From parenting to management (2): The five unspoken requests

The five unspoken requests

From parenting …

• Even if you disagree with me, don’t make me wrong
• Hear and understand me
• Tell me the truth, with compassion
• Remember to look for my loving intentions
• Acknowledge the greatness within me

After an argument with my children, and once I’m calm again, I remember that I’ve seen these unspoken truths in their eyes. I wish I could notice that I see them whilst still in the heat of the argument – for if I did, the argument would end instantly. My angry behaviour would change into far more effective action – even if I still remain angry.

The requests are unspoken because of the child’s powerlessness makes them unsayable, or because the child doesn’t have knowledge or language to speak them. But most importantly, they are unheard because my anger blinds my eyes and blocks my ears.

Children don’t always have loving intentions. They don’t always want to hear the truth. And they may be far from wanting to show the greatness inside them.

And yet I am humbled by these five requests. They are a call to parental action: to listen, to act with compassion, and to be creative in responding to conflict.

To management …

Staff often don’t have loving intentions. They’re here to do a job, after all. As their manager, why should I not judge right and wrong, or what is acceptable behaviour? What role has compassion in the workplace? – give them their targets and the means to achieve them, and wait for the results. And whoever heard of acknowledging their greatness?

And yet. And yet. These requests do translate into the workplace. Joe Jackson may have said “Once you clock in, you’ll take any shit”[1], and yet it is becoming more mainstream to value workforce development as a legitimate business aim. If staff feel valued, are encouraged to speak their doubts or criticisms, and if work is a place where they can grow personally and professionally, you’re more likely to have a healthy as well as more effective workplace.

So try ‘hearing’ these unspoken requests from your staff. You don’t have to tell them you’ve heard them. But act as if they’ve been spoken. Your staff may never know what they got from you; but they will feel that they have been heard.

Unspoken request:	Manager’s example responses:
Even if you disagree with me, don’t make me wrong	“This is what I need you to change…” [rather than, "You're no good at..."]
Hear and understand me	“What is it you’re wanting to tell me?”  Or, “What is it that I’m not understanding?”
Tell me the truth, with compassion	“This is the bigger picture you need to understand…”
Remember to look for my loving intentions	“I know what you were trying to achieve, even though the effect has been…”
Acknowledge the greatness within me	“Where do you see this project taking you?

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[1] “Friday”, from Joe Jackson’s album I’m the Man