It’s time to enter the Age of Listening

It’s getting closer, it’s almost here.
By which I mean both the book “Leading the Listening Organisation” that I have co-authored with Dr Kevin Ruck and Mike Pounsford; but perhaps more importantly our central thesis, which is that we believe we are entering a time where listening is increasingly fundamental to business success. With no apologies and rather grandly, we’re calling this the ‘Age of Listening’.

First the book. The culmination of over five year’s work for Mike, Kevin and myself. It is due for publication just before Christmas (see link below). It is so exciting to see this work about to be in print. The initial response from colleagues has been hugely heartening and it is fair to say that people have consistently given us positive feedback that listening, as a topic, resonates with them, ever since we started to raise the topic. 

People have recognsed that listening has long been a poor relation in the way organisations relate to their people. Our belief is that to help achieve the changes required in the modern organisation, listening needs to be understood as a central enabler for innovation and change, creating a sense of fairness amongst increasingly demanding employees. 

These days I see the language of listening appearing more than ever, whether in Linked In articles, the services agencies are beginning to offer or the way more organisations recognise that communications and engagement cannot be directionally one way.  The growing interest in differentiating an employee experience further emphasises the growing importance of listening.

In the book the research that we've done reinforces the many benefits organisations can obtain from effectively listening. At the top of the list, these include better performance (as higher levels of job satisfaction lead to a range of improvements including improved retention, better productivity and more agile processes); a better appreciation of customer needs leading to improved customer service and a greater focus on innovation that will lead to new ideas, better insights and greater understanding, leading to a more flexible and adaptive business. 

This feels worth pursuing and that’s why we believe we are now entering into the ‘Age of Listening’. Come and join us.Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.