by Rene Street | Jan 12, 2025 | Blog, Business, Uncategorized
Being present in today’s world is more difficult than it has ever been before. Everyone is constantly bombarded by emails, text messages, social media, news, advertisements, and all the other distractions of the modern world.
A lack of presence, especially in leadership, can often lead to poor communication, a lack of rapport with those around you, and volatility, uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity in the workplace. One of the easiest ways to solve this problem is to understand and change the way you listen to those around you.
Most people don’t focus on or participate in listening in a way that actually makes a difference. Learning to truly listen and engage with whomever you are talking to enables connection, builds trust, and elevates flow across the board. When you strengthen your ability to listen, you become a better communicator. When you level up your ability to hear, you show up as somebody who is more open to feedback and who appreciates the contribution of what others are thinking and feeling.
Upleveling your listening begins first and foremost with understanding what, how, and when you aren’t really listening.
Listening from Obligation
When this happens, there is little to no effort from the listener, either due to various distractions or a lack of caring about what the speaker has to say. Common behaviors when you’re listening at this level are multitasking, such as playing on your phone or scrolling through emails when someone is talking to you, tuning out/daydreaming, and anticipating what you think they are going to say and interjecting words for them. This kind of listening makes it impossible to develop rapport.
This level of listening also includes pretend listening, where you are not paying attention to the speaker, however you still act as though you are listening. The listener’s brain is paying attention to other things, but they are maintaining involvement in the conversation. Think of sitting next to someone very talkative on the plane or talking on the phone with a chatty family member. You aren’t absorbing or understanding the information the speaker is sharing.
Listening from the Inside
This is selective listening or downloading. In this level, you are only listening for what someone else is saying to confirm facts you already believe to be true. You are listening inside of your existing context. You parcel out information that you perceive to be uninteresting, lacking in value, or that doesn’t conform to your biases and preconceived notions. This level of listening is problematic because you only hear what you want to hear. When you listen this way, it’s all too often to brush feedback aside and/or filter it out altogether.
You know you’ve been listening like this when you come out of a conversation and everything you expected to happen happened. This type of listening is all about you. Your purpose in listening is to validate yourself and invalidate another if they disagree with you. There is no freedom and nothing new will be created in this kind of listening.
Listening for New Information
This level of listening is about seeking new information, new data, and new perspectives. It’s listening to learn. However, you are still listening for what’s in it for you. You’re not curious, but listening to gain knowledge or get something out of the listening. You are taking what you already think and building upon it.
At this level you are open to hearing something you haven’t heard before. You have some new data points and information that challenges your assumptions. Perhaps it exposes some new content or new reality to you. Here, you can actually walk away from the conversation with a memory of what was said and how it changed your perception. You leave the conversation thinking new things or in new ways.
Listening with Curiosity and Compassion
In this level of listening you are really connecting to the other person. You’ve got an empathic, emotional connection. This is when you’re listening soul to soul, heart to heart, and seeing the experience through another person’s eyes. You’re not only challenging your own assumptions, but actually considering that the other person’s reality is valid. You get to experience that person’s experience. Most one-on-ones should be done with this empathic, emotional connection. You’re letting go of your agenda and having an open mind and heart, building trust, and deepening your relationship with this person. You’re curious.
This is when you are fully engaged and focused on the speaker’s words and what those words mean to you and to the speaker. Nothing distracts you from the person with whom you are speaking. They have your full and undivided attention and it is clear to them that this is so.
Listening for What’s Possible
This level of listening is generative. You have moved beyond any friction and are completely immersed in flow. Everybody is participating. You both are in service of something bigger than the agenda and listening with an open will. In this level, you aren’t just listening to the person, but acknowledging the future that wants to be created. This is where innovation happens. This is where the collective genius is not just tapped into, but realized.
This is the highest and most meaningful level of listening and is where you want to spend as much time as possible.
Listening at the Highest Level Every Time
We all need diverse opinions and viewpoints. When you listen from the lower levels of listening, which is not really listening at all, you miss out on so much, from critical information and feedback, to a chance to develop rapport with your team, a loved one, or even a total stranger.
The most effective leaders all excel at listening from the highest level. They make people feel valued, respected, and understood. They are also always honing their skills and becoming better listeners. They continually work on opening their mind, heart, and will. It’s a continual process of evolution. They are present and focused on whatever or whomever is in front of them. Meaningfully listening to those around you enables you to elevate yourself as a leader, build trust and rapport, and empower the people you’re listening to. Evolving your leadership and achieving optimal results begins with listening.
About the author:
Margaret Graziano, known as the Evolutionist, is the founder and CEO of KeenAlignment, as well as a Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author for her book “Ignite Culture.” She has been recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s Top 100 Women Leaders. Magi’s groundbreaking work is driven by her power to uncover and catalyze human potential. Go to www.MargaretGraziano.com for more information.
by American Business Women's Association | Mar 3, 2024 | Blog, Business, Business
Are you happy at work? Here’s how to boost the often-overlooked KPI of joy.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are foundational to most jobs. These useful measurements help companies understand progress over time. But beyond revenue growth and profit margin, there’s one KPI some managers overlook: JOY!
How happy are your employees? Perhaps more importantly, what’s your own level of joy in your job? At Dell Technologies and at Renegade Global—a consulting practice that helps people invest in their personal brand and growth—we see the people in our businesses, not just the professionals.
Make Play Nonnegotiable!
Play goes hand in hand with curiosity, which in turn fuels engagement. When you prioritize play, you combat opposing feelings of burnout and even depression.
