Listening Can Destabilize Your Winning Recipe And Defuse A Disaster

IN CHILDHOOD YOU decided that the world was too extroverted for you to succeed in it. So you created a winning recipe to help you cope.  Today the recipe allows you to hide inside a socially acceptable way to be – clueless, controlling, loud, outgoing, or truthful. Or any of the thousands of other ways introverts try to be to achieve success.  For example, my recipe is to be process-driven by building step by step procedures to cope with life.

The last three posts discussed how to overcome disaster. The solutions were to use opportunity, small completions, and a novel approach to the future as strategies.  In this session we will talk about using understanding. In particular, listening in such a way as to gain an understanding that helps you to extricate yourself from a calamity.

Listening is an art.  To perform it well it may take more skill than talking. Even for you, a person who tends to listen more than you speak, your mind often gets in the way of hearing what others have to say. 

Instead of being attentive to their words you think about whether you agree with them nor not. Or what you want to say as soon as they pause, or what judgments and evaluations you have of them, the situation, their likely view of you, and so on – the potential distractions are endless.

Your winning recipe may be the biggest distraction of all.  It often serves as the filter through which you hear everything.  With my process-driven recipe standing between me and others, I usually listened to see if they had thought through all the steps of what they were advocating. I then dismissed them as lightweights if they had not. I thereby missed the value that was in their point of view.  You probably do the same based on the flavor of your own recipe.

How I Discovered The Listening Solution

AFTER RESTRUCTURING MY present based on a future that inspired me (see Post #21), by 2006 I was a newly-certified Six Sigma Black Belt qualified to use statistics to remove variation from business processes. 

For the new job my wife Sandy and I moved from Gainesville, Florida, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I became the Six Sigma Deployment Leader for the statewide Blue Cross / Blue Shield health plan.

During interviews with the firm I had used my winning recipe to filter what the hiring manager was looking for.  All I heard was “process, process, process,” and that matched my recipe exactly. 

Yet when I arrived I discovered that while I was technically qualified in the discipline, I was temperamentally unsuited to being a vocal advocate for it across the company.  I had completely missed that that was what the firm needed. The role called for promoting Six Sigma in an outgoing way, something that as an introvert I could not deliver.  Within two months my manager and my team were so dissatisfied with me that I got fired.

When a Six Sigma job appeared across town at UnitedHealthcare, I doubted whether I could succeed at it.  But I decided to find out.  This time I went  into the interviews with my eyes wide open. 

During talks with United’s executives I listened with acute interest to learn what the job involved. I heard that this one did not require me to be extroverted. All I had to do was help my team be focused on getting results.  I landed the job and ended up having a long and successful career at the company.  The solution to being fired was not my recipe. It was simply listening well to understand what the firm wanted and needed from me.

Because I had failed to listen, I did not understand the nature of the role I had accepted at Blue Cross.  Then just weeks later I got hired at an even better job.  In that case I listened intently to what the company needed, and it was so spot-on with my skillset that I ended up having the thirteen best years of my career.

Unpacking The Listening Solution

IN ADDITION TO disregarding the many distractions that creep in when another person is speaking, the practice of “active listening” can help you to hear others more clearly.  I used it to great effect during the UnitedHealthcare interview and achieved a double effect. I made sure I that heard what the interview team had said, and that I let them know their message got through.

• Active listening is the simple practice of saying something like, “What I’m hearing you say is X, is that accurate?” 
• It also involves making “I” statements instead of “You” statements.  For example, “When I hear X, I get excited.”
• And it helps as well to nod, or say “Uh-huh” to show you understand.

In the days after a disaster strikes you are probably not going to listen very well unless you make a conscious effort.  You are likely to be overwhelmed by chaos, and your winning recipe will be yelling unhelpful instructions in your ear.

The steps below can help you to recover from whatever adversity you are dealing with. 

How To Hear Well To Overcome A Disaster

1. Be conscious of what your winning recipe is saying.  In a disaster it gets particularly active in the background, so be sure to raise its message to awareness.  Then ignore it.  It is almost never any help when you are recovering from a disaster because it is rigid and unthinking at a time when you need to be flexible and creative.

2. Seek out those who can advise you.  In a natural disaster, listen to FEMA.  In a money a crisis, listen to financial experts whom you trust.  In a  job loss, listen to career coaches and whoever is interviewing you for a new position.  In a calamity involving something else, locate a person who has been through a tragedy like yours, and can provide wise counsel.

3. Listen like you never listened before.  Keep your attention focused on the expert who is talking to you.  Notice each distraction as it comes up in your mind and let it pass as if it were just a silly movie.  Maintain eye contact with the speaker. Nod when you understand something. Feed back to the person what you have just heard.  Use their input well and likely it will help you to unravel the mess that you are in.

I Invite You To Listen To Overcome Your Disaster Today

• What was your disaster?  How did listening work for you?  If you would like us to consider sharing your story anonymously with The Satisfied Introvert community please email it to me at thesatisfiedintrovert@gmail.com.
• How can I help you to listen to understand? Please go to the Contact page and enter your name, email, and questions. I cannot answer everyone but will do my best – especially if the answer could benefit others.
• To be notified of new posts to The Satisfied Introvert blog, please go to the Subscribe section at the bottom of this post and enter your name and email.  Under no circumstances will we share your information without your express permission. A new post appears every two weeks.  Coming up next: “A New Context Can Detach You From Your Winning Recipe.” If a particular post does not apply to you, future ones most likely will!

Welcome to the sense of direction that comes

from listening responsively to an expert,

and using their guidance to recover

more quickly from a disaster

 2022 The Satisfied Introvert LLC