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Not feeling heard is a concept we are all familiar with.

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We've also been on both sides of this interaction.

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If we want to continue to try and build high-performing teams and deliver exceptional service to internal

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and external customers, we need to understand how feeling heard works and how we can become

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better teammates by being aware of it.

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Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors

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of the job as a first responder as well as how to thrive off duty.

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My name is Kevin Housley, a Human Performance Coach and a Firefighter since 2005.

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I've been able to coach over a thousand emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better

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prepared for the job, and how to be happier and healthier at home.

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So let's get to it and talk about how to be better about feeling heard or making other

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people feel heard.

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So today's topic is the five components of feeling heard.

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The last week on episode 23, we spoke about the psychology behind feeling heard and what

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the research across multiple domains said about this concept.

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If you haven't listened to that episode, head back to episode 23.

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It's linked in the show notes as well.

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And check it out.

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So a quick review.

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We're not going to dive back into the literature per se, but we are going to talk about the

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entities that were involved in feeling heard.

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And this is going to be a foundational principle when we start looking at the five components.

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So there's three entities to feeling heard.

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There's a me, a you, and a we.

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And all parties involved in the communication have these same foundational entities.

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And we really need to acknowledge it.

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We also need to realize that the me, each party in that has a me and each party has

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the you, but they're mirror images of one another.

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And so we just really need to be aware of that, that my me entity is different than

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your me entity, et cetera.

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So let's continue to review with the study titled feeling heard, operationalizing the

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key concept for social relations by Ruse and colleagues.

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And that's linked in the show notes and has some really, really interesting stuff.

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And again, in that article specifically, they talked about two different studies about feeling

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heard that encompassed over 1200 participants.

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So a pretty good sample size on that one.

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So from this paper, they identified the three entities, the me, the you, and the we, but

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they also identified five components of feeling heard.

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And these interact with those three entities.

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So what are the five components and how do they relate to me, you and we?

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Well, the first component is voice.

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And if you start to listen, especially in organizations or cultures that maybe have

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some good opportunities for growth, you're going to really hear this word actually used

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verbatim quite a bit around voice.

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You're also going to hear it in positive cultures that are driven for change, driven

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for progress.

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You're going to hear the exact word used of voice.

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And so voice, the concept of voice is a foundational area within the me entity.

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And all of us have been in that camp where we, you know, we really felt like we had some

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great input that gave us the floor, our ideas and opinions and all of those things were valued.

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And it doesn't even necessarily mean that they actually implemented those things.

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But there was definitely like active listening.

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There was a lot of these other components that were involved, but we really at the end

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of that conversation or the end of that interaction or the end of that project felt like we had

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a voice and it was taken into account, even if it wasn't completely implemented the way

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that we thought it should be.

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So foundational area of me is voice.

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And that's something that all of us can really, really relate to.

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One interesting thing from this study specifically was that participants felt less heard if they

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were in a subordinate position and or if the other person dominated the conversation.

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So a lot of times we have one person that kind of dominates the conversation or they

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talk the most or though they're loudest and even some organizations that kind of gives

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them authority and authority position because they talk the most or they talk the loudest

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or we grant those with higher rank the opportunity to talk the most or to talk the loudest even

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though they might not actually be the most qualified to address the issue or solve the

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problem.

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So this study right here talked about just from the simple fact of being in a subordinate

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ranking structure right away, those interactions already are somewhat damaged on the feeling

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heard scale where you're going to have to work a little bit harder to make sure that

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the subordinates are felt heard a little bit more.

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And so really, you know, take turns in the sandbox, actively listen, put your phone down,

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look people on the eye and actually listen to what they're saying, especially if you're

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in a superior rank.

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It's really, really important for people to feel like they have a voice which equates

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to feeling valued and feeling engaged.

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Another really interesting thing was the superior in those interactions or when they

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surveyed the superior in the feeling heard studies, they did not feel more heard than

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subordinates.

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So when we look at this from a detached angle a little bit, we also as subordinates in a

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rank structure need to make sure that we integrate the five components of feeling heard so that

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the supervisors actually feel heard and we can come to a common ground.

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So this is just a humanistic human performance psychology issue.

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It has nothing to do with rank structure that people up the chain of command, down the chain

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of command, all kind of experience the same thing where they don't necessarily feel heard.

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And we see this organizationally in emergency services for sure of the line maybe is saying,

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Hey, this is what we really need to do or this is what we think we need to do and or

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from the top saying, Hey, this is what we need to do.

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And this is what I think how we solve the problems.

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And a lot of times those two parties don't necessarily talk to one another, don't listen

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to one another or don't work in a collaborative environment.

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And neither of them actually feel heard, which doesn't lead to high performing teams by any

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means.

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So the next three components.

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So again, we have the three entities, the me, the you and the we, the biggest component

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of the me is voice.

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The next three components all fall into the you entity.

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And they are attentiveness, empathy, and respect.

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So think about those conversations where you really did feel like you were heard.

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And I bet you felt like that you had a voice.

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You also felt that the other party, so the you was attentive.

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They had empathy of, Hey, I understand your problem, or I hear what you're telling me

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on your problem.

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And I'm going to walk with you through this.

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And you also feel felt respect, both mutual respect up and down or laterally across the

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chain of command.

