Resources
Do You Create Space to Think Before Hitting Crisis Point?
Have you noticed a tendency to get stuck in a cycle of reactivity and busyness?
With fast-paced, high-pressure, and changing work environments, it is difficult for leaders and teams to shift from being reactive to proactive. But there are consequences – sometimes severe consequences – for remaining stuck in this pattern…
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Why is listening hard? Three big reasons
Do you ever hear yourself saying you’re too busy to listen? Of course, it is more challenging to be present to listen when you’re under pressure with deadlines and back-to-back meetings. However, lack of time can simply be an excuse, because real listening is hard…
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Labelling Divides, Listening Builds Bridges
Have you noticed how much and how often we label others – and the consequences?
It is easier to place people in neat categories—labels that we believe define others’ values, intentions, or intelligence. Whether it's generational terms like "Boomer" and "Gen Z," political identities like “far-right” and “woke”…
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Why listening is more than being silent
Have you ever considered the role listening plays in leadership, beyond just hearing someone out? Do you largely consider it to be an auditory function? Or do you value it as something deeper and more fundamental to leadership and relationships?…
Listening to the person rather than the content -
Ad Hominem Fallacy
Did you know that what you listen to or reject depends on who is speaking much more than the actual content of what is shared?
“You are not so smart” by David McRaney made me realise that none of us are seeing things as they are, but we oppose each other as if we see the truth and others do not…
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Do you listen so hard you don’t hear what people are saying?
The pressure to listen is on.
In our desire to create speak-up cultures, embrace diverse viewpoints, cultivate psychologically safe environments, and manage risk, we know listening is key.
We’re well versed in the impact of poor listening with news…
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Just Listen! Why do we continue to underrate listening as a leadership skill?
We’ve heard the word listen a lot in the past few weeks, most notably as momentum builds for people to speak up about sexual abuse and harassment and tens of thousands turned out across Australia for the Women’s March 4 Justice…
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Benefits of Poor Listening
In a recent “Listening Masterclass” with senior leaders, we asked: “What are the benefits of poor listening?”
You may be thinking “What? There are no benefits, are there?” Perhaps the leaders thought the same…
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Psychological Safety is not the same as being comfortable
There’s a difference between being safe and being comfortable, whether physical or psychological.
When you’re training to run a marathon, there’s no doubt there will be some discomfort while training. There will be a certain point where, if you overtrain, it becomes unsafe, but …
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Surprising symptoms that suggest leaders may not be listening
If you are striving to build an inclusive, collaborative, innovative and engaged organisation where people are proactive and speak up, one critical ingredient is that people feel listened to by their leaders. As leaders, sometimes we believe we are listening but people don’t feel listened to, so it’s useful to know the symptoms to watch out for…
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Leadership as a community
We often think of leadership as being all about the leader, and leadership development efforts frequently focus on individual leaders. But could this perspective block us from making meaningful progress on some of our most persistent problems?
What would happen if we thought of leadership as a collective capacity - having ‘power with’ rather than ‘power over’ stakeholders?
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What is the listening “set point” in your organisation? And how to raise it?
Has the “listening set point” in your organisation slipped to the point that people no longer really listen to each other…nor expect to be listened to? Without concerted and ongoing effort to establish a listening culture, the listening set point can all too easily slide.
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