What Can You Afford to .....?

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No, I have no Time


Can you afford to listen to an employer for an hour? Or the question should be: can you afford not doing it?

Mary comes to see you and pours out her heart and soul and work life. You have been listening, and listening. At times your mind is drifting away: a project is waiting on your desk, you need to meet a deadline for a document, you have an appointment in an hour. Mary has been here for more than 30 minutes, and you are listening...and you wish that she would stop.

In the course on the conversation, if conversation there is, you have learnt of two operational issues, one employee relations issue, one repeated managerial issue, and..one trust issue. This later being that Mary puts her trust and work life in your hands.

So, could you or not afford to listen to Mary?....oh this document, this deadline, this project, this meeting....

Sometimes, if not at all times, we need to inspire trust and confidence. We need to be able to tend a good, compassionate ear. If you do not have the time, assign that job to one of your staff. If you are a HR of one, well, the question would be can you afford not listening to your employees? Can you afford to miss or ignore the real issues that are the reasons of your job, by essence?

Hidden issues? Unknown Facts?


The above story? A real one. Like many others.
Mary is a good, engaged employee. She takes things very personally - and yes, it annoys me at times-   but that drives her outstanding performance. And if at times I get somehow frustrated because of delays and interruptions that this type of conversation creates in my overly busy schedule, the other day, it felt good when Mary thanked me for listening to her with  a "it is always good talking to you."
Me, the same, all Marys, it is always good knowing what's happening in the world around and behind me.Thank you for bringing to me issues that would have remained unknown to us had I shut my ears down and closed my door to you.



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