Why are people not listening to me?
...and how do I get them to? (#4)
One of the biggest challenges for Quality Assurance people is getting other people in the organization to listen to them.
If you’re a QA person, you’re in a bit of a tough spot because often you’re not the boss of the people you’re trying to influence. You’re telling them what to do and expecting them to do it but you have no authority over them.
The constant refrain from my clients is, “Ughh…help me, Lesley…how do I get people to listen to me?” Or “How do I get people to do what I need them to do?” Or “How do I get the boss to take my requests seriously?”
We don’t have to get into any elaborate, high-brow theories of human behaviour to figure this out. Just look around and think about how things work in “real life” and you’ll get some ideas of what to try.
What we know about how influence works
First, let’s think of dogs. If you’ve ever trained a dog then you know there’s a big element of rewarding the behaviour you’re going for. My daughter is training her new dog and walks around with a fanny pack of treats. The dog does what she asks; the dog gets a treat and a nice pat on the head. Eventually the pat on the head and “Good Girl” is sufficient reward, but the fanny pack is never far away. It almost guarantees the behaviour.
This is about a win-win situation involving an exchange. I’ll shake a paw if you give me a treat; I’ll give you a treat if you shake a paw. Wins all around.
Okay, now let’s think about two-year-olds. If you’ve ever had one in your life and have seen what life is like up close with a two-year-old, you know it’s not that different from life with a dog. There’s probably a backpack full of treats and distractions rather than just a fanny pack, but it’s the same basic idea. 🤪
If you want your child to eat their peas, you have to figure out what to use in an exchange with them to create a win-win situation. If you’re lucky, you can just exchange praise and applause - “Yay, Johnny, good job on the peas! High five, buddy!”. But more likely you’ll need to exchange something of higher value (especially if they hate peas). It might be ice cream for dessert; it might be a trip to the park; it might be to stay up a bit later and have one more story. Is it manipulation? Call it what you want. Manipulation sounds a bit negative and this is a scenario where everyone wins. The kid gets closer to having a healthy diet AND gets to stay up.
I actually hesitated on this example because it occurred to me that in the highly-sensitive age of new-age parenting there’s a possibility this “bribery” of children is probably categorized as some kind of child abuse which will scar a child for life. Chill. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that encouraging a child to eat healthy food is an infringement of human rights. I mean, come on, a generation earlier my mum tied my sister to the kitchen chair until she ate her peas. It was probably happening in homes all across the land. 🫛
By the way, that forceful DO AS I SAY! approach has resulted in my 55-year-old sister still not eating peas. She’s very “anti-pea” to this day. On the other hand, my “gentle manipulation” resulted in three adults who regularly eat peas and will probably bribe or manipulate their own kids too.
You’re not the boss of me!
As every parent (and fur parent) knows, “You’re not the boss of me” is true. You can’t force a child (or animal) to eat, eliminate, or sleep. All you can do is work on your influence skills and hope for the best.
It’s a lot like being a Quality Manager.
So, dog, two-year-old, or colleague the trick is to figure out what matters to the other. If you can figure out what would be meaningful to them in an exchange, you have something to work with.
Now let’s keep going here - parents are pretty good at knowing what they can use to influence their own kids but not so good at knowing what will work for other people’s kids. Why? Because they know their kid.
You need to know what matters to the other person. To know that you have to know them.
And that means…wait for it…you have to get to know the people you work with.
This is why relationships matter. Your success at work pretty much comes down to your success with your relationships.
Why relationships matter
If you don’t have a relationship with your colleagues you’ve got two big problems when it comes to being able to influence them.
You won’t know what they care about
They won’t know you
Why does it matter that you know what they care about?
Well, how will you know what you can use in an exchange to get the cooperation you’re looking for if you don’t know what matters to them?
Why does it matter whether they know you?
Well, how often do you trust people you don’t know?
Why would anyone do what you’re suggesting if they don’t trust you? How will they trust you if they don’t know you? How will they know you if you don’t have a relationship with them?
Right? Right!
Work is ultimately about relationships. Get those working well and everything works well; struggle with them and everything’s a struggle.
Let’s recap; where are we now?
Build and nurture relationships; know what matters to the other so you know what feels like a good trade to them.
What else? Speak to them with words they know.
Think about your words
Imagine if you told your kid, “If you masticate your legumes you’ll be rewarded with an opportunity to consume a delectable frozen confection on completion of your culinary entrée”…rather than saying “Hey, buddy, eat your peas, and you can have ice cream for dessert.”
It’s obvious when I say it: If someone doesn’t understand the words we’re using, there’s a good chance they won’t understand our message. So, we need to make sure we’re always using words that our audience knows.
Most of the time we miss the mark in Quality. We use the words WE know. Or we use the words that make us think we’re showing we’re the authority on “all things Quality”. But what if the words we’re using are not words our listener knows? What if the guy who puts labels on the boxes in the warehouse doesn’t have a clue what you mean when you say “the Standard” or “CAPA”? What if upper management doesn’t know the difference between ISO, GMP, CFR, or QMS? They might not. They won’t admit it, of course. No one wants to look like they don’t know what’s going on; they’ll just smile and nod and what you’re telling them will go in one ear and out the other.
It’s up to us to know what they know and what they don’t know (and what they need to know!).
How do we find out? We need to get to know them. Do you see why this relationship bit is so important?
Without a relationship, we can’t know them. If we don’t know them we won’t know what they know and don’t know, how they think, how they make decisions, their communication preferences, etc. Without knowing all of this we won’t know how to communicate in a way that resonates, using words and terms we’re sure they know. If we use words they don’t know, they may tune out or they may simply not understand our message.
When you have a relationship with people you know what they know, what they don’t know, what they need to know, what they care about, what would make them happy in an exchange, and what words they know.
You need to know all of these things if you want to influence people.
If we force Quality down people’s throats or tie them to the chair until they comply, we could end up with a whole bunch of colleagues who are decidedly anti-Quality. Not good.
Instead, we have to figure out what they want or need badly enough to be compelled to eat their peas.
And we have to say it in words they know.
