Anybody Listening? How to Make Yourself Heard in the Workplace

Contributed by Sheri Graves

You open your mouth. You hear yourself talking. But nobody seems to be listening. Are they all being rude? Or, have they learned from past experience that your comments don’t seem to be on target?

If you think you’re not being heard in the workplace, you’re probably right.

To fully understand the problem and find a solution to it, you need to sit down and make a list of co-workers. Then, reflect on how each of them approaches a problem. In other words, how do they think?

Once you have labeled each team member according to thinking style, your next move is to evaluate yourself.

Self-analysis should cover the following:

• Thinking style – Right- or left-brain?
• Assertiveness style – Confident and direct, or timid and indirect?
• Work ethic – Willing and able to do all that is required, or in need of either an attitude adjustment or additional training?
• Skin density – Easily hurt, embarrassed or angered over comments by others, or able to sluff off rudeness?

When you’re evaluating thinking style, you’re considering whether people are right-brain thinkers or left-brain thinkers. In broad generalities, most right-brain thinkers (the intuitive ones) are women, and most left-brain thinkers (the analytical ones) are men. That’s not always the case, though, so be careful!

Nobel Prize-winner Roger Sperry, whose seminal study of the brain’s right and left hemispheres opened a world of understanding and/or controversy – depending on how you look at it – determined that hemispheres have different functions.

According to Sperry, the right half of the brain deals with recognizing relationships by integrating and synthesizing information to arrive at an intuitive insight. Sperry found the left half of the brain processes information in an analytical, rational, logical and sequential way.

A right-brain thinker in a group of left-brain thinkers often will be several steps ahead of the others, visualizing the big picture and how one element relates to another. When she mentions that someone on the team will have to learn Microsoft® PowerPoint® in order to make the presentation to the brass, her co-workers are annoyed that she is thinking about the dog-and-pony show rather than the content of the report.

A left-brain thinker in a group of right-brain thinkers will feel left out of the discussion when he tries to focus on the basics. While he’s analyzing and compartmentalizing the information on an Excel® spreadsheet, his co-workers are already planning a victory party.

The key to preventing this kind of counter-productive head butting in the workplace is for management personnel to recognize and promote mental diversity. In other words, your supervisor should create homogeneous teams that can achieve a consensus quickly and respond in a predictable manner. Or, he should create heterogeneous teams that, because of their diversity, can be synergistic in their approach to creative and innovative assignments.

A good manager doesn’t simply tell his staff to “speak up” so that everyone’s contributions can be heard. A good manager provides one-on-one time to meet with individual team members in order to elicit ideas or deal with heretofore unspoken grievances.

If you feel you’re not being heard, your supervisor probably didn’t choose the team members wisely and, instead, just threw a few people together to work on a project. That means you need to do the “thinking style” breakdown of your team members for yourself and respond accordingly.

To analyze assertiveness style, think about how you present yourself. If you’re tongue-tied when trying to express yourself in the workplace, consider joining Toastmasters® or some other such organization that will help you work on speaking in front of groups.

In evaluating work ethic, be brutally honest with yourself. Are you really applying yourself to the assignment? If not, get to work! Do you secretly feel under-qualified for the tasks at hand? If so, avail yourself of appropriate training.

All software makers offer tutorials for operating their programs. However, these tutorials sometimes leave much to be desired. For a truly user-friendly way to learn computer skills, consider the free computer tutorials available through Video Professor®. Such tutorials offer the opportunity to learn digital photography, learn Microsoft Outlook®, learn Windows Vista™, or pick up new tricks for any number of software programs.

In your final step of self-analysis, ask yourself: How thick is my skin? Am I too sensitive? If you cry easily, carry a grudge or find yourself getting physically ill over upsets in the workplace, you definitely need help.

Many large employers offer Employee Assistance Programs that include confidential psychological consultation and referral. No, availing yourself of such a service does not mean you are crazy. Regular monthly meetings – more frequent, if necessary – can help shy, tongue-tied workers learn how to become confident and assertive. At the very least, unloading your woes on a disinterested third party can be both cathartic and emancipating.

The bottom line is this: You’ll never advance in the workplace if you’re not being heard.

Microsoft, PowerPoint, Outlook and Windows Vista are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation, registered in the U.S. and/or other countries. Toastmasters is a trademark of Toastmasters International Corporation, registered in the U.S. and/or other countries.

About the Author:
Sheri Graves is an award-winning writer who free-lances from her home in Santa Rosa, California.