人质谈判专家给CEO们的管理启示

    随着企业家慢慢成熟变为领袖人物，他们运营公司的方式会出现两大显著变化。他们会花更多时间来倾听，而不是发言。他们不再试图寻找所有问题的答案，而是开始更多地提问。关键时刻，他们将凭借提出正确的问题拨开迷雾，而不再乱下命令。

    这是为什么呢？正如莉斯·怀斯曼在《乘数》（ Multipliers）中所描述的那样，这种做法可以让身边的人变得更聪明。员工们不再坐等首席执行官发号施令，而是开动脑筋自己解决问题。这将提高员工能力，最终使他们更好地实行公司战略。

    倾听是说服他人认同自己的最好方法。人质谈判专家深谙此道。他们只有一个目标，那就是让人质劫持者放下武器，但同时又不能上演徒手夺枪的戏码。他们只能提出切中要害的问题，令罪犯束手就擒。

    我并不说要把员工比作罪犯。员工都是按照自己的动机、自主安排的独立个体。学会了怎么像CEO一样去提问，同时并认真倾听每个员工的答案，这样就能将工作场所的氛围变得更愉快，同时取得更好的效果。领导力专家奥布里·丹尼尔斯说，绝大多数员工都停留在完成任务层次上，如果能让他们在追随你的过程中充满激情，他们一定会为之付出更多努力。它甚至可以变成一种竞争优势。

    如何做到这一点呢？CEO们都可以读读马克·古尔斯顿《倾听就好》（Just Listen）一书，学学作者解决问题的方法。他是一名临床精神病专家，根据以前作为人质谈判专家和FBI培训师的经历提供商业咨询。

    先从开会入手，员工们通常认为会议浪费生命。开会时，不要一上来就跟下级对日程或发命令。他建议，让员工设想一下，假如这是一次有史以来最成功的会议，那么等回到工位上，他们会想起这场会议都涵盖了哪些议题？然后找几个人问一下他们的意见，不要总挑那些积极发言的人。他指出，通常员工的反馈会集中在以下几点上：“我们想知道公司眼下头等大事是什么”，以及“我想知道我该把精力放在什么上头。万一跟我想的不一样，我可不想等公司决定舍弃某项目后整整两周时间才知道消息。”

    会议进程中，要专注倾听。身为CEO，听的时候要注意关注全局，少发表意见。古尔斯顿建议采取“引导话题深入”的策略，显示你对员工的意见很感兴趣。员工讲到重点的时候，例如带“总是”或“绝不”这样的句子，你就可以说“再讲透彻点”、“嗯”或者“真的吗”，借此引导员工进一步详细阐述他关注的问题。这时多半就能找到影响团队进步的问题，无论是坏了的复印机，还是客服电话处理流程出了问题。

    等到谈完了会议中最重要的问题，要确认所有人都能领会到你的优先次序。古尔斯顿建议会议结束时，不妨来个小测验强化一下印象。让员工在卡片上匿名写下他们认为会议上谈到的最重要、最关键的工作，然后把卡片收上来。

    如果团队关注点出现了偏差，读这些卡片就可以帮你发现问题。如果你发现有人完全误解了下一步工作重点，可以这样说：“我有一个好消息，还有一个坏消息。坏消息是我们思想还没有完全统一。好消息是我负责解决这个问题。我会把工作做得更好，这样我们就可以拧成一股绳了。比如说我扪心自问，眼下什么是最重要、最关键、最紧迫的工作，我想应该是下面这些事情。”

    然后一一说明。古尔斯顿说：“如果让员工去猜，或者不说明白，就有可能让员工白忙一场。”这样的后果可能很严重。

    能耐心倾听员工的心声，同时能把问题提到关键点上的CEO收获一定很大。他们的公司将得以成长。他们有信心员工能圆满完成工作，而不是像大多数企业家一样，一年到头、白天黑夜，任何事情都亲力亲为。所以，你愿意做哪种类型的CEO呢？（财富中文网）

    译者：侯婕

    When business owners mature as leaders, they make two crucial changes in the way they run their companies: They spend considerably more time listening than talking. And instead of trying to have all the answers, they start asking more questions. They'll cut through the fog at critical moments with exactly the right inquiry, instead of barking commands.

    Why? It makes everyone around them smarter, as Liz Wiseman explains in her book Multipliers. Instead of waiting for the CEO to issue orders, employees start thinking for themselves. That amplifies their strengths and ultimately makes them better at executing the company's strategy.

    Listening is the most powerful method to persuade others to join your cause. No one knows this better than hostage negotiators. They have one job -- to get the hostage-taker to put the weapon down -- but they can't just reach over and grab the barrel of the shotgun. All they can do is ask the right questions to make the hostage-taker want to surrender it on his own.

    I don't mean to imply that your employees are criminals. But they are individuals who have their own motivations and agendas. By learning to ask them questions the way a CEO should -- and listen carefully to their answers -- you'll build a happier workplace and achieve better results. Most employees will do what's necessary to get by, but if they are enthusiastically behind you, they'll put in a lot more effort, as leadership expert Aubrey Daniels has explained. That can be your competitive edge.

    So how do you do this? Every CEO can learn from the approach taken by Mark Goulston, author of the book Just Listen. He's a clinical psychiatrist who advises businesses based on what he learned as a former hostage negotiator and trainer for the FBI.

    It starts with your meetings, which employees usually think are a giant time suck. Don't start with reviewing the agenda or issuing directives at your next one. Instead, he suggests, ask your employees to imagine walking back to their desks afterward and think about what the meeting would have covered if it had been the best one you ever had. Go around the room and ask a few people, not just the biggest talkers, for their input. Usually, the feedback you'll get comes down to a couple of things, he says: "We'd like to know what the most urgent priorities are," and "I'd like to know what I should be focusing on -- and if it's different, I don't want to be told two weeks from now that we dropped it."

    Once the meeting is underway, concentrate on listening more -- with a CEO's focus on big-picture goals -- and making fewer comments. Goulston suggests using "conversation deepeners" to show employees you're interested in what they have to say. Simply saying, "say more about that," "hmmm," or "really" after they made a particularly emphatic comment -- such as one where they've used the word "always" or "never" -- will prompt them to elaborate on issues that they're passionate about. This is where you are likely to find out about things that are getting in the way of your team's progress, whether it's a broken copy machine or a process for handling customer service calls that's going awry.

    Once you've covered the most important topics at the meeting, make sure employees are leaving with the same priorities you have. Goulston recommends shaking things up with a pop quiz at the end. Ask employees to write down what they think were the most important and critical takeaways of the meeting on an index card -- anonymously -- and collect them.

    If your team is focused on the wrong priorities, reading the cards will help you figure that out. Let's say some of them have completely misunderstood the next steps you've outlined. You might say, "I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is we're all over the place. The good news is it's my responsibility to fix that. I'm going to do a better job so in the future we can all be on the same page. If I were to ask myself what I thought were the most important, critical, and urgent things, they would be the following."

    Then outline them. "If you leave anything to their imagination, and you're not specific, you run the risk of their working hard doing the wrong thing," says Goulston. That can lead to disaster.

    There's a big reward for CEOs who take the time to listen to their employees and learn how to ask the right questions. They're the ones who end up being able to grow their companies. They can trust their employees to get things done -- instead of working 24/7 to do everything themselves like the vast majority of business owners. Which type of CEO do you want to be?