The Power of Listening

Redvespa Consultant Janet Noble brings lessons learned from her mother's unique sales career to bring calm to a project ripe for tension. These lessons led to an approach that was so effective, so impactfully empathetic, the client noted Janet "broke the stereotype of the uncaring consultant."

When I was young, my family moved to a small town in the mountains of Colorado. My mother started working for the local newspaper, selling advertising space. When she would walk into a local business, she would introduce herself, shake the business owner’s hand, and tell them who she worked for. 

And then she would take a big step back.

Because without fail, the person’s expression would change as they proceeded to tell her in detail how much they hated the newspaper. One woman ranted at her for 45 minutes.

You see, at the time, the newspaper was owned by a national syndicate that did not care about the local community, rarely bothered to write anything about it, and often got details wrong when it did. People were understandably frustrated.

Mom never once tried to argue with anyone. She would just listen, nodding along when she agreed with them, and giving them space to have their say.  When they were done, she would thank them for their time and leave. And then she’d come back the following week, and ask them if they wanted to buy advertising space in the newspaper. 

Over time, by consistently listening to people and demonstrating genuine care and interest, she slowly started to turn around the advertising numbers. About a year into her job there, the paper was bought by a gentleman who changed it into an actual, honest to goodness local paper, at which point the advertising numbers exploded. 

About five years after my parents had moved away, the editor (who had recently bought the paper) called Mom and asked her how she did it, because the advertising numbers had never been higher than they were when she worked there. Her answer was simple: I listened, and I cared.

This story has stuck with me, and I have tried to carry this philosophy with me into my own career.

The last few years have given people plenty of things to be upset about. Earlier this year I had an engagement with a client that was undergoing a slow moving restructure that reduced their workforce by 40%. Understandably, there was a lot of concern among the teams about how they were going to continue to deliver under the new structure. Recognising this, the management team had contacted Redvespa for help. 

These teams are the public-facing arm of the organisation, with responsibilities that cover everything from implementing change, publishing documents and reports, communications, marketing, and general engagement. Some teams didn’t see much of a drop in resources, while others were halved. However the workload was, if anything, increasing.

Unlike my mother, I didn’t have years to build relationships and get people onside, I had three months. 

The first step was organising a series of interviews with each team to get a sense of what they did, what their pain points were, what was going well, and if they had any ideas about what would make their lives easier. I also had to assure them that my presence there was not an indication of more cuts to come.

There’s often a push to “just get on with it” after any big shock to the system, especially if it is work-related. While it’s important not to dwell, I do think it’s critical to give people a chance to express their concerns and acknowledge the stress of what has happened instead of immediately pushing towards a solution or pretending that everything is fine. 

After the initial interviews, I received what might be my favourite piece of professional feedback ever, when multiple people commented that the interviews had felt like a good therapy session. 

Of course, like any good therapy session, there was still a point where we needed to transition from merely talking about what was going wrong to taking concrete action to make changes and adjust the teams’ approach to their work. There was a bit of gentle coaching, as the focus for change needed to be on what was inside of the team’s sphere of influence rather than external factors that they weren’t going to be able to immediately influence. It was great to see the teams start to realise how their ways of working needed to change to get them to where they needed to be.  

There were definitely elements of traditional business analysis involved, too, and I still wrote process documents, team manuals, and training documentation to help set these teams up for success. 

My goal over the course of this work was to set the teams up with the tools and mindset needed to thrive under their changing circumstances. By taking the time to get to know the teams, I had a high level of buy-in and was able to give them the space to step back, process everything that had happened, and start to move forward with a better understanding of how to work together in the new structure.