In the realm of undermining another persons ideas, validity or value within a dialogue after having let them speak, seems to me, to be a relevant common element in my workplace. As it relates to superior staff vs lower staff, I find myself constantly trying to communicate and feel like my words fall on deaf ears. Whereas the topics I choose to address are rather urgent or important, and because of the hit or miss communication format, if the idea isn’t appealing enough, specific and short enough for one boss [boss A], the other, [boss B] often requires a more dramatic, big picture type of communication and then a day or two to process the data, as she prides herself in her turtle pace. Thus boss B losing the point of urgency all together and boss A missing the purpose of the why or what.
This understanding is based on multiple work environments, experiences and completely unrelated jobs. I say this seems to be a rather important quality to the job because it’s been happening since my employment began. It is apart of the system, and even though I don’t enjoy these patterns I tend to be more self reliant, and push myself to be extra thorough. The task of communicating feels seemingly easy, however I’ve found that when dealing with disconfirming responses, one has to be creative in developing a way to decode the boss’s means for their approach to dialogue.
Boss B is more of a tangential responder. She likes to have long conversations, and even listens and responds with enthusiasm. Only, when she responds, its like, wow! Left fielder, wait a second did you hear anything I just said or the question I just asked? All of what you said was only related to the last thing you just said, before I started talking. I believe it’s a bad habit, and even worse it can often rub off on me. And I find myself mentally recording what she is saying instead of what I though to be a relevant response, make a note of it and give a supportive response to what she spoke on. Then ill refer back to my original idea later on. With hope that we can stay on target, though we usually tend to drift again. And I let her dominate the conversation because she’s the boss, then on occasion ill skip whatever she said and spin it by giving a clarifying response with my idea all over again, like uh’ yeah so back to my point… You know. It’s a trying process, but eventually I reengineer the format of my idea and try to tie it all together in one lofty rant, and that seems to work after a while. She does encourage note taking during conversation, so it’s always good after a day or two when she has time to review and reflect on the overall presentation of ideas.
With boss A, there is just no point in communicating sometimes. A represents two styles of disconfirming responses, one of which whose uncontrollable stutter, makes him an incoherent responder. The other is impersonal, where if it doesn’t relate to the job itself, or anything dealing directly with myself in relation to the job, then it’s basically not worth talking about. This experience is only awful when I spend a few more minutes that usual trying to decipher and decode the message through a stutter. And often find myself figuring out the words, and the thought even before my boss is done speaking. And forget about tuning out, because the minute you stop listening then he speaks clearly, and it would have missed the important part. I tend to directly acknowledge this boss, in the event his stutter has any affect on his self esteem. Quickly repeating what he spoke, in order to confirm that I hear it right, even when the response has no clear connection to the idea of my point. A’s format goes, me: hey boss since you working on next weeks schedule, can I put in a request for Sunday off. A: my boss, the owner, depends on me to report, and I have to run this facility. I hope the staff here appreciates having a job. People don’t realize how much work I do. Do you know how important it is that we stay at the top of the chart? In cases like this even though I see my bosses point and possible relevance to hard work, and commitment and value of weekly hours, I honestly want to say, what does that have to do with a simple yes or no, therefore I always try to find a way to stay positive and respond with minimal sarcasm.
Both jobs play an important role in creating situations for me to practice better listening. So I do and I’m appreciative and grateful to have jobsss'. If I can develop easier ways to listen and respond well I’ll be able to make all of my communication tasks easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment