All the questions in the world will not help your team if you are not listening. You don’t learn when you’re talking; you learn when you’re listening. Excellent coaches are also excellent listeners and learners.

Mark Twain said, “If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.”

If you’re not listening to your employees, you will gradually suffer from “blind spots” – weaknesses that are apparent to others but not to you.

When our son was 11 years old, he earned his junior black belt in karate. Of course, we were very proud of him, for he had come a very long way since his first lesson. We remember that lesson well. He was 7 years old, and one of the first things the master instructor taught him was a simple exercise called a kata. This kata ended with him, the beginning student, saying emphatically, “V for victory and bow for humility” as he crisscrossed arms over his head with fists clinched for the “V” and then bowed for humility.

A grandfather of a friend came to America from Eastern Europe. After being processed at Ellis Island, he went into a cafeteria in lower Manhattan. He sat down at an empty table and waited for someone to take his order. Of course nobody did. Finally, a woman with a tray full of food sat down opposite him and informed him how a cafeteria worked.

"Start out at that end," she said. "Just go along the line and pick out what you want. At the other end, they'll tell you how much you have to pay."