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Everyone assumes that listening is a passive process. Information enters in the form of words through our ears, gets processed by our brains and comes out the other end as actions.

However, we all know people where this information seems to go “in one ear and out of the other” – the input doesn’t correspond to the desired output. They “hear” the messages going in, but unless that produces a suitable reaction, you can hardly call it listening.
True listening is anything but passive.

Listening is not only about processing the words. The way they are told, the tone, the facial expressions and body language of the speaker weave a far richer picture. This imparts far more meaning to the message than the words themselves, but it is up to the listener to interpret the messages in the way that the speaker intended.

This is extremely hard work. Mind reading is impossible, but if you listen actively enough, you can get close. If you are seeking to influence others, they firstly need to understand that they are being understood.

There are few professions that require superb listening skills more than recruitment. Having a nervous candidate sitting in front of you, not quite sure how to tell their career story, you have to be able to read between the lines. Teasing the details of a job brief from a client that doesn’t quite know the scope themselves is something that we undertake on a regular basis. As the owner of a recruitment firm, there are four distinct rules that I encourage my people (and myself) to remember:

Analyse the non-verbals (independent of the words). For whatever reason, what people say does not always reflect the whole truth of their message. They may be nervous, they may not know how to say something or they may not be able to say it, so if you take the words on face value, you will often miss the tell-tale signs of non-verbal communication. The moment that there is a disconnect between the non-verbals and the verbals, it is important to analyse why. This will add an entirely different level of meaning to the message.
Empathising means forgetting about yourself. For truly effective listening, you need to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and consequently forget about your own perspective for a while. If you are continually approaching conversations with your own personal end-game in mind, the other person will feel that you are uninterested in what they have to say. People give more if they feel that their opinions are valued.
Focus on the ideas behind the words. Step past what a person is saying and think about what they are trying to say. When you know someone well, you have more information to come to these conclusions, but even for a stranger, after a few short sentences, you have enough material to be able to infer a wider meaning. Use the next part of the conversation to check your understanding
Don’t allow for any distractions. In our busy lives, this is the hardest part of any conversation. A little patience lets people feel that they have the chance to explore their feelings in full, and you will come away with a much richer picture. If you are always acting as if you have “somewhere to go”, your conversation partners will always try to keep it brief, and you will miss out on the crucial details in any message.

The “two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion” idea doesn’t quite compute when there are two people in a conversation as a third of the time would be silence, but actually, a little bit of silence is no bad thing.

It gives you both time to think about what exactly you are trying to say.

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This article was submitted by Nick Day, Managing Director of JGA Recruitment – the leading Payroll, HR & Reward Recruitment Specialists.

Nick Day
Managing Director
James Gray Associates Ltd
Payroll, HR & Reward Specialist Recruiters
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 01727 800 377

Good teamwork can make anything possible.

Being able to motivate, and bring a team of employees with you; to act as one behind a particular cause and support your vision is one of the most valuable skills any manager can possess. In short, it is probably the most important quality which any company looks for in a potential leader.

If you are in a leadership position, getting others behind a particular cause is not always an easy task because your team members will not always see things the same way as you do. In fact, some of them may even oppose your ideas and decisions.

In all walks of life, a harmonious existence relies on us being tolerant of others; being able to accept the fact that we are all unique, and that we may often have different opinions. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done, and under stress, emotions can run high, and so to be able to lead effectively, you need to be able to intervene, and you need to take on the role of peacekeeper.

In poorly managed teams where people are constantly in disagreement with each other, achieving goals can be virtually impossible. In well-managed teams, however, conflicts are kept at bay, because team members learn how to respect each other’s differences.

When an entire team all disagree with their leader, then we have a very different situation. A leader might have an idea which they believe is crucial for the job at hand, but his or her team may disagree. Of course, as a leader you are in a position where you can dictate to your team, but is it the best way forward? Is it not better to get your team behind you? Remember, every challenge can quickly be knocked off-course if your workforce is always chipping away at your plan of action. In short, as a leader, it is imperative that you get all your team members on-board if you wish to achieve a goal.

You Need Genuine Support and Backing

If you ask me, I would say that this is one of the biggest challenges one can face if you are in a leadership position. As a team leader, you have the authority to insist that thing must “be done your way”. It can be tempting to manage in a dictatorial fashion by asking that your team members do what you tell them to do, and do it the way you want them to do it.

Unfortunately, this sort of attitude rarely leads to success. It doesn’t matter if you are the president, prime minister, or a small business owner. If you are trying to implement a strategy to survive a particularly sticky patch or achieve a challenging goal, you need to get your entire team behind you; need them on your side of the playing field, with all of them pulling the rope in the same direction as you are.

9 Key Characteristics Of Good Leadership:

1. Demonstrate good leadership by leading from the front
2. Be the sort of person others would be happy to follow
3. Offer a realistic and positive vision of the future
4. Inspire your team members with passion, commitment and vigour
5. Make sure others in your team feel they are needed and appreciated
6. Demonstrate good values
7. Strive to create a work environment where improvement is continuous
8. Provide opportunities that allow your team to grow, professionally and personally
9. Show genuine concern for those in your team, and demonstrate compassion

Here at JGA recruitment, we take part in an annual charity cycle that will typically involve cycling from one European country to another. This challenge is one that many of us take part in annually even though many of the team do not cycle at any other time of the year. When we first suggested this challenge, it is fair to say that not many of the team were interested! However, when discussed further, a charitable cause agreed upon, and the details ironed out, the team took some time out to mull the challenge over. The response was incredible as the team came back and all agreed to “go for it”. An initially negative response has since transformed into a very positive experience and an annual event for our company. Eight years on and we have since covered thousands of kilometres and over 18 European countries raising funds for some very worthy causes while doing so. These events have not only raised money, but they have also become fantastic team building experiences that have had positive knock-on effects in our workplace.

For me, this confirms the way I feel about the importance of getting your team behind you. Let your team know why and what the end goal is, and suggest a possible direction for reaching it, but allow your team to reach their conclusions as well. They may suggest a somewhat different direction, and you should be open to that. After all, the most important thing of all is achieving the end goal.

Good teamwork can make anything possible – UNITY IS STRENGTH!

• What great things have your team achieved?

• What are your team targets for 2017?

• What characteristic do you think is most valuable in a team leader?

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This article was written by Nick Day, Managing Director of JGA Recruitment – the leading Payroll, HR & Reward Recruitment Specialists.

If you are looking for expert talent in the fields of Payroll, HR or Reward, then please reach out for a 15 minute client engagement call and I would be delighted to discuss how we can help.

Nick Day

Managing Director | JGA Recruitment | Payroll & HR Specialist Recruiters

Email: [email protected] | Tel: 01727 800 377

The Four Listening Rules That We Don’t Heed Enough

9 Key Characteristics Of Good Leadership

James Gray Associates Ltd

JGA Recruitment, Inc.