Listening, sigh

[Zoe Girl]

I think we have a problem with listening, really I have seen an increase with this in the last year. At least active listening is a real problem. Some of the communication around our summer camp had been horrible. I tried to meet with the school principal for months but she didn't respond, one time I came for our meeting and she was not there. Meanwhile our summer partner (morning tutoring) was able to meet with her. The summer guy is nice but he also seems to be just smiling and nodding without really getting it. At one point we needed an inspection done for the license and the principal sent them away saying she knew nothing. There are all sorts of really important details that people are not getting, like our registration packets or that we are using the building so they will have to stock bathrooms or we need time to move out an entire camp. The parents also are not processing what the last day of camp is, we have signs in the doors, flyers, newsletters, OMG.

So I am going to give my supervisor a break when I think our meetings are going over the same list with increasing volume every time, apparently that is necessary. And now go move a camp this afternoon in 30 minutes because no one remembers the conversation we had about extra time, and send the principal photos to prove we cleaned up because no one gave us office space and we used the copy room

[Float On]

I was just asking the other night in a staff meeting what we needed to move towards to get our congregation's attention. Currently there are bulletin announcement sheet, weekly e-news, a church in-house magazine, website calendar, text blasts...we've followed the trends with short bullet point type announcements giving the basic details not wordy at all yet no one seems to know what is going on. The youth ministers are so frustrated because they'll hand out the parent permission forms 8 times for a single activity and still the day of the event they are searching for parents to sign forms.

[Tybee]

I think this is a result of information overload, as in too many channels of info--the multiplicity of ways I am supposed to tell my students things, when in the old days, I would stand at the front of the room and tell them things and the would write it down. Listening had a much higher value when that was how we learned things. Now, everyone is getting the same messages multiple ways, and the burden seems to be on the sender, and not the receiver. It's an interesting issue, Zoe.

[iris lilies]

Our volunteer work tires me because too many people dont bother to keep up with the information we put out.

very soon, so close I can taste it, I will be closing down our plant society. But for that to happen I need a quorum for a vote. For the quorum I need people to agree to a date to meet. For that agreement to take place they have to have, and read, my email messages. Since that is not happening I will now get to telephone them and coddle the ones who cannot seem to carry out their responsibilities by reading freekin' email.

In this group, some months ago, the VP dropped email,and didnt tell me. "We dont really use it, and I dont miss it" said his wife. Um, email is how we communicate, what do you expect me to do, print email messages and mail them to you? So yep, tnat is what I do. Then later she said "is this information printed somehwere." So, I iterated that yes, it is printed in the national publication but they are not members of the national organization. It is all over our website, but they do not have internet. What is it that people expect me to do, come siti their living room and hand them paper, read it to them, turn pages for them?

Our treasurer doesnt read email. She had it, ut never read it. so, another snail mail receiver.

I am tired to death of people who pretend to do volu neer work but will not step up to participate in standard communication devices.

[Zoe Girl]

How frustrating overall! I know my mom is in her 70's and she checks email and text messages on a regular basis. She also check facebook for pictures but I usually have to tell her when there is a good one posted. I was going to try and teach her google docs for the ongoing agenda and notes for her committee work but that seems too much. I agree the burden is on the sender, and the one that cares the most like in your case IrisLilies.

So my one situation with our summer camp site l got kinda resolved, I stuck to the conversations until I felt I was being heard. Apparently the school year principal stopped by and was so upset that we had an office set up in the copy room and materials stored there that I have to send photos to prove we cleaned up. Add to that we only have 30 minutes after camp closes to be totally out. In the conversation with the facilities manager he agreed that he had told us we could use the room, and that he forgot we needed extra time on the last day but we had talked about it. I also got to tell him that we actually had very little in the way of materials compared to other camps, he commented that we had sooo much stuff. Um no, I have 4 hours a day with 35 kids. Most camps are almost 12 hours with 60 kids, they get entire rooms for materials, sports equipment and snacks.

Then I talked to the summer school principal as well, He is a super nice guy but I really did need to get heard there. It took some time and some schmooze, but it did work out. He was shocked that we only get 30 minutes to clean up. I also explained to him that not only did I see this coming months in advance but couldn't get the principal to meet with me but that my staff is overhearing the custodians complain about our program being here. So he took it seriously, I have worked with him a little before, and we are both requesting my home school for next summer so we can run a program there together. The rooms have been way too hot for our program as well.

So I am running materials to storage now! Yeah!

[ToomuchStuff]

Were you saying something? The general populace seems to be too busy playing with their phones to hear you.

