I’ve seen a number of unhappy-at-work individuals complaining about close-mindedness of their management who is not ready to listen to their thoughts.
“Why’s that, why would a reasonable management would not be interested in a good thought?” I’d ask.
“May be they don’t have enough intellect to understand ‘my’ thoughts, you know!” would be the answer.
“Then how do you present your thought?”
“Well, I would… I would… Ugh… I don’t know.”
(Photo Credit: Eneas’ Flickr Photostream)
So, here’re a few tips to ensure that your thoughts are listened to. Well, most of the times.
- Gather as much detail as possible about your thought: Describe your thought in a way that brings out your exuberance and commitment out. Most people are not stirred up enough about their own thoughts and if you’re not, how anyone else would?
- Get your thought validated: It’s generally good to have something to say but sometimes may be not so good. Key here is to get your thought validated. Validated by someone whom you can trust for unbiased views from different perspectives. You should be able to build the right context for the validation as well.
- Build the right context: I almost always take the opportunity to express, “Context matters. Nothing is right or wrong!” For example, most of the times failure is considered as bad however for a specific project, if the only success criterion is to fail, failure is success!
- Paint a vivid picture of your thought: People think in pictures. Whatever words you speak produce some kind of pictures. More vivid the picture, better the chances are of being reciprocated for it.
- Map your management’s needs and/or personal preferences with your thought: Number one thing to focus on the management needs and number two is on mapping personal preferences of person(s) managing those needs. Make good use of human psychology and offer your management a map to navigate. And guess what, chances are more that your thoughts are listened and acted upon well.
Despite above all if your thoughts are not listened well, then you have two choices:
- Get un-obsessed with your thought and leave it.
- Evaluate why your thoughts were not listened well.
If I were you, I’d choose the latter one. Learn what you can do better in order to make your thoughts more listenable.
And, if you discover that your management is paid for NOT listening to such thoughts – due to whatever valid reasons, may be – you can always make a choice. Remember, you generally cannot go wrong when you are at the source of the things and not the effect.
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