A Small Business Lesson
In a recent post on the importance of good listening, I received a comment from Jeff Hahn, who agrees with my premise on how listening can improve your business success and your personal relationships. Jeff wanted to extend the premise to our elected officials operating out of Washington, DC. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how right Jeff is.
One of my pet peeves is to listen to a Congressional inquiry where the chairman will welcome the invited or subpoenaed guests and say how much they are looking forward to hearing their testimony. Then she/he will talk for 20 minutes with no question offered. Then the baton is passed to a committee member who will talk on for 10 minutes before a question pops up. This goes on and on with all the committee members.
It appears that they think the length of a question is equated with wisdom. Maybe that emanates from an early school where many teachers grade higher for the quantity of words offered in a paper. I’m from the school that shorter is better, although harder.
A majority of our politicians seem to exemplify the common error in good listening (postulated in our earlier post): their listening capital is expended on thinking of what they are going to say next (talking points) when someone is talking to them. How many times have you heard a politician answer a question, sometimes eloquently, that has no bearing on the question put forth?
So, to help resolve this issue for these important people in our country, I propose a Twitter Czar should be appointed to enforce a 140 word limit on all congressional questions. Their credibility will be enhanced while we citizens’ patience will not be so taxed.
