The financial impact of listening inside organisations - Michelle K. Johnston explains the importance of leaders listening and 3 important foundations for productive listening tours

May 1, 2018

Leaders’ operating rhythms or schedules rarely make time to just sit and listen to their employees. By listening, it aligns leaders with employees to increase the bottom line. It makes all the difference in the world.

A team listening environment correlates with financial performance and employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

Michelle K. Johnston, a university professor in the United States, is an expert in leadership communication. She makes the connection between leaders listening and the positive impact on financial performance.

She describes the importance of pausing and silence to understand what you are thinking, and the continuous effort to learn from and listen to your staff. People want to know they are being heard and that their thoughts become part of the leadership team’s action plan.

Michelle explains the role of engagement surveys and the differences between qualitative and quantitative feedback.

Tune in to Learn

• Educational role models who influenced and taught Michelle how to listen
• How your teammates make you feel matters
• Become comfortable with silence and pauses; be patient and reassuring
• Team Listening Environment (TLE) Scale and financial performance
• Employees who felt listened to, valued, and understood had higher financial performance
• Tell Me/Listening Tour: Learn what’s keeping employees from high performance, making money, etc.
• Listen to employees and make meaningful connections, have someone else take notes and collect data
• Employees feeling heard in the moment and subsequently
• Go back to the beginning to be self-aware and know how to listen and tell stories
• Provide opportunities and exercises to find and create meaningful connections
• Elephant in the Room: What’s not being said; create a safe environment and make a difference
• Quantitative Feedback: Been there, done that. Nothing changes.
• Qualitative feedback should be utilized and makes a difference.

Links and Resources:

Michelle Johnston

Larry Barker

Quotes:

What I have found, it’s the qualitative feedback that makes all the difference in the world. - Michelle

It’s ok to pause and to be comfortable with silence and collecting your thoughts. -  Michelle

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