What have you stopped noticing?

Geoff Roberts change, perception

I waschinese on mobile phone sitting minding my own business on Manchester Picadilly Station a few days ago (oh, the exciting places I get to for coaching assignments!) when an obviously ‘Chinese’ looking young guy came and sat alongside me. Well, as Manchester has one of the biggest Chinese communities in the UK, that was no real surprise. What DID however surprise me was when he pulled out his mobile phone to ring someone and this perfect Manchester accent emerged from his mouth.

Now what really surprises me about that is that I was surprised. I live in Bradford and am perfectly at home with young people with obviously Asian heritage speaking in a broad West Yorkshire accent – I don’t even notice what some might hear as a vocal incongruity, indeed the potential for noticing would be in an Asian under 30 years old speaking in an Asian accent!

Our brains are designed to notice difference, so the incongruity of the Chinese Mancunian is perhaps not surprising. But what is the process, and what are the consequences, of the incongruous becoming the norm?

Whatever the process, this is a challenge faced by anyone brought into an organisation to stimulate change. While we are outsiders we notice all sorts of things about the organisation, and the behaviours of its’ players, that the insiders miss because they have become habituated. In time, we risk ‘going native’ and ourselves becoming habituated to all those ‘weird’ behaviours we have been employed to point out and change. A change agent has a limited life in any organisation.

So, what have you stopped noticing about your world? And what are the consequences?

Are you really listening?

Geoff Roberts change, choice, focus, perception

I hear you but am I listening?Yesterday, I was driving my granddaughter to meet Peppa Pig. The radio happened to be on and it was one of those “my favourite tracks” sessions. The subject, I can’t remember who it was and it doesn’t really matter anyway, played Michael Jackson’s ‘The Man in the Mirror’, introducing it with comments to the effect that it was a song about how effecting change in the world necessitated starting with the man in the mirror (that is, yourself). I have heard this track many times and never, ever made that connection.

Then, this morning, I am driving that same grand daughter to nursery listening to a programme about The Jam Generation – that generation brought up in the 1980s with The Jam as part of their youthful soundtrack. The commentator seemed surprised that some senior Tories claimed to enjoy The Jam, and other groups of that ilk, despite the relatively left wing nature of their lyrics. He could not understand how they could subscribe to the lyrics in the song and yet be right-leaning Tories.

What both of these incidents suggested to me was the difference between hearing something and listening to it.

I have heard the Michael Jackson track many times and many times I have explained to other people that when I am listening to music. I very rarely pay attention to the specific words in the lyrics. More, I am concerned with the patterns of sound.

In the second case there the similarity, the commentator did not seem to acknowledge the possibility that these right-wingers could be hearing the lyrics while not listening to the words.

Now this observation is no great shakes but it does remind me of the need to be clear about whether a conversation I am part of is simply part of my life’s soundtrack or something whose contents might have much more meaning if I paid attention to what the other person was saying. Listening is an active process, its demands mental effort.

So today my challenge is to pay active attention when you are listening – whether to the radio, your colleagues at work, your partner, or whoever. Maybe it’s okay to have the radio on as a background soundtrack; but surely when we are face-to-face with someone they deserve as much attention from those as we might expect from then in reverse