Making your voice heard

Have you ever felt like you’re talking to deaf ears?  You’ve been trying to tell someone something for ages and they’re just not listening?  And then they even have the cheek to say that you never told them?

Just lately, I feel that I’ve been telling people what’s been going on but the message just isn’t getting through.  Messages either aren’t being recognised for their content, or not being considered important enough to disseminate, therefore others aren’t finding out, and feel like nothing is being done.

Case in point today.  For the last, who knows how many months, I’ve been telling a group of people what I am doing to help alleviate a situation for a larger group of people.  That larger group of people have not had that information shared with them, so are getting up in arms about things appearing not to be happening. Because the larger group of people are getting irate, they’re taking it out on the smaller group, who are complaining that they are being got at.  I’ve explained so many times that if they bothered to share the information that I’d given them with the larger group, the larger group would be more satisfied and aware of what is happening on their behalf.

Other recent situations have involved one person complaining that things they are responsible for aren’t working properly, so I’ve given advice on things they might like to try instead to see if it improves things (and I know they do because those same things have been employed elsewhere and worked well).  They don’t bother doing anything different and come back again complaining still that things aren’t working right. 

Am I speaking Martian?

I’ve had times when I’ve felt that I’m just not being heard. What’s given me the strength to speak up was having read a book called “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen.  It gave me some practical tools to apply which ultimately gave me the courage to speak up for myself and get my point across. 

Things that I have learned about trying to get my point across is that people need to be understood, be clear on what their own issues are, but also be clear on what my concerns are.  People need to be educated rather than blamed or accused of something.  It gets a far better response. Having clear expectations means that there should be no room for misunderstanding, and clearly people I’ve come in to contact with either need it repeating multiple times until it sinks in, or in writing so that I can refer them back to it.

Yet still some people don’t, or won’t listen.