At least it feels like that to me. Listening and comprehension (both auditory and reading), suck.
Years ago, we were told to read a book, called get your point across in 30 seconds or less. Now I can pass information along that meets that criteria, and it will still have to be gone over and repeated.

[Zoe Girl]

Wow, I have been at a different camp 3 days, the kind that parents pay a lot of money for, and the communication is much better. I have had a few calls so that means parents got my number for the week I am subbing, which means they read their emails. Then I went to see a friend and help her at the camp she is subbing at, kinda a wreck honestly. But still parents were talking to me and staff more, at least less of questions that have been answered over and over

[mschrisgo2]

Just curious, Zoe Girl, are most of the parents in your program native English speakers?
The reason I ask, is because in my experience, much of what we put out to parents in writing, whether email, flyers, newsletters, texts- they were unable to actually Read. Sad, but true. (illiterate in both their home language and English).

[mschrisgo2]

IL, my suggestion for you is to schedule a lunch or dessert, they will show up. Get them to vote, feed them, Done.

[iris lilies]

IL, my suggestion for you is to schedule a lunch or dessert, they will show up. Get them to vote, feed them, Done.
Ues, thats what I am doing.

[Reyes]

Ues, thats what I am doing.

I had to chuckle at "standard communication devices." I SO would love to not have email, but with my job there is no way I can't have it. I do have a personal email address and dream of shutting that down, but then folks would just email my wife and she'd tell me what they said, and then I'd need to respond...so getting rid of it just complicates things:-)

[iris lilies]

Well, I am sure I occasionally annoy people because
I dont carry a cell phone, but there are precious few instances where I need to be reached ASAP. The time lag of email, plus the clarity of it for conveying information, is key for me.

I have decided that I will not take a position in any more hobby groups unless all members have email and that is a requirement for membership.

the garden club groups I belong to are made up of women my age and older, and all of them read their email and conduct business that way. The energy in these garden club groups is amazing, and different from the plant socieities.

[jp1]

The time lag of email, plus the clarity of it for conveying information, is key for me.



This one sentence tells me that you have not worked in corporate america, at least not recently. If I don't respond within a couple of hours to the majority of my work emails people start following up with phone calls, emails to other people in my department, etc. In an effort to be respectful to the worker grunts management at my mega corp employer have had hammered home to them the point that they should not send non-urgent email to their staff members during non-work hours. Pretty much everyone in the company has been given a work iphone so a lot of lower level staff were feeling the need to respond to non-urgent email over the weekend simply because it was something on the boss's mind at the moment. I don't have staff so I don't know the details of the communication effort regarding not sending non-essential email during off hours, but it must've been severe because nobody does it anymore. I can generally show up for work monday with nothing more than the generic deletable emails that corporate sends out 50x per day/7 days per week.

I agree with Tybee that there are just so many more ways of getting info out there that the receivers are overwhelmed. I've tried various ways of keeping on top of the important stuff and getting the rest out of my life without effort. THe results have been mixed. The problem I run into is that organizations like my bank want me to sign up for paperless credit card statements. But then they send a lot of marketing BS that I don't want, so I move them to another email address. But then I never check that email because it's "just bank crap" and then I miss the statement...

[rosarugosa]

I find it impossible to strike the perfect balance for my team with their voiced concerns being "we aren't always kept informed" and "we are too busy to read your e-mails." I receive between 100 to 200 e-mails per day at work, along with a stream of instant messages. And I have a lot of stuff to do besides managing e-mails.

[iris lilies]

This one sentence tells me that you have not worked in corporate america, at least not recently.
....

No, I am retired and I dont expect anyone to answer emails instantly, or even the same day. But it sure is nice if they answer same day when we are working on a project together.

back when I worked, some people never answered at all.

I remember having one of those stupid summits on the state of the organization, what is it called? Oh yeah, a "retreat." Only we did not retreat away from the cityy, we just had a command attendance on a Saturday in a room, sitting around a table. This was probably 20 years ago. We were supposed to go around the table voicing a criticism of the organization and what we wanted to change. i said "answer my emails!"

At that same Come To Jesus meeting one of the senior administrators laid it out on the table saying "this is the most dishonest organization I have ever worked for. Everyone says "yes" but they mean "no."

Within 4 weeks he was gone. "Yes" meaning "No" answers continued, as did silence to my emails.
To be fair, I worked much harder on crafting email message so tnat they were clear snd concise because I didnt want to be the one responsible for perceived gibberish as the reason to not answer. My boss was famous for not answering, and that may be the biggest relief I had when leaving employment. Dancing around her silences made me Crazy.