Tess Brigham: Today I'm going to teach you how to become a
listening detective, and teach you the three step process that
you need to overcome a boss who just won't listen to you. Hi,
I'm Tess Brigham licensed psychotherapist and board
certified coach, join me every Thursday here on my YouTube
channel. I talk about mental health, love career and
everything in between for young adults just like you, so please
join me. Alright, so today we're talking about a boss who just
won't listen to you. If this is an issue for you, I also have
another video real quick, stay here first, and then you can go
to that new video. But I have another video that's how to deal
with a bad boss. And that might be really helpful for you as
well. So let's talk a little bit about what it's like when
someone doesn't listen to us, right? is the worst. I mean, I
can't tell you how many talks I've given how many things I've
done, and I can see someone who's way in the back kind of
scrolling on their phone or can't even bother to sort of,
you know, even give you the time or attention to pay attention to
what you have to say. And what happens for you as a speaker,
right? When you clearly see that someone isn't listening to you.
What happens, right you get distracted, you lose your your
focus. And more than anything, you start to doubt like maybe
what I'm having what I'm saying Isn't that interesting? Or maybe
people don't care, I don't want to hear what I have to say. Who
knows. So when you have a boss that doesn't listen, that can be
even harder, because it's important. The relationship with
your boss is really important. It's important for you and your
career advancement. It's important for you and how you
feel about yourself every day at work. So here is the three step
process. I want you to start. Alright, so you're going to
become a little bit of a detective. Step number one is
this, I want you to start to figure out and be a detective
and figure out what's going on with my boss. Does my boss have
ADD? You know, how are they interacting with other people?
Does my boss not listen to anybody? Are they someone who
steamrolls and doesn't listen to a thing? Are they constantly
fidgeting and all around and they have, you know, they
struggle to pay attention? Do they have an attention span of
about five or 10 minutes, and then you can see them drifting
off. This is really about you taking a big step back and
looking at your boss and really trying to figure out what's
going on here with them. Trying to de personalize it a little
bit like this isn't about you, and your ability to hold their
attention. It's really about trying to understand what's
going on with my boss here? And is it that they can't pay
attention? Because they just can't pay attention because they
have ADHD or some other issue? Or is it that they pay
attention, but only when people keep it short and to the point
where they paid attention? When it's this kind of environment or
the beginning of the day versus the end of the day? That's
really important. Those are your clues to how to address the
issue. So the second part of the process is this now that you
gather all of this data in facts, you have a choice, okay,
you have a choice, you can either take all this information
and figure out okay, I took a step back and checked out my
boss, I realized my boss is really great with simple short
things that they can hear. And they're much better with news in
the morning. Great. Now you can really go ahead and think about
this is how I get my boss's time and attention when I keep it
short. And when I hit them up at 9am.
If you've gotten a lot of clues from your boss, and it seems
like it's a little all over the place, it's a bit of a
hodgepodge. And you feel like you have a good relationship
with your boss, good enough to be able to have a conversation
with them and share your feelings with your boss about
it, then the thing to do is approach your boss about it. And
you want to approach your boss in the sense of Hey, you know, I
noticed the other day when you and I were talking that you
seemed you seemed really tired or kind of distracted is, is now
a good time to talk. Or I'm noticing that you seem to be
your your focus seems to be split, you know, should I make
an appointment with you should to have our own one on one
meeting. You want to come at it from a place of curiosity of
Hey, what's going on? And hey, I'm noticing this, what's my
solution? Good bosses, bosses that are thoughtful and caring.
They'll stop and go, Oh, gosh, no, I'm sorry. And hope they'll
shifted a little bit they'll start to become more mindful of
it. bosses that aren't that great. Unfortunately, they might
not. They may be like no, no now is fine as they scroll and
scroll and squirrel. And sometimes then you have to get
super creative about how you're going to work with them. And
finally, tip number three is this Once you have gotten all of
this information, whether it's from your fact finding missions,
your detective work, or from your conversation with your
boss, you want to develop a plan, a strategy moving forward.
If your boss can be involved in it, that's awesome. If your boss
won't, that's fine, too. There's certain times in our lives where
we have kind of jerky bosses, we have bosses that aren't that
great. And they really kind of don't listen to anyone. And
that's the moment time where you really have to figure out if you
feel like, Listen, I have tried, I tried it from this angle, and
this angle and this angle, I've had conversations, and they just
won't listen to me. That's the moment where you really need to
rethink if this is the right boss for you. All right. The
last one is a little bit of a bonus tip, which is this, I want
you to think about what it is how you are as a listener, it's
really important. Because, you know, if you're not a very good
listener yourself, then that's the energy you're giving off to
other people. And it may mean that's what they're giving to
you. If you're someone who is constantly also scroll, scroll,
scroll saw squirrel off, you're looking eyes up here, all of
that. And then I want to put the ball back in your court to
really think about what do I need to do to become a better
more active listener? Alright, that's it for this week. I'm so
happy you were here. If you like this video, please give it a
thumbs up. If you're not a part of my YouTube channel. Please
subscribe. And if you believe this video is good for someone
share it. I would love that. Alright, I'll see you next week.
Bye.