Make listening your organisation’s superpower

Listening skills. What do meetings look like in your organisation? Is it just a few people speaking while most stay silent? Do people interrupt, talk over each other, pinch ideas, or mansplain?

Perhaps the culture is that the leaders or the most experienced have all the best ideas, and it's everyone else's job just to shut up and listen.

Sound familiar?

Watch and share my 3-minute tutorial: Make listening your organisation's superpower

So, as ever in the Workplace Confidence newsletter, it’s about the HOW. How do you create a culture of meetings where listening is a priority? I suggest these three ground rules, which you should explain to everyone at the beginning of each meeting.

Ground rules for effective meetings where listening is a priority

Firstly: Everyone in the meeting gets a chance to speak. They take turns and finish when they reach a natural conclusion with their thinking.

Secondly: No one is allowed to interrupt the speaker. This helps people develop ideas in the moment and prevents dominant characters from hijacking thought processes. Simply put, everyone gets their say.

Thirdly: After everyone has spoken, go around the room once more, again with no interrupting. This time, everyone says what they liked about one of the ideas they heard. Keep it positive and constructive.

Then and only then, open up the meeting for a general discussion but make sure people are allowed to finish their point.

The Benefits

There’s strong evidence that meetings run this way:

Switch on people's ability to think and solve problems.

Help people reach better, more rounded conclusions, rather than relying on the same few voices.

Are more efficient because the approach allows great ideas to flow.

Promote a culture of independent thinking, where everyone’s voice is valid, and everyone has a part to play.

Promote diversity of thinking, creativity, and new ideas for the whole group.

These findings and approach to meetings are based on ideas in Time to Think by Nancy Kline an excellent book about thinking environments.

So, give it a go? Trial a positive thinking environment in the way you run your next meeting. The results WILL surprise you! And if it works for you, drop me a line.

Create a thinking environment in your meetings

I’ve got some great tips and advice about listening for you to share with your colleagues. It's all about consistently putting listening into practice to create more sustainably successful and productive meetings, where:

You tap into genuine creativity and fantastic ideas by making listening a priority.

People feel heard and positive about themselves because they've made genuine contributions and solved problems together.

As a leader, you're seen as more coach-like, empathetic, and approachable.