Radical acts of caring: the power of listening in the time of pandemic

What’s the most important thing you can do right now?

Stock up? Dig in? Tune out? 

Let me offer just one small alternative to consider.

Listen.

To listen, you first have to stop doing. So maybe clear out a little space and time. Put the phone down. I know that’s heard. Especially right now. Breathe in deeply, breathe out slowly. You know the drill. Consider how you’re feeling. For me these days, it’s often a wild mix of anxiety, fear, dread, sadness, disappointment, anger. If I’m able to let go of all that negative stuff a little bit, I can sometimes tap into gratitude, belonging, love, even joy. I’ll admit it’s harder on most days than I’d like it to be.

Great. Now that you’ve listened a little (or a lot) to yourself—and I am all in favor of acts of self-care, especially in times of crisis—here’s what I discovered is even more powerful. Listen, to someone else. Call a friend. Call a customer. Start a Zoom meeting with your team. Slack, anyone? No matter how distant and remote we are now of necessity, we’ve never had so many options for making contact.

When you think about stories, listening is every bit as important as telling. In our age of high distraction, listening is the high-value, low-budget miracle. If you listen to someone else, with all your attention, something almost magical happens. You let the person you’re listening to know that you see and hear them, that they matter to you. You make deeper connections. You build community. You generate energy. You create purpose and meaning. Imagine what you might learn and the things you might do as a result of listening.

I love this story about Gravity CEO Dan Price. You might know of Price as the CEO who took a pay cut so that he could raise employees’ minimum salaries to $70,000. Faced with a drastic drop in sales and a draconian choice between imminent bankruptcy and layoffs, Price chose to do something radically different. He put all the cards on the table with all his employees. And then he listened. In fact, Price and his COO Tammi Kroll took the time to listen in 40 one-hour meetings with small groups of employees. That’s a lot of listening. And from all that listening, they came up with an equally unique strategy. Each employee volunteered a pay cut that would work for them personally. The total pay reductions promise to get the company through eight to twelve months, with no layoffs.

Gravity’s act of extreme listening reflects the company’s deeply held values for honesty, integrity and thoughtfulness. 

I heard another story this week about a consultant who has been contacting all her clients to check in. Really find out how they are and what they need. Literally. Complete with offers to send even the most basic of things, like sanitizer wipes and toilet paper. Even though it has nothing to do with the nature of her business.

Think about the people you work with. Your employees. Your partners. Your customers. How do they know you care about them and what’s happening in their world right now? 

Listening needs to be as much a part of your story as telling.

Listening might just be the radical act everyone needs most right now.

I double-dog dare you to listen more and talk (and do) less. And I’d love it if you share what happens in the comments below. I'm listening.