I'm sitting in a cafe thinking about what makes a great listener. I can see a few. They're leaning forward, nodding, smiling, asking questions. You can tell they want to be there and that they care about the person they are listening to. They're not glancing at their watch, their phones and there're no computer screens to distract them. They take turns telling their stories and sharing their thoughts but when they're listening they're engrossed in what the other person is saying and they're not interrupting. It's impossible for me to say for sure but I'm imagining that when they're listening they're not working out the next thing they're going to say to impress their friend, to knock down their argument, to win the point. It's a natural flow, improvisation style.

Most of know how to listen but why does it seem to evaporate in the workplace?

I suspect we've created workplace cultures that emphasise problem solving and getting the job done quickly and getting through the work. When someone asks a question people are clamouring to answer it and show that they are the fixer, the can-do person. Or they enter into interrogation mode to get the information so they can fix the problem.

And there are distractions galore. Phone beeping, computers beeping, colleagues bleating, all competing for our attention.

Yet there are many important times when deep listening is essential. One particular type of conversation which is top of mind for me at the moment is mentoring.

When someone you're mentoring pops into your office and says, "I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this thing I'm grappling with," then it's time to go into deep listening mode. Can you be like the people in the cafe?

A couple of ideas.

First, remove distractions. Put your mobile out of site, put your phone on silent and if your computer screen is on a swivel arm move it so it's also out of sight. Better still come around the to the other side of your desk and sit next to them with your distractions out of eye shot. I have one client who has to put his back to the glass wall of his office so he can't see the stream of people who wander past and want to speak with him.

Second, ask good questions. You want them to open up and explore the issue. Hopefully they will get a new perspective and some possible options. So you need to listen carefully to ask good questions. As a general rule, 'why' questions will get to the bigger purpose. 'How' and 'what' questions will get the detail of how things work and what might be done. And my favourites, 'when' and 'where' questions often get you stories.

Third, tell stories. You would think that listening is about just shutting up but it would be pretty weird to sit quietly and not say a peep. So to avoid just solving their problem, a strong urge for Type A's, recount some of your experiences to get them thinking of what's possible without telling them what to do.

Fourth, show that you are listening. How you look, how you respond, what you say, all indicate whether you really care and are listening. I'm not a big fan of summarising everything someone says in the form "so what I'm hearing you say is ..." I reckon that's distracting and merely a rote response. A better way is to try and predict a consequence of what they are saying and test it. "Wow, that must have been hard to take?" This way you are adding to the conversation. Body language is the other way to show you're listening. You know what to do. I find it fascinating to watch body language in our workshops. When we are sharing opinions people lean back and have that "prove it to me" look on their faces, but when are sharing stories everyone leans forward.

I'd love to know more about how to help people be better listeners. Any thoughts would be welcomed. One great source on the web is my friend Jill Chivers who has a business called I'm Listening. She has a video-based program you can take and learn to be a better listener. Note to self: must go on it.

Troy White has just posted a blog which I think is both very good because it encourages people who don't think they are storytellers to have a go and practice, yet I feel doesn't go far enough because there is a chance readers will not get to a story based on his list of triggers. Mind you I think Troy's story prompters are a great place to start. I would like, however, to make some additions to each one to make doubly sure people tell a story rather than just express their opinion. My additions are in red.

• Pet Peeves and when was the last time you felt peeved by them
• Physical Characteristics (Uniqueness) and the times they helped or hindered
• Core Beliefs and how they unfold in practice
• Politics - when have you felt angry, let down or felt like giving them a standing ovation?
• Birthplace - how did you end up being born there?
• What Are You Pathological About? And where do they emerge? What happened last time?
• Religion - has there ever been a time or moment where you were truly thankful for your beliefs?
• Significant Childhood Events
• Beliefs - have they ever got you in trouble?
• Hobbies - when have you felt proudest of your hobbies?
• Education - has your education made a big difference? What happened?
• Skills - Have you ever had a moment when you were surprised by the skills you have or dismally lack?
• Interests - What's your most boring interest and when have you really bored someone with it?
• Family - What are you most fond of about your family? What's an example?
• Talents - Has a talent ever really made a real difference? What happened?
• Life Events You Remember Most
• Adventures You Will Never Forget
• Incompetence At? Share a time when you were a real klutz.
• Anything You Are A Legend Of? When did your legendom shine?
• Successes - What are the three most memorable successes you remember? Take us through what happened.
• Likes - Tell us the last time one of your real likes jumped out and grabbed you?
• Curiosities - What is the weirdest thing you have ever heard happening?
• Failures - What's your biggest stuff up?
• Dislikes - Have you ever felt repulsed by a dislike? Tell us about it.
• Are People Amazed By Anything You Do Or About You? If yes, what happened?
• What Are You Ambitious About? What Fires You Up? When have you been really fired up? What got you going?
• Self Disciplined About? When have you displayed a monk-like discipline.
• People Are Envious Of You Because _______? When has someone been envious of you?
• Do People Desire What You Have? When have people desired what you have?

To get to a story you need to get to a time and a place. When and where questions are good. Asking what happened works. Just asking for an example can work if you can get people to provide a detailed example. Troy's prompters point us in the right direction for finding our own stories. My additions hopefully will increase the chances that a story will be told.

Why do you remember some people and completely forget others?

It really reinforced in me a quote by Terrence Gargiulo:

A story is the shortest distance between two people

So, if you want people to remember you, tell them a story.

The conversation didn't need to be held that way. We could have just talked and I would have learned that there is a process I needed to follow. I had no idea, but I should have guessed. It just reinforced in me that I can't stand bullying behaviour and, quite frankly, managers who are arseholes.

