A Human Imperative: Being Heard more important than Being Agreed With
Thursday
Aug 12, 2010
Think of a time when your boss made a significant decision that affected you without consulting with you ahead of time. Whether you actually agreed with the decision or not…how did you feel? how committed were you to make it successful?.
As a leader, your role is to get other people to do what is required to achieve the goals of the organization. Your ability to make people feel heard is critical to maximizing their engagement and commitment to a decision. A human imperative: It is much more important for any of us to be heard than agreed with. If you feel heard, you than have the choice of either agreeing or disagreeing with the decision, and then you either commit or you don’t.
Recently I watched a clip from an Oprah Winfrey show where she basically said the same thing…”we all want the same thing…we want to know: Do you see me? Did you hear me? Is what I said have any meaning to you?”
So, next time you are about to make a significant decision that affects others, consider the following questions:
- Have I made it clear how the decision will be made (process)?
- Have I created the conditions to have the affected people feel heard?
- Do I have a plan to communicate the final decision in such a way that whether people agree or disagree with it, they can commit and get on with it?
Are you being heard? Hmmm
Comments
Don Anderson
August 12th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Carlos,
I would add the question:
“Have I heard the people and validated what I heard?”
This is a necessary step to overcome the tendency to “see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear.”