The Art of Listening

I was just catching up on my blog reading—others, not mine— which made me stop and think. Do I appreciate the right thing when my child does it?

I stayed home and raised my children for 16 years. I was lucky to be able to do it. And I enjoyed being there when they got home from school, and helping them with homework—especially the projects they had to do that went beyond writing a paper or a book report. It was a wonderful time in my life. And I think I could better appreciate what they were doing because I didn’t work. Before anyone gets upset, that doesn’t mean that people who work don’t appreciate the things their children do. It’s only that, for me, when my mind wasn’t divided between work at home and work at an office (and my first office when I went back to work was very chaotic; I can get witnesses to attest to that), I concentrated better on what they were saying.

Looking back, I feel badly about that because I probably missed things. My older daughter probably needed to just talk things out more (she’s always been extremely verbal) and wasn’t asking for an opinion, just for someone to listen. And I probably offered too many opinions. I’m grateful that she still does ask for my input—and sometimes she even listens to me. I’ve been working on better hearing what she is saying these days, rather than hearing what I want to hear in the conversation.

And my younger daughter probably could have done more extracurricular activities in high school. I had just read so much on overscheduling kids that I wasn’t as aware of what she could, and wanted to, handle. Now she’s grown, and living on her own, and she probably is starting to schedule more into her life. Odd how that works. First I almost forced her not to overschedule, now I push her to get out more. But I’m also happy that she does seem to reach out to us more lately—usually while walking her dog in the evening—and does ask for our opinions. It seems to have come full circle.

New Generation to Hear 

Now I have a granddaughter and I’m thinking that as a grandmother, I really need to work on the happy medium between the two styles. We live 1700 miles from our children; it just worked out that way and since we’re still working it makes more sense for us to stay on the East Coast and not base our lives in Denver. But I still want to be able to understand how that child will think; and what his or her opinions come from. That’s where FaceTime comes in, by the way. We get to talk to her every weekend. Yes, my daughter and son-in-law are doing most of the conversing, but my granddaughter has been known to focus on our faces, appear to be into us, and when there’s a lull in the conversation, she offers a few words. One day, we’ll even understand what she’s saying—and then the real listening can begin.

Now I have a granddaughter and I’m thinking that as a grandmother, I really need to work on the happy medium between the two styles. We live 1700 miles from our children; it just worked out that way and since we’re still working it makes more sense for us to stay on the East Coast and not base our lives in Denver. But I still want to be able to understand how that child will think; and what his or her opinions come from. That’s where FaceTime comes in, by the way. We get to talk to her every weekend. Yes, my daughter and son-in-law are doing most of the conversing, but my granddaughter has been known to focus on our faces, appear to be into us, and when there’s a lull in the conversation, she offers a few words. One day, we’ll even understand what she’s saying—and then the real listening can begin.

The only thing I can think of to say for that: Praise the inventors for Skype and FaceTime.

Management—in Your DNA?

There are several categories of managers—and I speak from experience. I’ve had all of these “leaders.”

First, there is the tyrant. The manager who thinks that a 70-hour week is normal; you should be available 24/7; and the purpose of the employee is to make sure the company has a profit—so the owner has a better bank account. I literally once had one of these say there would be performance reviews but no raises. In fact, the belief was that no employee should ever ask for a raise; it meant they were incompetent. Of course, all good ideas must come only from management because serfs should never think, and if an idea you had wasn’t liked you were publicly branded an idiot. The people who were promoted were usually those who learned to play the game just as the manager did, perpetuating the bad management ideal. I’ve also heard of managers who deliberately bury any idea from an employee that might be better than their own. Or conveniently lose the paperwork trail that showed who really solved the problem (although in the e-mail era, that’s a lot harder to do).

Then there is the good manager. The one who recognized that if they encourage their employees, and don’t belittle them, both sides look good and everyone moves up the chain of command. These are also the managers who actually listen when their employees talk, and are not afraid to let said employee have the credit for a good idea (then again, the employee also needs to take blame when a good idea goes bad). These managers hear what their people say, and are not interested in running them into the ground. There is an awareness that burnout is not really the goal for anything.

Who Did They Know?

And there is the manager who, when you look at them, you just say “How did that person get here?” Yes, they are good at what they do, but people skills are slim—to none—and said managers don’t really have a grip on what is happening in their department. Planning is not their forte. And this is the manager I really want to talk about. Some people are very good at their jobs. They should be rewarded accordingly. But some people really should not be promoted to management. They know how to do the basic job, but putting them in charge of others is not a good idea. For example, there is someone who does his/her job exceptionally well, especially when left on their own or put in charge of a very specific project, but when people are assigned to report to them, immediately assumes that everyone else is stupid, and they have to pick apart their work. The tiniest issues, ones that are easily fixed if necessary, are cause for nasty comments and denigration of someone’s abilities—and ultimately, the work product slows down. Unfortunately, people in other departments that will do the next part of the work start to notice the problem, and just go around the manager to get things done. It’s not hard to do.  Over time, upper management hopefully will notice the problem, and act. In this case, new bosses were brought in above the existing supervisors, and while titles were kept, people reporting to the bad manager were reassigned. Unfortunately, if a bad manager doesn’t start to figure out the problems, or react to what’s happening, they’ll be out of a job—at which point I can only hope they have learned the error of their ways.

They’re not bad people; unlike the other manager, they aren’t nasty. If anything, they are very positive with their employees. But, sometimes, as a friend of mine put it, management is not in their DNA. They have no idea of the work flow for the office. They don’t know if they’ll need extra help—or, they hire people to come in during “busy” periods and then discover it won’t be busy, leaving the extra help out in the cold. If, like me, you freelance, that can mean a direct impact on your income because the work you thought you had is gone, and there’s no time to replace it. Managers like this should really be valued for their skill sets in the work that has to be done, perhaps as “senior” level employees, or used to train others (provided they don’t regard everyone else as stupid), but unless they can be trained to better manage people, they should be in supervisory roles. It just doesn’t fit for them, and ultimately, no one else is hurt.

The Unnoticed Manager

I like to think that when I was in management I was one of the better ones. My people didn't know that I was the person taking the flak from above until after I left. And for the most part, so long as jobs were done correctly I didn't have to get in their faces about it Of course, that also leads to people believing that you're not managing at all. The world is far more used to the nasty types than the good ones. It's something I've learned to live with.