As such at Anecdote we have long held the "no arsehole rule" made famous by the Stanford professor, Bob Sutton. Adopting this rule has resulting in us firing a client and vowing to never work with someone who was a partner.

What amazes me however is just how these workplace arseholes continue to thrive in organisations. One view is that they have to work somewhere but surely we can create working environments that reflect a humane and reasonable work ethic.

I feel this mentoring program we designed and are delivering for a client is helping to increase humanity to the workplace. We've taken an informal approach to mentoring and have avoided the arranged marriage approach where someone in HR matches mentors and mentees (we've called the mentee the kouhai, a Japanese word with a similar meaning but doesn't sound like the tasty peppermint Mintie). In fact the informality goes further because we are advocating not even asking someone to be your mentor, which can create a rather awkward moment, rather we want people to just ask colleagues they respect and want a mentoring relationship for their view or guidance on a issue. We are focussing on the verb 'mentoring' above the noun, 'mentor.'

This approach fails however unless the potential mentor is mindful that these approaches will happen and when they do they can switch themselves into mentoring mode. We call this 5-minute mentoring and the mentor knows (because they have experienced a range of stories from their workplace illustrating good mentoring behaviour) that they need to focus on the interests of the kouhai above, say, the interests of the company.

If enough people experience narrative-based mentoring program we believe the behaviour of managers changes and humanity increases. We have seen this happen in our narrative leadership programs with simple behaviour changes such as giving someone your full attention when they enter your office.

Let's rid our workplace of arsehole behaviour. And the quicker we do it the better we will all be for it.

The Origins Asia Pacific Business Narrative Conference is a part of the Singapore International Storytelling Festival and is organised by The National Book Development Council of Singapore, with Shawn Callahan of Anecdote and Patrick Lambe of Straits Knowledge.

The aim of Origins is to foster the practice of business storytelling and narrative techniques in the Asia Pacific region and to build awareness among government agencies and corporations of the power of storytelling and narrative for business.

The conference has three objectives

• To build a network of practitioners to deepen the practice of storytelling and story use in organizations.
• To create awareness of the broad utility of narrative techniques for dealing with business issues, their capacity to humanise the workplace, and to help organisations deal with complexity and uncertainty.
• To inspire leaders to take the first steps in applying narrative techniques in their businesses.

Why participate?

Narrative methods are beginning to have a substantial impact on businesses, particularly in the following areas:

• leadership
• communication
• staff engagement
• strategy alignment and execution
• issues characterised by complexity
• change management
• understanding cultural and attitudinal differences
• learning lessons
• building a collaborative work environment
• communicating tacit knowledge

Who should participate?

• Leaders of organisations, teams and projects
• Corporate planning and strategic planning roles
• Change managers and change activists
• Managers in knowledge management, organisational development and organisation learning roles
• People in training, instructional design, coaching and mentoring roles
• Corporate communications and internal communications roles
• Branding, marketing and sales roles

What if a single warrior could have the knowledge of thousands?

Two weeks ago I gave an after dinner speech to the Australian Army Knowledge Management conference. Just before the speech I was introduced to the guy that has responsibility for running the Battle Command Knowledge System, which hosts CompanyCommand along with fifty other forums, Colonel Charles (Chuck) Burnett. I was a bit taken aback as I had a copy of CompanyCommand in my hand and was intending to use it as an example during the talk.

I was fortunate to spend some time talking with Colonel Burnett the next morning and he was very generous with his time. I was particularly interested to hear that one of his greatest challenges is continually justifying the value of the forums like CompanyCommand to his chain of command. Not that having to justify the value of a community of practice is a new thing; its just that having to justify the value of one of the most visible CoP success stories in the world seemed remarkable.

To tackle this, he conducted a survey last year to collect examples of how the communities of practice were making a difference. There were 2500 responses; problems overcome, mistakes avoided, money saved ... lives saved. The collected stories are now a key part of communicating the value of the CoPs (we have previously blogged about this technique here and here).

I will finish this post with a quote from the CompanyCommand book:

It became clear to me...that CompanyCommand.com was not about the website. Rather it was about a community of professionals sharing and learning in a fast-paced dynamic operational context; the technology simply enabled the process. In fact, the more I thought about and observed the...forum, the more I realised that the core technology of the forum was the people and the conversations, not the computer.

Now, I just need to wangle an invitation to the US Army KM conference in October this year ☺

We have been keeping in touch with Kevin Bishop in the UK since running our Influencing Change workshops earlier in the year. A useful idea when trying to achieve change is to make the invisible visible. Kevin has just sent us an excellent example of this.

One of the main issues in the United Kingdom election campaign has been around the economy and how to reduce the huge Government budget deficit. The recession has left a record £163.4bn (AUD$269.2bn) hole in the UK Government's finances in the last financial year, as tax receipts dried up and public spending kept rising. This has meant that Britain's national debt is now an eye-watering £950bn (AUD$1.565 trillion).

These are huge numbers to try and comprehend. What is the actual difference between a million, a billion and a trillion, and how do you make this somehow real for people (including me!)?

This explanation really helped me come to terms with these huge numbers, in a format I could understand. It says:

• 1 million seconds is equal to 11 ½ days
• 1 billion seconds is equal to 31 ¾ years
• 1 trillion seconds is equal to 31,710 years

So the difference between a million and a billion is the difference between 11 ½ days and 31 ¾ years (11.5 days vs. 11,315 days)!

All figures were taken from this article.