{"id":7027,"date":"2011-07-28T08:51:25","date_gmt":"2011-07-28T15:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=7027"},"modified":"2011-07-28T08:51:26","modified_gmt":"2011-07-28T15:51:26","slug":"watch-out-of-the-corner-of-your-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=7027","title":{"rendered":"Watch Out of the Corner of Your Ear"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A lot goes on around me as I\u2019m working on any project and I\u2019ve learned is to pay attention to things at the corners of my focus: little comments at the end of a statement are one of the most important \u2013 what I call watching out of the corner of my ear.<\/p>\n

A lot goes on around me as I\u2019m working on any project and I\u2019ve learned to pay attention to things at the corners of my focus: little comments at the end of a statement are one of the most important \u2013 what I call watching out of the corner of my ear.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important what you hear and don\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n

On one project I had been hired to project manage the organization change.\u00a0 As I was talking to the program manager to get oriented to the work ahead, she said to me, \u201cThe project concerns assisting with developing new processes in support of the new software system but bzzz bzzz bzzz\u201d \u2013 the last part of her statement was said very softly and indistinctly.\u00a0 I could have continued on with the information I already had \u2013 because I probably got the main part of her thought with what she said at the beginning of her statement but my experience over the years has taught me that what was at the end of her comments might be important \u2013 though there\u2019s always the a chance it might not. \u00a0However, I leaned forward and asked, \u201cI\u2019m sorry I missed some of what you said.\u00a0 Would you repeat the last part of what you were saying?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201cI was just saying that the project sponsor wasn\u2019t very supportive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s interesting,\u201d I said, \u201ccan you tell me more?\u201d\u00a0 And as she talked, a number of important details became clear:\u00a0 what the project sponsor was doing; what he wasn\u2019t; what she had done to try and induce him to support the project more actively.<\/p>\n

Almost always \u2013 though not a hundred percent of the time \u2013 I\u2019ve found it really valuable to follow up on seemingly incidental, throwaway lines.\u00a0 In the example just mentioned, the project manager was probably a bit embarrassed that she hadn\u2019t been able to create the kind of support she had hoped she had hoped for.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also found that an important part of listening is to ask when I don\u2019t understand something.<\/p>\n

First, it\u2019s quite all right that I don\u2019t understand things.\u00a0 After all, I\u2019m called in from outside or I\u2019m new to the particular project.\u00a0 I still am a little embarrassed myself when I don\u2019t understand what \u201cER\u201d means as it slips easily off the tongue of my client.\u00a0 My client uses it all the time in his work but to me, it\u2019s new \u2013 and I better understand it if I am going to be of assistance.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just acronyms that people throw around.\u00a0 It\u2019s ideas.\u00a0 If I\u2019m not clear about something, how am I going to do my job well?\u00a0 And it\u2019s almost always acceptable to not understand.<\/p>\n

Sure, after a reasonable time I should know things but certainly not near the beginning.\u00a0 And to get up to speed, I\u2019ll often say something like, \u201cCould you help me understand more about what you just said?\u00a0 Would you say more about X?\u201d\u00a0 Or even more directly, I\u2019ll say, \u201cI\u2019m a bit confused about what you were just saying, would you go through your explanation another time for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing I always do at the beginning of any project is to start a list of what I call \u2018Vocabulary, Acronyms, Phrases\u201d and I write out each item on the left with an explanation of it to the right.\u00a0 I keep updating that list and always have a printed copy of the latest version with me when I\u2019m talking with people in the first few months when I\u2019m starting work on any project.\u00a0 And when someone describes an item differently than I had heard or read it elsewhere, I inquire: \u201cThat\u2019s interesting.\u00a0 When you say Y, I had the understanding it meant Z but you\u2019re saying something a little different.\u00a0 Could you help me understand more about what Y means?\u201d<\/p>\n

In sum, when I notice something out of the corner of my ear, I inquire.\u00a0 When something\u2019s not really clear to me, I inquire.\u00a0 And I keep notes on what I do learn, especially acronyms and other lingo that\u2019s commonplace to my clients but new or unfamiliar to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot goes on around me as I\u2019m working on any project and I\u2019ve learned is to pay attention to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1523,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,855,856,849,850],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","category-pmbok-process-executing","category-pmbok-process-monitoring-and-controlling","category-team-leadership","category-organizational-leadership"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}