The Lost Art of Listening (49 page)

to time. For friendships to grow with you, you may have to put in some

effort.

One important ingredient in getting the listening you deserve is cul-

tivating relationships based on mutual exchange. This means remaining

open enough to form new relationships and selective enough to drop those

that aren’t worth the effort. Deepening relationships requires a balance

between self- disclosure and listening. But then, inevitably, many of us find

ourselves stuck in relationships with people who have trouble listening.

Instead of remaining bitter or fatalistic, it’s possible to teach them to lis-

ten—by setting an example and, if necessary, asking for reciprocation.

Having friends means making time for them. If friends come second,

if you’re too busy working to be with your friends, what are you working

for? Keeping friends means being willing to work at it. Not all the time cer-

Being Able to Hear Friends and Colleagues
293

tainly, but listening sometimes when it’s hard and speaking up sometimes

when it’s necessary.

For friendship to flourish the relationship must be given priority. That

means finding time for each other, and it means making a real effort to

listen to each other. At work, however, there are more important things

than relationships. Aren’t there?

Getting Your Point of View Across at the Office

Marshall and Steve were thoroughly charming to Marianne when she

applied for a job at the small publishing firm where they were respectively

publisher and senior editor. They asked the usual questions about her

training and experience but spent more time talking about what a great

place it was to work. Marianne needed little convincing. Any small pub-

lisher, she felt, would be better than the huge conglomerates where editors

were drowning in profit-and-loss statements and books of substance were

considered with suspicion and irony.

Marianne felt she could learn a lot from Marshall and Steve. She

knew she had the makings of a good editor, but her experience at the large

firm where she’d been a valued assistant hadn’t prepared her to negotiate

contracts or conduct other such business matters with ease.

Marianne was thrilled when she received a letter offering her the job

a week after her interview. She’d worked a long time for this moment, and

she finally had what she wanted.

Marianne was surprised at how quickly her responsibilities built up.

Who would have thought that so many of the bright young authors she

was attracting to the firm (and some older ones as well) would need so

much hand-holding?

Marshall and Steve seemed happy to have Marianne around. But she

soon discovered that they considered themselves chiefs and her an Indian.

They were friendly enough, in a superficial way, but they never thought to

really include her. Between meetings and appointments they would talk

to each other and not to her. They’d discuss people she didn’t know and

exchange inside jokes. Their constant showing off, meant to entertain and

impress, made her feel that all they wanted from her was an audience.

When Marianne discovered that they went out to lunch together

every Wednesday without inviting her, she felt a humiliating shock of

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alienation. Later she learned that the firm’s small board of directors had

forced them to hire a woman editor and that Marshall and Steve resented

this intrusion into what they considered their fiefdom.

Another reason Marianne felt shut out was that Marshall and Steve

were such great friends. So close were they that people invariably referred

to them as Marshall-and-Steve, as though they were inseparably a pair,

a single hyphenated unit. People invited Marshall-and-Steve to parties,

the booksellers asked Marshall-and-Steve to serve on committees, and

authors and agents referred to Marshall-and-Steve as the savviest and most

devoted people in the business. The fact that they were both so popular

with authors, literary agents, and other industry people only underscored

Marianne’s sense of isolation.

One reason they were so well liked was that they were so accessible.

They loved publishing, they loved books, and they loved the way their

authors looked up to them with the total, trusting eagerness that people

whose identities are invested in their writing reserve for those who appre-

ciate their work. So Marianne was perplexed by their response when she

approached them about the manuscripts she was having problems with.

Marshall and Steve made a pretense of listening, their brows furrowed

in concern like state- funded bureaucrats on autopilot, but they asked no

questions. When she was done, they told her just to continue to do her

own good work.

These encounters left Marianne not just disappointed but humiliated.

But instead of getting angry, she felt ashamed of asking for help. She didn’t

really need much help; what she wanted was simply some support. More

than advice, she needed collegiality, that comforting sense of shared enter-

prise that had sustained her through the hard years of school and publish-

ing apprenticeship.

Shut out socially, then judged inadequate just because she’d asked

for feedback, Marianne became cold and hostile. Not wanting to give her

antagonists the satisfaction of exposing her real feelings of rejection, she

took refuge in contempt and punished them with silence.

The atmosphere in the office became so unpleasant that Marianne

thought about quitting. But she was a single mother and didn’t have that

luxury.

It was at this point that Marianne started dating a publishing execu-

tive at another firm, a tall man with gray eyes and a large spirit. Quinn was

a man of patient sweetness, but he too was divorced, and at first he and

Being Able to Hear Friends and Colleagues
295

Marianne were somewhat tentative with each other. Then love took over

and work became less important.

The trouble was, as Marianne now began to see, that from the begin-

ning she’d expected a lot from Marshall and Steve. When she’d inter-

viewed for the job she mistook their friendliness for an offer of friendship,

and when that promise wasn’t fulfilled, she became bitter. Then, too, she

wanted both to be appreciated as competent and given the guidance she

needed as a beginner. That these motives are somewhat contradictory

doesn’t make them unreasonable. Marianne’s bitterness was due partly to

the frustration of her own inflated expectations and partly to her colleagues

being too caught up in their own lives to be open to a new person.

