The concept of high impact work for the insights professional drives a change in organizational behavior and is credited to driving positive business outcomes. However, sightings of high impact work are rare, crowded out by the busy work that fills calendars and meeting agendas, and which distracts you from doing the work that moves the business and your career forward.
In this occasional column debuting for All Things Insights, we’ll explore the 6 personas you can use to deliver on high impact work and move your insights career forward. The first persona that we’ll examine is “The Listener.”
Persona 1: The Listener
Delivering Value
To deliver value, you need to know what your stakeholders value. You need to listen more than you speak. Some of the greatest leaders I’ve had the fortune of working with listen intently and play back what they’ve heard to confirm their understanding.
Listening not only shows respect, but it also signals that you care. Listening is possibly the most undervalued skill in business. So many highly talented and qualified professionals mistake action for impact when success comes from delivering value to your stakeholders, in whatever form that might be.
Every one of us has stakeholders. Whether you’re a startup or work inside of a Fortune 500 company, know who your stakeholders are. Your direct manager is an important stakeholder but very rarely your only one. Who are you solving problems for? Who stands to gain (or lose) the most from your work? Get to know them, their goals and the challenges they face. Listen to them and build your team and work product around delivering value to them. When you consistently deliver value to your stakeholders, they become your champions, and they will give you a seat at more tables.
Listening is Learning
When we listen, we learn. By listening, we make connections and create meaning. Sometimes we may even change a position we strongly held because of new insight gained. Listening deepens our understanding and brings clarity, enabling us to prioritize and focus.
So often I see (especially younger) professionals eager to share what they know, to prove their worth and people please. It’s these types of interactions that tend to generate a lot of busy work, keeping team members at their laptops day in and out chasing the follow ups that came from jumbled conversations. In a culture that praises productivity, be careful not to let efficiency and task volume distract you from delivering real value.
The more you talk, the less you’re learning about the needs and goals of others and the less likely you are to pick up the contextual clues that can help you navigate the problem or task at hand. Listening is a gift you give others, so they feel heard, and a gift you give yourself to learn and understand.
Empathy is a Superpower
Active listening fosters empathy, helping to build stronger relationships and more cohesive teams. When you give your full attention to someone else, you’ll find that you’re better able to pick up on their emotions. By listening intently to what a person says and how they say it, you can develop insight into their fears and aspirations and gain a new perspective, one that puts you in their shoes.
“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” –source unknown
Pay attention to the softer voices, the ones that don’t often speak up. Use your voice to amplify theirs by asking clarifying questions and inviting them to contribute. Diversity of thought requires listening to diverse voices and when you recognize and work to resolve imbalance in airtime, you give space for these voices.
You’re in the Business of Trust
When people feel heard and understood by you, they will trust you and when they trust you, you will be able to take calculated risks together. You’ll have fewer internal barriers to overcome and more success moving your work through complex organizational matrixes. It’s these trusted relationships that create the environment for you to do high impact work that will drive both the business and your career forward.
Click here for more columns from Colleen Funkey’s “6 Personas to Propel Your Career” series.
Video courtesy of Let’s Talk Jobs
