How Well Do You Hear?
by Miki Saxon
Bosses at all levels waste their human resources every day.
How? By only listening to those at X level or higher.
Common sense should tell you
- Nobody suddenly develops a brain as a result of being promoted.
- If they were good enough to promote then they should have been good enough to listen to in their previous positions.
- If they can’t contribute in the position for which they were hired, why hire them at all?
- Even new grads hired for their potential need to be heard; they are like eggs and like eggs they must be cared for if they are to hatch.
Bosses afflicted by “positional deafness” often experience high turnover and lament the lack of loyalty, especially in “more junior workers.”
But the term ‘junior’ is very subjective; for some managers it refers to those with just a couple of years of experience, for others it’s a level within the company and for still others it’s relative, with the baseline how long it took them to finally be heard by their boss.
How do you know if you suffer from positional deafness?
Simple; just consider the sources of your input over the last quarter and what you did with it.
Better yet, ask the people you trust to tell you the truth, not the ones who tell you what you want to hear.
Flickr image credit: Caninest
