It's All Information

There is another way of looking at events that happen at the workplace:    what information did I receive?

Too often, we tend to look at events and conversations with the filter how they directly impact us:

• "Well, she must have a death wish for me because the answer she gave me was poison."
• "He almost completely totally ignored me - as a ghost I would have gotten more attention."
• "That meeting was a total waste of  my time."

There have been times that I have been hesitant to ask a question, voice an opinion or launch an idea for the fear of how it may be received.   I was often wrong.  I was too sensitive about how the reception would impact me;  I should have been more concerned about listening for  valuable information.

Don't think I'm alone in this;   naturally we are all concerned about how people view us.    Past experience, however, has taught me that it's wise to dial down the "what do people think" and dial up the "what information did I just find out."

For example,  we may ask a supervisor, or team member, about an idea.   In turn, we receive a rather callous answer.    The first temptation is to take the answer very personally ("Well, it's obvious she doesn't like me very much.)   But what if (and very likely this is so) the   answer was not directed at you - but was the result of something else?    What may be some of the learnings?

• Said individual doesn't care much for the subject - would rather spend their resources on other items.
• Workload is above capacity - individual can't even think of doing anything else.
• It's morning (seriously - timing is everything) and morning, for this individual, is the purgatory between evening and afternoon.
• You asked the question in a manner (e-mail, person to person, by phone) that the individual does not favor and would prefer some other manner of communication.

In my experience, all of these are   reasons for the less than satisfactory answer.  If you take the gruff response as a personal affront - you'll block any additional learning.   If you look for deeper meaning - you'll learn how to interact at a more satisfying level with this individual.

Same situation may be true if someone rejects an idea of yours - listen for what they are really saying vs. hearing just the rejection of YOUR idea.

• Perhaps the individual wants a more complete proposal - and you just sketched out an idea.
• Maybe the individual is concerned with human resource capacity - and rejected your idea for that reason.
• Perhaps the individual is a staunch believer in following a strategic plan and doesn't understand how your idea fits in.

Again, if you can get more information - you will be such a better position vs. getting just a perceived rejection.

I've learned to ask questions that I 'm pretty certain will end up in rejections - just to gain extra perspective into that person's process and professional strategy.

(Helpful hint here:   this does not give you license to be a jerk and make queries and pronouncements without a filter - use the information you have gathered in the past to make intelligent choices for the present.)

Same applies to meetings:   you may have been recruited to attend a meeting that you believe is about 1583 light years away from your area of responsibility.  Know what?    It may be interesting to attend - you may find out tons of information you didn't know - including ways to be more effective in your current position.

The key is this:   get yourself out of the way.  Instead of using your personal resources to defend yourself and filter responses  - use your resources to receive and analyze additional information.    A perceived rejection puts you behind. . .getting useful information puts you way ahead.

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Key words:  business intelligence, leadership information, personal filters, professional filters, leadership knowledge.

Brent Frerichs is the author of "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" available for e-readers from Amazon Kindle.  If you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can now read this book for free!