SHUT UP AND LISTEN – YOU MIGHT JUST LEARN SOMETHING
One of the most interesting parts of my job at 1871 is listening to our member companies. For most entrepreneurs, effective and patient listening is a fairly foreign concept. They think that the opposite of talking isn’t listening; it’s waiting to talk. Partially this is because they think that they have to always be selling and they’re always trying to fill any dead air and suck all the oxygen out of the room. But sometimes, you just need to catch your breath and let the other guy have his say. As it happens, bits of actual wisdom are the rewards you often get for listening when you would have preferred to speak.
These days, I think that listening is a rare and highly undervalued skill. It’s an area in which every one of us could use some improvement and developing good listening skills can make a world of difference for your business and in your leadership. Listening carefully is the highest form of courtesy and professionalism. As my Mother used to say: “this is why God gave us two ears and only one mouth.” If I had only listened back then, there’s no telling where I’d be today.
So every day I get to hear as much and as many of the trials and tribulations of the hundreds of entrepreneurs who work here at startup central as I can stand. I try to be patient and objective as long as they have taken the time: (1) to do their homework and get prepared; (2) to organize their thoughts and their questions; and (3) to specifically identify the areas where they think I can help or at least advise them. Folks who just drop by to shoot the breeze quickly find themselves shooting it somewhere else with someone else.
If they’re not prepared and if they have that little respect for my time; it’s hard to imagine that they would really care about my thoughts and opinions or that I should waste my relatively scarce time sharing my reactions with them. I think this is a very fair expectation on both sides of the discussion – whether you’re the “oldie” or the “newbie” in any conversation; you need to bring it or don’t bother coming.
And, of course in the course of the conversations, generally when I’m asked, and often whether or not I’m asked, I’m not especially shy (and rarely polite) about giving them my impressions and the alleged benefit of my years of experience which may occasionally keep them from making the same mistakes that I made in similar circumstances. Sometimes, I discover that they’re trying to create solutions before they’ve spent enough time listening to their customers’ problems which is a lot like working in the dark. Other times I find that just the act of having someone seriously listening to them (who doesn’t have an attitude, an interest or an agenda) does wonders for their mental health and their anxiety levels. But that’s not to say that I think that these skull sessions should be warm and fuzzy chats.
I like to save the “strokes” for their co-workers, friends and families. Honestly, I’d rather be fair and frank than spend my time beating around the bush and worrying more about their feelings than their future. My process is aggressive and unapologetic – I’m trying to make them and their businesses better – that’s all there is to it. It’s never about me. But it does have a lot to do with argument and challenge – pressing and pushing them to think about the tough issues and the non-obvious answers - rather than supplying their standard responses. I want to make sure that they have the courage of their convictions and the willingness to stick by their guns. We often describe this posture as “sometimes wrong, but never in doubt.”
That’s because you need a thick skin to succeed in this crazy startup business and the internal and external calluses which will ultimately come to protect you are developed and grow strong in the crucible of confrontation (and hard questions) and not in courteous conversations steeped in superficial compliments. Some babies are just ugly – and some ideas just suck. It always helps to tell it like it is and the truth only hurts when it should.
Having said all that, I’d still certainly rather have them not just listen to my advice, but take it as well. I do vehemently believe that great serial entrepreneurs are masters in pattern recognition and – in the startup space – there are very, very few problems and very little else that represent truly new issues or – as the courts say – cases of first impression. In 95% of the situations, for better or worse, these are “movies” that I’ve seen before. Everyone I know and those I speak to about this who have made it their life’s work to consistently light up new businesses will tell you that – while you’re always gonna make new mistakes – the real key to succeeding more often than you fail is to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.
I can’t speak for the many guys who’ve been successful once in this business of new businesses – I’m sure that even they aren’t sure whether they were terribly smart or terrifically lucky or, most likely, a bunch of both. It’s never really that clear whether their particular success was mainly due to a good idea, good partners, good timing or simple good luck – not that there’s anything wrong with any of these elements. I like to say: “Just because you’ve done it once doesn’t make you Jesus.”
And I’ve written before about marginal mentors (http://www.inc.com/howard-tullman/how-to-deal-with-marginal-mentors.html ) and on the subject of how little having made or accumulated a lot of money has to do with having the mental horsepower and the chops to help someone drag his business out of a ditch. Money doesn’t really care who makes it and having a lot of money – as we all know from experience – clearly doesn’t make you wise.
But for those of us who have lived through the very prolonged and painful process of successfully birthing businesses over and over again, it all comes down to listening and paying attention. And to one more important thing: the winners are those who learn to listen patiently without losing either their self-confidence or their temper.
PS: “You Get What You Work for, Not What You Wish for”
