What to do when nobody is listening
Are you feeling the pressure?
You spend your days tirelessly influencing and negotiating with stakeholders whose views, demands, and agendas are worlds apart. They have no interest in listening to what others have to say, and they certainly aren’t willing to change their minds
So how can you make progress when nobody is listening and nobody is moving? Here are two things to get you started
Get curious
Everybody is motivated by something. Often the thing that they are arguing about, and so stubbornly unmoving about, isn’t what matters to them. So get curious about why the thing they’re arguing about is so important to them. What does it enable them to do? What will they lose if you take it away from them? What are the alternatives?
Get curious, ask questions, and listen first. When you’ve spoke to enough people, patterns will start to emerge from their answers; patterns that will give you clues on how to unite the opposing sides and enable them to be in collaboration rather than conflict. When people start hearing things that align to their views, demands, and agendas, they will start listening
Make the unknown known
Organisations are complex. Not only do they have lots of moving parts, many of those moving parts are invisible or unknown. Think of that core system that was built 30 years ago. Everyone uses it, it’s mission critical to the business, but no one knows how it hangs together. Think of the standard operating procedures that have been written over time and in intricate detail describing how your stakeholder’s department does things. It’s the gold standard for training, enables them to keep their department running efficiently, but they don’t know what happens in the process before or after their team does their job. It’s all a bit of a mystery. Your stakeholders and your colleagues are stubbornly opposed to making changes because the risk of things going belly up are high
None of this matters when you’re in “run” or “business as usual” mode. But the invisible, the unknown, can cause enormous grief when you’re in “change” or “transformation” mode
No one will listen and no one will move forward towards progress until the invisible (or the unknown) becomes visible (or known). Understand the ultimate jobs to be done - the jobs for your customers and your colleagues - and how each department is working together in service of getting these jobs done. When the big picture, the end to end view, is available it will enable your stakeholders to see things they hadn’t seen before. To know things they hadn’t known before. To see the possibilities in the proposed changes they hadn’t seen before. Visibility and knowledge brings the certainty that we inherently crave as human beings. When people feel comfortable and confident that any changes they make will be for the better, they will start listening
Want to learn more about listening and how it can help you influence more effectively?
Let’s work on this together. Here are three ways:
Influencing for Impact: This practical 2-day workshop is for you if you want to influence a decision maker, influence a change in customer or colleague behaviour, or influence someone to buy something from you
Executive and Leadership Team Coaching: Work directly with Lai-Ling to problem solve for your specific situation in a confidential setting. This is for you if you want to develop and execute on a game plan that is 100% tailored for you
Leadership Development: Invest in the product and transformation leaders in your company with leadership development that is customised for their role. This is for you if you want to learn about people and politics