By James Murphy
I recently found an excellent noun to describe the impact of acting like an assh*#% when engaging with communities. When we ask for what we need, only listen to what we want to hear and then don’t follow up to say thank you.
Askhole
noun (ask-hole)
A person that always asks you for favours or advice yet does nothing in return.
This is a confronting confession from a social worker who works in community engagement and operates a coffee shop named after the Fijian custom KereKere - to ask and give without expectation.
For years the team at KereKere have had a rule to avoid asking, “How are you?”, because, in our experience, people typically regurgitate a standard response like “good”. Instead, we start conversations by asking, “How can I help you?” since this question helps anchor the customer experience with our approach to do small things with great care.
In my day-to-day community engagement role, we have traditionally focused engagement on technical challenges by sharing facts, information, knowledge and using subject matter experts to identify the solution. Are these types of consultations bad? No, they’re not. They offer an easy and practical way for people to have their say and tick the consultation box.
But they are also one-way conversations. We only listen until the close date and we interact with the people participating in ways that leave us disconnected.
This one-way relational approach is bad listening and a feature of our modern life. In her book, You’re Not Listening (2020), Kate Murphy argues the point that despite living in a world where technology allows constant opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or really knows how.
Reading the book made me realise that it is difficult to listen well "and it's making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before."
So, how will I honour the one-way technical engagement that is being done and make the change to two-way conversations worth doing?
Instead of starting new conversations, I am going to do things differently by listening to the conversations we’re already having. And, I am going to do this with great care, knowing we all remember the feeling of being heard by someone.
I’m going to slow down to build and strengthen relationships with locals. I will provide an environment where everyone feels welcome with practical opportunities to participate and have a locally-led influence.
It can be much easier to have one-way conversations and just get what we need. Engaging with communities on problems that require confronting the status quo and people to learn new ways of doing things is hard work.
But when we take time and make an effort to listen well, it can change the world around us, and that is something worth talking about.