Great listeners use ears, eyes, brain, & heart

You listen with your ears, but what do your other senses tell you? By listening daily with your ears, eyes, brain, and heart, you’ll see where your work culture is thriving and where it’s not. You’ll see improvements quickly when you celebrate where it’s working - and refine where it’s not.

Leaders of teams and businesses worldwide are increasingly aware of the importance of a purposeful, positive, and productive work culture.

Deloitte’s 2024 Global Human Capital Trends report discusses the impact of culture on organizations. Since 87% of respondents believe that developing the right workplace model is of utmost importance to success, it is encouraging that 78% of those leaders are actively trying to create a workplace where everyone can thrive.

Unfortunately, the news is not as favorable when we measure how well leaders understand their work culture. Only 24% consider themselves “ready” to change.

How can leaders stay attuned to the quality of their work culture? They must listen—consistently and daily, in three specific ways.

Listen with your Eyes

Herm Edwards, a former head football coach, believes senior leaders - whether of sports teams, businesses, or elsewhere - can become insulated from the realities of their team culture all too easily. If they ignore how leaders and team members treat each other daily, those senior leaders may be lulled into believing everything is fine - when it’s not.

Herm said leaders must “listen with their eyes.” Watch to learn if leaders and team members:

• Support each other or are demeaning to each other
• Have cliques that create divisiveness or if subgroups blend seamlessly
• Are working together towards common goals, modeling shared values

Listen with your Brain

Use your logical brain to evaluate how well the team is communicating, performing, and problem-solving - respectfully - in the moment. Gather and review reliable data about employee engagement and customer relationships.

If you are told “everything is fine,” but:

• Performance is poor
• Employee frustrations are growing
• Customers aren’t happy

. . . there’s something wrong.

Listen with your Heart

Human relationships are the core of your business. If leaders and team members demean, discount, or dismiss colleagues and customers, relationships and confidence suffer. Also, if relationships suffer, so do engagement, service, and results.

Leaders and team members strengthen relationships by praising and thanking colleagues. Aligned efforts and ideas should be validated and recognized as much as contributions.

Want a healthy, vibrant, productive work culture? Listen with all your senses, then adapt and refine behaviors and practices in every interaction.