When I was younger, I was annoying, arrogant, and socially inept. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with everybody around me and why nobody wanted to be friends with me. I asked for advice on what I could do to make people like me, and I got generic advice that basically told me to do nice things for people.
I learned to “perform friendliness,” but even in that performance, my goal was still self-serving, and people could tell.
But as I advanced in my career, I noticed a pattern among those that I respected the most. When we talked, they would often make reference to things that came up in previous conversations.
Sometimes these were technical topics, sometimes business, and sometimes simply personal. I remember once in particular when I showed up to work one weekend for a special project and I was greeted with the question, “How’s your boy?” The day before, I had mentioned how my son wasn’t feeling well, and this leader remembered. I felt seen. I felt noticed. I felt important.
This was more than just that person’s performance of friendliness that morning. His question about my son happened only because he was listening and paying attention the day before.
As I learned to practice actually listening (and not just the performance of what’s often called “active listening”), I learned to understand them better, I learned to collaborate with them better, and I even learned to help reconcile differences between groups with competing perspectives.
If you want to kindle a warm and friendly workplace environment, focus less on performing friendly behaviors, and concentrate on listening so you can understand others better. The more you understand them, the more friendly behaviors will come naturally.
If you’d like to explore your situation more deeply, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
Leave a Reply