Things changed at work when Marianne stopped worrying so much

about Marshall and Steve. Now that her personal life was full, she was less

interested in their friendship or even their approval. And now that she

felt better about herself, she was no longer willing to put up with blatant

unfairness.

When Marshall, who was filling out the annual review, rated her

“mediocre,” Marianne refused to sign it. “I want to talk about this,” she

told him evenly. When Marshall said he didn’t have time, she insisted.

“You
have to
talk to me. Make time.” He sighed theatrically but agreed.

“You
know
I deserve a good evaluation,” Marianne told him when

they finally met. “What’s the problem?”

“I call it as I see it,” Marshall said, getting up to leave.

“Please sit down,” Marianne said. “We have to talk about this.”

And talk they did. Marianne acknowledged that she may have

expected too much when she arrived, but she also pointed out that she’d

been treated like a second-class citizen and she was tired of it. They didn’t

have to be friends, she said, but they did have to get along. She spoke with

dignity, but also with intensity.

When Marianne finished saying what was on her mind, Marshall

apologized. He changed the evaluation, and after that both he and Steve

started treating her with more respect. In return, Marianne dropped her

belligerent attitude, but she was no longer willing to put up with not being

listened to.

Why were Marianne’s bosses so unresponsive for so long, and why

now all of a sudden did they start to listen to her? Could it really be that

all she had to do was speak up?

Marshall and Steve had allowed their resentment about being pres-

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sured to hire a woman to turn into a grudge. Unwilling to confront
their

bosses, they took out their frustration on Marianne, shutting her out and

treating her as someone to be seen but not heard. What they didn’t realize

was that grudges have no place at the office.

Holding on to resentment of people you have to work

with punishes you as much as it does them.

It may be a cliché, but people who work together are a team, and

sometimes it’s necessary to get past personal feelings that interfere with the

functioning of the group.

Although Marianne had tried to complain, her expectations got in

the way. Like many of us, she wanted to be liked, and hoped to be friends.

That’s fine if it happens, but Marianne had allowed her wish to be friends

to take priority over doing her job and insisting on being treated fairly. It’s

harder to confront your boss if you need him or her to like you than it is if

you just want respect.

Anxious and uncertain about speaking up—lest Marshall and Steve

not like her— Marianne spoke to them in a nervous, tentative way. At the

other extreme, speaking up in a shrill voice doesn’t get you much respect

either. No one coached Marianne on exactly what to say or how to say it,

but the assurance she drew from her relationship with Quinn resulted in

her lowering the pitch of her voice and speaking more directly. She didn’t

just want to air her feelings; she wanted things to change.

On Secretary’s Day, Marshall and Steve gave the receptionist a dozen

carnations with a card signed from the two of them. Marianne was furious.

They responded by saying that this was a social gesture and they could

do what they liked. She told them that this was an office, not a social

setting, and that she wouldn’t be excluded like this. The next day they

apologized.

Keep in mind the difference between dissent and defiance as a re -

sponse to being treated unfairly.
Defiance
means disagreeing to attack the

other person’s position.
Dissent
means disagreeing to stand up for what

you believe. It’s the difference between saying “You’re wrong” and “This

is what I think.”

Defiance is reactive, a counterphobic response to the temptation

Being Able to Hear Friends and Colleagues
297

to deference. A dissenting opinion is much easier to hear than a defiant

one.

Marianne now realized that she was entitled to be listened to, and

when important issues arose, she insisted on it. Knowing she could fight

back effectively made her more relaxed, and so there was less often a need

for it. No longer anxious for Marshall and Steve’s approval, as though she

were a child and they parents, Marianne lost her dependence, her need to

please: she was an independent person. The company, as usual, published

some very good books that year, and an author Marianne had brought in

had a great success, both critical and commercial. She and Marshall and

Steve had a wonderful celebration with him one evening, and their grati-

fication was genuine and shared.

Marianne’s unhappy experience at the office is instructive for two

reasons. First, her colleagues’ lack of consideration illustrates one of the

greatest mistakes senior people make in work settings: not listening to

their subordinates. Second, that insensitivity placed Marianne in the kind

of situation that tempts us to feel like victims, wearing our suffering as a

rebuke to the villains we hold responsible. The fact that Marianne was a

woman suffering at the hands of two men also permits those who care to

see this as an example of men as tyrants and women as martyrs. Let’s look

at these issues one at a time.

A Good Manager Is a Good Listener

Managers are expected to lead the people under them. Unfortunately,

people get promoted because they were good at the jobs they were doing,

not because they’ve proven themselves as managers. In fact, according to

the Peter Principle, people tend to advance until they reach their level

of incompetence. As a result, many managers pay more attention to the

product than to the people producing it—to the detriment of both.

“Yes, Master.”

The more powerful and admired the boss, the more people tend to hold

back their opinions rather than risk angering the person in charge.2 Good

2That’s one reason presidents make a mess of things: they fail to correct misguided poli-

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