Safety Motivational Speaker Insight on Listening

Listening – How Focused Do They Think You Are?

One thing I love about being a safety motivational speaker is I get to learn so much from my audiences and my clients. Even after 27 years, I can always learn something new. Recently, a plant manager was called on to give his thoughts on safety. He shared a personal story of how he learned the importance of truly listening. Earlier in his career, an employee came to him with a concern and asked if they could talk about it. The manager said, “Sure if you don’t mind if I work while we talk. I’m very busy.” He made it clear to the person their concern was not worthy of his time. Fortunately, soon after that interaction he realized how damaging that was.

It probably would have been better to defer the conversation to a later time rather than do it that way. I’m not going to get into a discussion of talking to someone who is focused on other things at the same time. I have already written about the illusion of multitasking and will probably write more in the future. But even if you could honestly concentrate and focus on both listening and working you still should not do so for effective communication reasons.

When you multitask people think you aren’t listening. This is probably because they know when they are multitasking they aren’t focused either.

The manager then shared this lesson caused him to make a conscious decision to give someone his total attention when he choose to listen to them.

His second insight was understanding the person coming to him with something that was very important to them. He realized that perspective is critical. From his perspective as a manger, the concern might not be as big as other issues in the workplace but to the employee it was very important. As a safety motivational speaker, I was impressed with his empathy to realize when someone comes to you be sure you are listening with the same intensity as they have bringing the issue to you.

Your focus is one way people know you are listening. As a safety motivational speaker, I share another factor which is what you do or say in response. Be honest if you can’t or won’t do anything. You can express you appreciate how important it is to them; however, you have chosen a different action. It won’t always be the most popular decision but being honest will be beneficial to your communication in the future.

When you combine focused listening and understanding how important it is to them you will communicate much more effectively whether it’s a safety issue or not.

Solutions For Your Safety Challenges
When you need solutions for your safety challenges give Diane Weiss a call at 209-745-9419 and bring John to your site to discover injury preventing solutions. You can email her at diane@drebinger.com
Until next week,
I’ll be, “Watching Out For Everyone’s Safety™”
John
© 2017 John Drebinger Presentations
Permission to use granted when credited and contact information included. www.drebinger.com +1 209.745.9419