First step might be the hardest

Meetings and discussions are prime opportunities to make ourselves heard, but often hesitancy, embarrassment, and simple ignorance prevent us from saying anything.

I was recently with a group of men who were discussing a baseball game – their vast knowledge of the game was met with equal amounts of enthusiasm! My ‘sports chat’ however is limited to when I watch the Olympics every four years, and the odd demolition derby or two during the summer. I am quite literally clueless with nothing to contribute. Nothing! So, I sat in silence occasionally nodding my head to show some semblance of, well, anything. Everyone could have been speaking Romanian for all I knew!

Being an extrovert, one can only do this for so long before breaking so I took a different approach. “You mentioned ______, the first baseman. In your opinion what makes him so special?” At that moment I was desperately hoping the guy was the first baseman! All of a sudden, an entirely new conversation began with me there too. The ‘guys’ all had an opinion… all I had to do was ask a few more questions out of real curiosity (and complete ignorance!) to be able to join in.

My inner expertise is curiosity, not baseball. This same skill allows me to communicate with executives, the homeless, snobs, us commoners, even with those I don’t like a whole lot!  Phew, this time I made it out of a sports discussion with my self-esteem intact…and I even found out what a first baseman is supposed to do!

“I felt heard, thank you.”

This was the response I had from recent interactions with two different people. I didn’t ask for the response and frankly I might have passed it off as a simple ‘thank you’. But the earnestness of their first three words took me by surprise. It made me wonder how often I may have missed this message before. I also wondered how many times I may have missed helping someone to feel heard, with my focus instead working to ‘solve for’ or advise or placate or quiz. Those people may have felt better heard by their dog, cat or budgie! Making someone feel heard doesn’t have to be complex - paraphrasing and empathy are powerful tools for simple communication. When was the last time you said to yourself “I felt heard”, or better yet the last time someone told you “I felt heard, thank you.”?