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"Are they listening? When you have a conversation with them, are they paying close attention to what you have to say, or are they busy delivering a message? You

"Are they listening? When you have a conversation with them, are they paying close attention to what you have to say, or are they busy delivering a message? You want listening :)" - This is common advice anytime one talks about relationships and communication. Listening is a skill, listen 10, talk 1, almost to the point that is difficult to understand who's doing the talking if everybody is getting the same advice of listening. Then you have those, and some HR people came to my mind--just to keep things professional--, who listen and listen and then you realize they just did not (or did not want to) understand. Now, my question is: if it is common knowledge that listening to your reports is important, along with being pretty cheap and not particularly challenging to do, why so few managers do it? Incompetence or there is an advantage in not listening much?

groby_b 5y ago
Knowing and doing are two very different things. It might look easy, but it really isn't. Listening is challenging work, and we get little training to do it well. So, yes, incompetence is one of the reasons. And worse, it's often incompetence we're actively unaware of - "it's listening, how hard can it be". There are also advantages in not listening, but I really believe this "looks easy, but actually hard to do" split is what creates a lot of the problems. We live in an entire culture that's rooted in aggressively talking (cf. school debate club), with little value attached to patient listening. Managers, like everybody else, are a product of the surrounding culture. Breaking out from that conditioning is hard. That's why it's rare.
- borroka 5y ago
  Those are some good points. I think there is also a delayed gratification that is coming from listening, while the gratification that comes with talking or expressing oneself is immediate. There is also in the "manager should listen" from the parent comment a bit of asymmetry if not hypocrisy, where the manager is the agent prone to maliciousness and the report is the one who should be listened to. And also, and I have been guilty of it like anybody else, I believe that sometimes we don't feel our manager is listening to us because they are not agreeing with us. They listen, they just happen to have a different opinion, but we prefer to say they don't listen. I would say that I am not terribly interested in being listened to beyond the obvious, I particularly appreciate managers who are appreciative, decisive, and smart. Being good at managing largely overlaps with being good at being friends minus the chances of being fired. The manager-report is not the same relationship as friend-friend of course, but I have yet to find a good direct manager who I would not consider good at being friends (reliable, honest, entertaining, decisive etc.), granted, not with me, and viceversa.
WJW 5y ago
What make you think it is not particularly challenging to do, especially given your earlier acknowledgement that almost nobody is a good listener?
- borroka 5y ago
  Just for the sake of example, I consider solving partial differential equations challenging. Listening is not challenging. One may not do it for a variety of reason, but we call can do it no exception, the act is as easy as it gets. A bit like walking.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > A bit like walking. Walking is extremely challenging for a lot of people so that argument would contradict your point. But it is a good analogy, a lot of people who have problems talking to people and listening also have problems walking properly. So just as you say walking is trivial to some but others just can't get it right.
    - borroka 5y ago
      Walking is easy for the vast majority of people who work, let's try not to complicate things for the sake of it. Listening is easy too, what is more complicate is, "listen and do exactly as I say", which one may or may not do for a variety of reasons.
      - groby_b 5y ago
        Listening is not "just sit there and let the sound wash over you". That part is easy. Active listening is much more involved. It involves, among other things, developing empathy for the person talking, trying to understand their emotions and deeper reasons. Not just taking in what they say, but trying to understand what it means, and why they say it. It is very much a skill you are not exercising in this thread.

groby_b 5y ago

Knowing and doing are two very different things. It might look easy, but it really isn't. Listening is challenging work, and we get little training to do it well. So, yes, incompetence is one of the reasons. And worse, it's often incompetence we're actively unaware of - "it's listening, how hard can it be". There are also advantages in not listening, but I really believe this "looks easy, but actually hard to do" split is what creates a lot of the problems. We live in an entire culture that's rooted in aggressively talking (cf. school debate club), with little value attached to patient listening. Managers, like everybody else, are a product of the surrounding culture. Breaking out from that conditioning is hard. That's why it's rare.

borroka 5y ago
Those are some good points. I think there is also a delayed gratification that is coming from listening, while the gratification that comes with talking or expressing oneself is immediate. There is also in the "manager should listen" from the parent comment a bit of asymmetry if not hypocrisy, where the manager is the agent prone to maliciousness and the report is the one who should be listened to. And also, and I have been guilty of it like anybody else, I believe that sometimes we don't feel our manager is listening to us because they are not agreeing with us. They listen, they just happen to have a different opinion, but we prefer to say they don't listen. I would say that I am not terribly interested in being listened to beyond the obvious, I particularly appreciate managers who are appreciative, decisive, and smart. Being good at managing largely overlaps with being good at being friends minus the chances of being fired. The manager-report is not the same relationship as friend-friend of course, but I have yet to find a good direct manager who I would not consider good at being friends (reliable, honest, entertaining, decisive etc.), granted, not with me, and viceversa.

WJW 5y ago

What make you think it is not particularly challenging to do, especially given your earlier acknowledgement that almost nobody is a good listener?

borroka 5y ago
Just for the sake of example, I consider solving partial differential equations challenging. Listening is not challenging. One may not do it for a variety of reason, but we call can do it no exception, the act is as easy as it gets. A bit like walking.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Jensson 5y ago
  > A bit like walking. Walking is extremely challenging for a lot of people so that argument would contradict your point. But it is a good analogy, a lot of people who have problems talking to people and listening also have problems walking properly. So just as you say walking is trivial to some but others just can't get it right.
  - borroka 5y ago
    Walking is easy for the vast majority of people who work, let's try not to complicate things for the sake of it. Listening is easy too, what is more complicate is, "listen and do exactly as I say", which one may or may not do for a variety of reasons.
    - groby_b 5y ago
      Listening is not "just sit there and let the sound wash over you". That part is easy. Active listening is much more involved. It involves, among other things, developing empathy for the person talking, trying to understand their emotions and deeper reasons. Not just taking in what they say, but trying to understand what it means, and why they say it. It is very much a skill you are not exercising in this thread.