The Valentine’s Day gift of Listening!

It’s so easy to unintentionally close people down when we’re in a hurry, think we know the answer, assume what the other person means and so on.Ā 
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Here are a couple of examples:

Team member – ā€˜I think we need to do some work on helping people understand our values a bit more and what they look like in practice’.

Boss – ā€˜I disagree – it’s not a priority right now’.

Conversation closed.

Same boss gets frustrated that her team ā€˜don’t innovate as much as they should’ and ā€˜don’t seem to have the creative ideas she is expecting from them’.

I wonder why?!

ā€˜Better’ response?’ I’d like to hear your thoughts on how we do that’/’that’s interesting, I thought everyone was really clear – so tell me more’.Ā 

That opens up a dialogue.

Here’s a second example:

Team member – ā€˜I can’t get my voice heard in the meeting. I try to speak but get drowned out by the louder voices. I don’t know what to do’.

Boss – ā€˜I’ll give you an agenda topic to work with so you can lead on that, okay?’

Team memberĀ (to self) - ā€˜that’s n...

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