Diversify Your Sources of Happiness
There are different kinds of happiness: “rock star,” which you might experience after a big win; “flow,” which happens when you’re caught up in something you enjoy; and “higher purpose,” which occurs when you focus on something bigger than yourself. You need all three.
Avoid the Three Ps (Perfectionish, People Pleasing & Personalizing)
Of the common pitfalls people tend to fall into at work, three Ps top the list: perfectionism (seeking an unattainable standard), people-pleasing (never putting yourself first) and personalizing (making things “about you”). Be sure to give yourself—and others—the grace to make mistakes. Prioritize your own needs and remember that not everything is personal.
Overcome Difficult Conversations
Effective communication is an art form. When you have a difficult conversation ahead, consider the following steps:
- Vent to a neutral third party (not colleagues) to release tension.
- Empathize with the other person’s perspective.
- Rehearse what you want to say.
- Ask for what you need—then stop talking.
- Check in weekly.
Here at Dell and within Renegade Global, we have seen great results with weekly check-ins, asking questions such as:
- Which activities did I love?
- Which ones did I loathe?
- What are my priorities?
- What help do others need from me?
With these tips in mind, you can transcend clichés about work-life balance and make joy a core Key Performance Indicator of your job.
Authors: Liz Matthews is a Senior Vice President of Global Brand, Dell Technologies, and Amy Jo Martin, CEO and founder, Renegade Global
by Rene Street | Mar 30, 2023 | Blog, Uncategorized
There’s never a perfect time to pause your day-to-day work and focus on the internal team, but when you do make the effort, the dividends are immediate. Setting aside an hour, a half-day, a two-day retreat or anything you can manage as a team will provide the opportunity to gather together, grow as a team and refill your collective energy tank in order to bust out of service fatigue and return to delivering excellent customer service in every interaction.
Refill the Team’s Energy
Your first step to regaining the capacity to do your work at your fullest potential is to heighten self-awareness and lean into the responsibility that you must refill your tank. Just like a video game avatar who seizes every opportunity to grab more energy for their harrowing journey ahead, you also need to seek out and embrace the chance to replenish yourselves wherever you find it. The good news is there are easy, actionable ways to find and create more energy for yourself and your whole team. It starts with committing to a “Gather and Grow” mentality that brings a team together (virtually or in person) and facilitates the kind of growth that fills your team’s energy tank and returns your business to a thriving state in the marketplace.
This four-step G.R.O.W. process will show you exactly how.
G – Game On!
Gaming at work might not be an intuitive way to encourage your team to spend their time. But gaming on the job is an easy way to bring hearts and minds together in pursuit of your common professional goals. Friendly sales competitions, staff meetings with moments of levity, and experiential outings with your team are all impactful ways to bust out of service fatigue. To take your workplace gaming to the next level, consider uniting over a cooperative strategy that can break the boredom or monotony of a day. You can boost teamwork qualities through games that bring a team around a collective purpose and goal. These types of efforts are shown to reduce stress and help participants cope with work-related fatigue.
R – Rule Reminders
It seems every business needed to adjust rules, policies, and offerings over the last two years to accommodate the global crisis. Process procedures changed for everything from hotel housekeeping to checking out books from your local library! Frequent change without strong internal communication leads to trouble. Making time to “accuracy audit” will help your team find their footing again when it comes to customer instruction.
Conducting an accuracy audit is easier than it sounds, and it’s the perfect agenda for the next time the team gathers together. Does your website match the current offerings? Do all members of the team know the current rules, even if they only work a few hours a week? Is everyone clear on the current processes of your organization internally and externally? Francis Ford Coppola, the famous film director, was once asked what his secret to success is. He answered, “The first thing I do is make sure that everyone is set is making the same movie.” You are the director of your workplace set. Get all the characters on the same page.
O – Optimism
The dedication to sincerely working toward a better tomorrow is imperative for personal and professional growth. That’s not to say that finding the silver lining in every situation is easy. Far from it. However, when a crowd gathers, its members can feed off each other’s attitudes, mindsets, and perceptions, the good and bad vibes quickly dominoing from one person to the next. For example, observe any boat-rocker on staff who starts a rumor laced with a little over-the-top emotion and see how fast the fire spreads ill-will among the team. Disaster!
However, only you can prevent forest fires! Take the time to gather regularly (even if in a virtual format) and stay in positive communication to decrease the chance of an unnecessary negative spark. Strive to provide frequent updates, truthful status reports, and lead by example with your own optimistic attitude.
W – Warm Welcomes
The odds are good that when your team gathers the next time, there will be new faces on board. Don’t underestimate the power of a warm welcome. No one likes the feeling of being the “new kid in school” and your compassion and kindness (regardless of your position at the company) can go a long way to get new staff off to a great start with the team. Remember to share those unwritten rules everyone else knows about (like, “Use any coffee mug except the purple one with the smiley face. That’s Sandy’s and you all know not to touch it.”) Consider assigning a first-week buddy to each new team member to help shave the learning curve and make them feel at more at home.
Making the time to G.R.O.W. (group gaming, rules review, optimistic outlooks, and warm welcomes) will reboot the energy tank of your organization and make sure everyone is busting out of Service Fatigue with full power and a positive outlook.
About the Author, Laurie Guest
A Hall of Fame keynote speaker and author, Laurie Guest, CSP, CPAE, is an authority on customer service excellence. Laurie blends real-life examples and proven action steps for improvement. She is the author of two books and is writing a third on the topic of service fatigue. To learn more or connect with Laurie, visit www.LaurieGuest.com
