college bar at 2 AM Sunday (from what I expect a floor like that must feel like — having, of course, not experienced that since, well, the last time I needed a laundromat…).  In less than a minute, and for less than $9, Jami had me loaded in to the state-of-the-art, card-reading, fast-cycle, soft-water washers, had me logged on to the wi-fi and settled in to a comfortable spot to do some work.  By the way, she was helping half-a-dozen “regulars,” at the same time.  This place is spotless and my laundry is going to be done in half the time it would take at home.  Heck, I love me some Washatopia.  But that’s not the point.

Abel, Kim and Jami are the point.

Their jobs don’t require them to bend over backwards.  Their bosses probably don’t train them to bend over backwards.  Their jobs don’t pay them in the 1% range.

Yet, they deliver excellence.  Without being asked.  Without being incentivized to do more than show up, punch the clock and do the minimum.

The point is, Abel, Kim and Jami are examples of servant leadership.  Yep.  Leadership.  In the past twelve hours, I’ve learned a thing or two from a Target store assistant manager, one of his cashiers and a laundromat attendant that will make me a better executive, leader, father and person.  If I’m paying attention.

That’s the point.

“Coming together is a beginning.  Keeping together is progress.  Working together is success.”

–     Henry Ford

Earlier this week, I had the exceptional honor of speaking on the inaugural Reinke Leadership Speakers Series at Concordia University – Nebraska.  As part of that honor, I met Ralph and Carole Reinke, and my life is better for it.  As part of that honor, I met Dr. Tom Cedel, the President of Concordia University – Texas, and Dr. Brian Friedrich, President of CUN.  Ironically, Dr. Cedel’s campus is about 9 miles from where we are building our new home in Austin, TX.  Earlier this month, I had the exceptional honor of joining the phalanx of Spartans at BancVue — in Austin, TX.

There is much coming together in my life.

And the coming together represents more than just a beginning.

Early in our careers, coming together is a beginning.  As we weather and mature and season (“season” is a much more better word than “age,”), the things that bring us together will keep us together.

Our topic was leadership in the Reinke speakers’ event.  Our shared vision is leading an industry at BancVue.  Our common bond is making a difference.  These are the things that bring us together.

Check out the Concordia family of Universities.  Check out BancVue.  Join in the conversation.

“The truth is more important than the facts.”

–      Frank Lloyd Wright, legendary architect

“You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.”

–      Gilbert Keith Chesterton

“A mathematician is a device for turning coffee in to theorems.”

–      Paul Erdos

If we only focus on numbers we lose sight of the drivers that matter – the things we do that ultimately produce our numbers. Sometimes, in the presence of the truth, but without the support of numbers, we have to decide.

A couple years ago, Harvard Business Review released a great series on leadership, titled “Decision Making: The Heart of Strategy.” It captured a series of HBR articles spanning nearly 20 years, all of which focus on some of the aspects of decision making.

In one article, David Garvin and Michael Roberto (“What You Don’t Know About Making Decisions” HBR 2001) caution against treating decision making as an “event,” and instead promote an approach steeped in “inquiry.” There are frequent mentions of constructive conflict – and the productive role it plays in leadership and in decision making.

Leaders have to decide when a different course is called for, and it is incumbent upon us to lead by deciding.

Here’s a solid anecdotal angle: Warren Buffet famously cautioned, “When you find yourself in a hole, the best thing you can do is stop digging.” (Yes, that was a 4^th quotation. Sue me!)

We have lots of tools available to us. Numbers, admittedly.  Faith, predominately.  But also, logic, wisdom, experience, intelligence, training, and expertise. Intuition and instincts, common-sense and commitment are on the list, too. With all the tools available to us, though, unless we have some digging to do, we have to be very careful not to use our shovels.

“I don’t know.  Third base!”

–     From Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s On First” Skit

First, complexity…

Sometimes, the simplest things can be complex…like the line-up in Abbott & Costello’s baseball lampoon.

For example, last night, Milwaukee’s best meteorologist, Vince Condella of Fox 6, spent several minutes telling us about “Friction Snow.”  I love Vince and prefer his style and substance over anyone else’s but he was espousing a degree of complexity that was not useful.  Snow, for me, is about moisture and temperature.  If it is wet enough and cold enough, white stuff falls from the sky, piles up on the ground and makes me want to move to Texas.  Simple.  Comfortable.  Which brings me to…

…comfort.

