Leading the Listening Organisation | Meet the Author
Who’s Listening? An Evening With Howard, Mike and Kevin.
You guessed it! Last Thursday (2nd May) Internal Comms professionals in London reunited for another Meet the Author event, this time with co-authors of "Leading the Listening Organisation", Dr Kevin Ruck, Howard Krais and Mike Pounsford, and what a brilliant evening it was.
Leading The Listening Organisation, published in December 2023, provokes thought around the importance of fostering a listening culture in businesses (see IoIC), and highlights the potential consequences of senior leaders not truly recognising the power of communications and listening to employees.
So Tell Me, What Did I Miss?
Once all sat with a drink in hand, the authors introduced themselves and were soon to kick-start a discussion, asking the audience "what makes someone a good listener?". The words 'compassion', 'empathy' and 'openness' echoed around the room and the authors noted that such values often fall within the heart of internal communications teams. It was also noted that a 'you said, we did' campaign is not really reflective of true listening, and rather these values must be instilled also within senior leaders and decision makers.
After a chat Leading The Listening Organisation, attendees joined in for a case study activity based on a company merger and consequential poor staff retention rates. The aim of the task was to provoke thought around the importance of listening in such period of business change. From this, conversation evolved into the value of open communication; it’s vital that business leaders are equally as welcome to negative, as well as positive feedback, and also establishing a safe space for employees to be actually heard, and not just listened to.
