Listening isn’t execution? Active (the kind where you’re not simultaneously preparing your answer and ignoring physical cues)  listening prepares you to execute; two separate activities.  In most traditional corporate environments listening is not the activity that is visibly rewarded and validated, while concrete execution activities are.

There’s listening to gather hard data (outer) and there is listening to gather emotion, synergies and a sense of relationship between people and data (inner).

We fail when we judge these two types of inputs as either good or bad, necessities or luxuries.  Men are good at numbers and women are good at relationships?  Each alone is weak without the input of the other.

Hard is Soft.  In is Out.  Little is Big.

The Enron fiasco, crafted by Harvard B-School and McKinsey trained Jeff Skilling, as a classic case, circa 2001, of the lingering “reality” of “numbers” over “good sense.” And, God knows, the mega-crash of 2007+++ was led by phony “soft” numbers and delusional advanced math and a total lack of good sense…. “soft” things as “quality,” “people and relationships,” “core values,” “closeness to customers,”……were the true “hard stuff” – these aspects of business were not “fluff” “soft.”

Quotes from The Little Big Things, 163 ways to pursue excellence by Tom Peters

Hard facts, such a financial results, complaints per million, service call rates, gross profit percentages and customer service call abandonment rates are lagging indicators.  How did we do?    Hard facts say, “You went in this direction and it reaped these results.”

Skeptics say, “Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.”  In my vast experience, with data sets and dashboards, there are a million ways to work the numbers.  You can increase profits, but reduce quality, which long term will increase costs and decrease profits.   For this reason the fact gathering should represent a cross section of your life and business.

Cascading Goals

Soft inputs like synergies, intuition and relationships lead us towards possibilities and get us over the fear of failure.  It connects us to an inner knowing and the ability to take a risk without knowing all the hard facts.  It speaks to HOW you achieve results and the toll of sacrifices.  Are we burning the candle at both ends to drive the the hard fact results?  Is there teamwork?  How is the morale of the team?

I am a professional listener.  I can intuitively hear the “soft” “inner” stuff.  I have to learn and work at listening to the hard facts by setting up systems and processes.  I am the most energized and joyful when I combine the two.