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So when we think about interactions that we've had with other people or negative interactions,

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and it's easy for us to trend negative.

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And I try not to trend negative all the time, even though that's kind of our inherent nature

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as humans is my use the example last week in episode 23 about, you know, having the

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phone out or working on a computer during the middle of a conversation, or during maybe

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a class or a presentation that you would much rather than actually be paying attention

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to.

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And those scenarios where you probably didn't feel heard if somebody's out plunking another

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computer while you're trying to go over a presentation, they're not taking notes, they're very clearly

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working on something else.

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So right away with that very first component of attentiveness is missed.

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And therefore, you have this gap in feeling heard.

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And empathy is an interesting one, you know, that's not sympathy of, Oh, I feel so sorry

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for you.

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Empathy is, Hey, I'm going to walk with you on this journey.

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I'm not necessarily going to absorb all of your pain.

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But I am going to walk with you and help you navigate whatever this positive or negative

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scenario is.

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And empathy is an interesting one.

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Some people have inherently a trait of empathy and other people really need to kind of work

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towards that through things like emotional intelligence to actually have empathy where

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they say, Hey, I understand that I'm maybe at the top of this organization.

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I understand that I don't actually know what you go through every single day because I

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haven't been there in a really, really long time, which means that what you are currently

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going through is completely different than my lived experience.

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But I am going to sit here and listen attentively.

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I'm going to walk with you through that progress.

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Maybe it's a good time for mentorship.

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Maybe it's just a great time for me to listen to you and not actually save say anything.

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And then from by doing that, you probably have good respect both both ways in that conversation.

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So attentiveness, empathy and respect are three major components of feeling heard and

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they all fall into the you category.

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And I think when you start to think about those three definitions specifically and how

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they might relate to you specifically, you're going to feel, Hey, this is really, really

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important if I have especially if I'm in a supervisor mode.

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So I will be the you and that other person.

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And if I'm not giving them good attention, having empathy and having respect right away,

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that subordinate is not going to feel heard.

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They're not going to feel like they have a voice.

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And the final component of feeling heard is the really relates to the we entity.

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And it's a term that I used earlier in this podcast was common ground.

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And you know, really the point of conversations or interactions or relationships or anything

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like that is you're going to have a me and a you and then we come together as a we and

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that we would be that common ground.

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We can absolutely have a common ground as I alluded to earlier, even if all the parties

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involved don't get their way or they adamantly disagree, we can still come to common ground.

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And from a leadership perspective, you know, in the good to great books specifically, we

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did a podcast about some of the good to great, get the right people on the bus, get the right

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people on the bus in the right seats.

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And in that book, they talk a lot about, you know, those really, really high performing

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organizations that outperformed their competitors 300 to 500% over long periods of time was

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they at the leadership level, they had kind of knock them out, drag them out sort of fights

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in the boardrooms when they were trying to solve problems or had disagreements.

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It was coming in there and really, really challenging the narrative, challenging ideals, challenging

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things through the lens of a company value perspective or operations perspective.

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And then when they came out of that after a decision was made, even if they didn't agree

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with it, right, they felt like they had a voice.

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Obviously, there was a tentiveness, there was empathy and there was respect within that

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room.

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And then they came to a common ground and they moved forward.

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And then they just repeated that over and over and over.

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And sometimes, you know, they essentially won and sometimes they lost, but they didn't

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actually ever use those definitions specifically.

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It was like, Hey, I didn't necessarily get my way on this one.

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However, I do support the overall mission.

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And this is what we're going to do.

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So really, we're working towards a better than before kind of mindset, not, Hey, I have

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to win every single battle along the way, or every single war along the way.

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But are we doing things that are in the best interest of the customer internally and externally?

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And are we better than we were before?

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You know, and this common ground is really, really important as we try to build cohesive

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teams, try to build cohesive units or companies or whatever your organization calls them and

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really tries to push for higher performing cultures that are filled with things like

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a tentiveness, empathy and respect.

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So it's really important that we assess the we to figure out where have we come from, where

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are we going and how do we continue to progress?

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And are we doing the right things that meet what we said we were going to do?

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So here's the five components of feeling heard.

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And once you just kind of put a name to them, it's pretty easy to understand maybe why you

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feel a little frustrated or you don't feel heard along the way.

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One of those five is for sure missing.

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It's going to be the voice, tentiveness, empathy, respect or common ground.

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And you're missing the mark maybe in one of those categories of, Hey, I don't feel valued.

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So that would be the me or I don't, I don't feel like they really understand my problem.

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That again would be a combination of the you, they don't understand my problem would be

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the you don't understand my problem, but it's impacting me personally.

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And so the three entities of me, you and we are very, very important to realize that everybody

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is kind of positioning their me position, but you have an ability to impact that in

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the you category when the other person is talking like how are you treating them?

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Are you treating them again?

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Are you listening actively listening with attentiveness, empathy and respect?

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And then how do you come to some sort of common ground and how does that communication go?

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And as a subordinate or maybe somebody that didn't get their way on one of those interactions,

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it's very important for you to also understand that even in a rank structure, the people

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that are at the top don't feel heard more so than the subordinates do.

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I thought that that study or that part of the study was very, very interesting.

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So try to put some of this in progress.

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We really appreciate all the support and the feedback on the firefighter craftsmanship

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