we don't teach active listening we don't teach Executives or any employee in our company how to make someone else feel heard feel understood feel seen which is where it starts and if that can happen then all kinds of trust builds and and all the other things start to break away the so for example when after the murder of George Floyd I was astonished at the number of uh people in a leadership position regardless of you know mid-ranking on on up um did nothing in companies people who lead teams that after the murder of George Floyd
they didn't talk to their teams they just did nothing and it's not because they're bad people it's because they didn't have the skills they didn't know how to have an uncomfortable or difficult conversation and so they chose nothing which makes things worse and uh and and and this is just a skill we can teach people and here's how to have a difficult conversation you bring your team together and say um we need to have an uncomfortable conversation um about race and our company and um uh I'm nervous to have this conversation because I'm afraid that
I'm I'm gonna Bumble something I'm afraid that I'm going to say something that will trigger somebody and I'm afraid I'm gonna say something or someone will say something that that may agitate and make this worse but I think it's more important that we have this conversation than we than than my fear of doing this perfectly and that's how you start a difficult conversation and it is difficult but it is necessary and those conversations are not happening and again not because of bad people it's because people are afraid and they don't have the skills to start
those conversations and it is the responsibility of leaders because that's what we call you leader we call you leader because you go first not because you're in charge but because you go first first to the unknown first of the difficult first of the dangers um and it is our responsibility as as as uh as a corporation to empower and educate our leaders to to do the things that they need to do with their teams um and of course up on high same thing um so I think that's where it begins there's a there's a tremendous
lack of listening in our nation so listening is a trust building exercise right if you've if you're in a take it down to a personal relationship if you've been in if you've ever had a romantic relationship it's a loved one right um um making someone feel heard doesn't mean you're wrong saying sorry doesn't mean you're wrong it just means you take accountability for your for your actions and I think it is important that we attempt to hear them make them feel heard doesn't mean we have to agree but they have to feel heard and you
know listening is not hearing the words you know it's making the other person feel that they were heard it's it's it we don't get to decide when when hearing has happened when listening they do and and by the way it's not 100 successful either you know because some people are just hell-bent on and but that's a minority and so I think the exercise is sitting down with people and say tell me tell me what's what you're going through tell me what you're afraid of I want to understand because we're trying to make everyone safe I
I wanna I wanna hear what what your thing is and let them tell their story we have no answers we're not there to object we're not there to react we're not there to fix or tell them that they're wrong women are better than this than men and I think that has to happen and it can happen simultaneously
