Section 14: Understand Others Points of View


Overview

Bruce had just moved from the finance department to marketing, and he was having problems adjusting. Marketing didn’t seem to care at all about creating procedures, much less in following them, but this had been his area of expertise in his prior job. He felt lost. He sometimes felt like he was speaking a different language to his new teammates.

click to expand

He found help in a colleague, Sonia, who moved from marketing to manufacturing a couple of years ago. Sonia felt a similar kind of disruption in her move, so she really cared about helping Bruce with this problem. She was able to describe the culture of marketing in an outsider’s language, and even suggested some language he might want to use in group meetings. She didn’t get everything exactly right, of course––several key people had moved on, and Bruce’s experience was a little different. But, she helped Bruce look at the different values in the marketing group and question some of the assumptions he had made based on his experience.

Bruce continued to work on this culture-shift as his top priority. Several months later, he successfully made the adjustment and was feeling included and productive. He even became a liaison with his old finance group because he was able to translate between the two team cultures.

The larger an organization gets, the more problems are created by miscommunication. This is one reason why small, focused groups are still the best tool for making progress. The more people interact, the more they understand one another’s points of view. They may not agree with or subscribe to that point of view, but at least they understand it. So when you hear or see a message, immediately put it in the context of your understanding of the other person’s context.

Fortunately, Bruce recognized he did not understand the culture of the marketing team and sought some help. Sometimes a personal coach also can help decode confusing situations such as Bruce’s.

When you do not understand another person’s situation and context, you tend to adopt these views.

  • Whatever they are doing is not as valuable as what I am doing.

  • They seem to be doing their job the wrong way.

  • They make unreasonable requests of me.

Conversely, when you try to communicate to another person where you do not understand their situation and context, you can easily make these mistakes.

  • You state things in words that are not easily understood by the recipient.

  • You try to explain things in ways that do not fit with their understanding of how things should work.

  • You make requests that might seem reasonable to you, but perhaps you fail to make sense to them.

This is why it is so important to understand another person’s context. It is relatively easy to apply to the co-workers you meet daily, but the concept is just as important when you communicate with people in other departments, across the country, in other parts of the world, and even in management.

We tend to quickly dismiss management’s statements as meaningless, incomprehensible, or just plain wrong. Management people take their jobs just as seriously as we take ours, and they usually are trying to do the best they know how. Managers live in a much different context than workers: they are measured on and are rewarded for different things, and there is a whole different language and way of looking at success. When you see how that works, then it is much easier to understand why managers act the way they do and what they are trying to achieve.

The same holds true for your co-workers across the country and world. They usually have different goals than yours, and their norms of communication and decision-making can be quite different. Even in a common organizational culture, there are significant local variations. Before judging the actions of others, try your best to understand their culture and environment. This usually has a big impact on your ability to understand and support what they need from you.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

—Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits ofHighly Effective People

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

—Galileo Galilei, Italian scientist




Mondays Stink. 23 Secrets To Rediscover Delight and Fulfillment in Your Work
Mondays Stink!
ISBN: 1591099080
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 43

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net