Listening is an essential part of fruitful collaboration, so working with a bad listener can be stressful undertaking. However, there are steps you can take to improve your working relationship with bad listeners, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Listed below are eight tips for working with a bad listener.
1. Consider different work styles and ask your coworker how they prefer to receive information, either in-person or over email, and how they think you could work together most efficiently.
2. Reflect on your own work habits and consider how your style may be clashing with theirs. You may have to change your approach in order to be effective in this particular partnership.
3. Demonstrate empathetic listening in an attempt to cultivate similar behaviors in your coworker.
4. Highlight the importance of your message and make it clear when you are presenting information that is vital to the task.
5. Create accountability to make sure that your coworker knows they will be on the hook for work that is not completed because of their poor listening.
6. If you have to address your coworker's bad behavior, show concern and approach it as a problem to be remedied and not something that deserves punishment.
7. Address the problem directly instead of vaguely hinting at it or being passive aggressive.
8. Propose a social contract that formally outlines responsibilities and expectations and gives you a reference point to return to.
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