Designing Better Ways of Working: Creating an #Intentional #ListeningCulture with Jodie Goulden

Now is the time to start designing effective organizations of the future. 

Are you ready to design your organization to be more empowered, innovative, and productive?

What designs support organizational structures that create faster and effective decision-making processes, the kind that allows everyone the chance to speak up and be heard.

Jodie Goulden is the Founder of Orgdesignworks a company that helps organizations to design and implement more effective ways of working.

Jodie is formerly Head of Global Development & Learning at BASF with an overall 20 years of corporate experience at BASF, Lucent Technologies, and Deloitte. She had also worked in Germany, China, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, and held positions in Human Resources, Corporate Communications, and Change Consulting. She’s a Certified Organization Design Professional, a Board Member of Organisation Design Institute as well as a Board Member of Organization Design Forum. 

In this episode, Jodie highlights how leadership can influence the organization in the most powerful way to bring about more effective and better decisions. She talks about how to design structures so that individuals can listen better, build effective ways of communicating, and get work done at the team level. Her ultimate goal is to support senior leaders to eventually scale up into a company-wide culture of listening. She shares one listening tool that helps teams make faster and more effective decisions that otherwise might take months.

“The clearest signal that I’m in a part of a generative conversation is that at the end of the conversation, I don’t even know whose idea it was. It feels like it’s the product of everyone’s contribution, and that the ideas have just emerged from the group. The only way I know how to create that kind of conversation is through listening.” 

– Jodie Goulden

Listen IN Notes:

01:00 – Realizing the barrier that is stopping people from being good listeners

06:10 – Observations from the workplace and the need to create an organizational culture of listening

06:35 – How do you get from individual listening to organizational listening

11:33 – Showing people the impact listening has in bringing change in the organization.

13:59 – Sharing a listening tool Jodie used to help teams come up with effective communication and faster decision-making.

16:46 – How to create a dynamic where people understand each other’s perspective and not necessarily defend their point of views

23:00 – The more senior leadership gets, the more the tendency is to make individual decisions. Jodie shares what top leadership can learn about the impact a culture of listening has on the company making smarter decisions.

26:21 – The challenge for someone introverted is how to make their voice heard. How does Jodie do a phenomenal job of getting people to listen to her without talking too much?

30:16 – Being included in a meeting with top leadership is one challenge if you want to influence the organization. How does she design a meeting that allows more voices to be heard?

32:38 – Understanding the link between listening and innovation. How does generative listening foster an innovative environment in the company?

35:34 – Feedback can be a huge stress for managers and employees alike. It plays a role in the way we set up our organizations. How to listen with good intentions, with positive regard, and without judgment or criticism of the person that you’re listening to?

41:24 – The challenges of engaging with diverse teams from different cultures to communicate with each other

44:12 – Ways to connect with Jodie

Key Takeaways:

“I had to learn that I don’t have to solve any problem when I’m listening to someone. That being a good listener, in itself, is already a good intervention.” – Jodie Goulden

“I was thinking about how you can be listening for clues that other people are willing to change, and you can find allies. If you’re really paying attention, you’ll find that there’s a lot of people who want to change and who are willing to make changes.” – Jodie Goulden

“There are different ways to make your point. So, if you feel more comfortable writing your ideas, rather than speaking your ideas, then you can look for ways to get your point in writing.” – Jodie Goulden

“To be able to listen with good intentions, with positive regard, and without judgment or criticism of the person that you’re listening to (when giving feedback). We know that that’s very important to create psychological safety and to allow people to have a conversation that is constructive, in which they’ll leave the conversation feeling good.” – Jodie Goulden

“There are a number of ways to do listening. One is by going around the room and inviting everyone to speak, rather than just letting the people who are louder to speak.” – Jodie Goulden

Connect with Jodie Goulden:

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