This morning, passing through airport security, I noticed a hole in the sleeve of my favorite, most expensive, now ten-year-old sport coat.  I love this sport coat.  It was my first Tom James purchase from the best Tom James guy in the USA, Timmy Cornell.  This jacket feels right.  It looks good.  Even on me, which is no small task.  It is going to have to be retired.  As dopey as it sounds — wait, as dopey as it IS — I take comfort in this sport coat, and I have for ten years.  It is one of life’s simple pleasures.

It got me thinking.  Why do we so often try to make the simple things complex, when we know that the simple things provide us the most comfort?

About a dozen times in my career, some folks — “experts” in their fields — have told me “ours is a very complex industry.”  No, it’s not.  So why not get comfortable with the simplicity — and the comfort that comes from keeping it simple?

I won’t miss the snow.  But, dang it, I am really gonna miss this jacket…

“Having nothing, nothing can he lose.”

–     William Shakespeare

The problem with not making the big bets is that we still know, subconsciously, that we’re losing, and we also know — consciously –that we’re not doing anything to affect the outcome.  It sounds a lot like”quitting,” doesn’t it?

Quitting — or not engaging to the best of our ability — avoiding the “big bets” if you will, is debilitating.  Crippling.  Paralyzing.

Why not make our best effort where the stakes are the highest?

That’ll make a difference!

“Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint you can on it.”

–     Danny Kaye

It takes the same effort to execute on the puny, less significant idea that it does to execute on the big ones.

It takes about the same time.

We can either paint in one little corner of the canvas, or we can start chucking paint all over it.

It seems an easy choice, when kept in context.

And, since the risk is clearly about the same as using a tiny brush and just one color — it seems an open invitation to make a difference.

“Accountability breeds response-ability.”

–       Stephen R. Covey

I have a friend who thinks the government should take care of everything and everyone.  (Yes, really, she is my friend.  I don’t understand it, I just go with it….she’s likeable…).  That abdication of responsibility and accountability absolves her from any response-ability.  In other words, it makes her unable to respond…

I like Covey’s hyphen.  It moves us from thinking about blame to thinking about action.  I mean, if someone else is accountable and responsible, then I need not respond at all, right?

I can just sit here…

(This pause is illustrative of me, just sitting here…)

Or, not.

If impact is our goal, then onus and accountability are cousins.  Some people are given accountability, and some feel that the onus is on them to take it.  The latter peeps are my type.

The trite saying from which Tony Robbins and other “van-down-by-the-river-types” have made millions from – “If it is to be, it is up to me,” – is only trite because so many people toss it out there and then don’t change behaviors.  Factually, it’s pretty much right there, looking us in the eye.

Responding instead of reacting.  Accountability instead of abdication.  Impact over activity.  Difference making stuff.

“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”

–       Oliver Wendell Holmes

We live in a media intensive world that relishes in the exponential.  “Big” is no longer enough to garner much attention for lots of folks who are looking for “huge,” and, besides, the definition of “big” is subjective and shifting all the time.

One risk in considering “impact” is that, in this media intensive world, we’re led by the sound bite to think of “big” impact.  “The sound of the impact could be heard for several blocks…”  In real life — the one lived, for example in our world, “big impact” might actually result from a series of small impact points combining toward something bigger.

Think about it.  How many single incidents in your life have really been game changers?  And, on reflection, what percentage of those were actually the sum of smaller parts, rather than one, gigantic serendipitous event?  My guess is the answer to the first question was a pretty small number and the answer to the second was a pretty high percentage.

What we do, regardless of what it is, is based in incremental improvement.  In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell references the significance of a practice threshold of 10,000 hours.  Bill Gates and others who have been credited with huge, exponential impacts on commerce and the world in general, actually arrived at those huge, exponential events after at least 10,000 hours of plodding, grinding and marching.

Parents don’t raise great kids with flashes of brilliance.  They raise great kids with incremental, consistent, disciplined steps to parenting.  Managers don’t get results by reaching in to a top hat with a white silk glove and pulling out a rabbit.  They get results with incremental, consistent steps to managing.

“Breakthrough” actors and directors often talk about being a “20-year overnight success.”  There are countless examples in virtually any other industry you want to point to.

What we do today will either take us forward or not.  That “big deal” gets moved one step closer by the five or six little things we’ll do today.  That delivery problem we’re facing will get solved one step at a time.  The seminal moment we’re all looking for will be created by a large number of seemingly insignificant steps.  Incremental.  Forward.  Progress.  Leadership.  Difference making.