Listening Archives - Emotive Brand

Employee Input: A Valuable Resource You Might Be Overlooking

At Emotive Brand, one of the things we strongly believe in is the importance of understanding how a company’s business strategy connects to its brand strategy. As a result, one of the first things we do is review a client’s research: external brand perception studies, competitive analysis documents, analyst reports, and so forth. This external audit is key – but in our experience, it doesn’t provide the complete picture. What’s missing? Potentially, your most informed and passionate stakeholders: your employees.

It’s something even the most well-run companies overlook. In an effort to accelerate processes and get to results, employee input is often the first thing on the chopping block. This isn’t limited to brand and positioning projects. It happens to multiple types of business strategy initiatives. The solution? Have a disciplined game plan and be mindful of the importance of getting input. Fortunately, it’s not rocket science and doesn’t need to be a cumbersome process.

Here’s What We’ve Learned About Getting Employee Input the Right Way:

1. Get input early in the process

Whenever possible, take the time to get employee input early in the process. This does not need to be a complex process. Online surveying tools make it possible to poll your organization quickly, and with minimal expense. To do this effectively, it’s important to be laser-focused in what you want to learn. It’s more instructive to ask 5 well-thought through questions that allow for optional free-response than 25+ multiple choice questions that confirm existing biases.

2. Mix it up

Some of the best insights can arise when you put people from different departments in the same room for an informal focus group. Again, this doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive. Order pizza or your company’s food of choice, find a trusted moderator who can facilitate the conversation, and ask them to weigh in on a topic, problem, or situation.

In our experience, this can be the quickest path to finding the root cause of complex problems that impact multiple parts of an organization. It’s important to do this in a way that makes the contributors feel that they can be completely candid, so often we recommend holding these meetings without senior leaders. They can get the detailed findings later, but individual responses remain anonymous.

3. Engage your sales force

When you want to really understand what’s working – and what’s not – get the sales team’s input. They are the direct line to hearing what’s top of mind for your customers – especially in B2B companies. Chances are, your sales team’s one-on-one conversations with customers in the field will be able to provide nuanced insights that a customer survey might miss. Additionally, getting your sales team’s input upfront results in better adoption and ownership when the final sales materials and messaging is rolled out.

4. Go to the front lines

In addition to involving your sales force, don’t forget to talk to your customer support team or the people at the register. Time after time, we’ve discovered that getting feedback and input from the people on the front lines yields insights that would otherwise go unnoticed.

For example, a major insurance provider didn’t understand why customer satisfaction ratings were terrible — until they sat with their customer service reps for a day and learned why customer service reps weren’t able to provide great customer service. They wanted to, but the underlying infrastructure simply wasn’t designed to allow them to. In other examples, baristas have provided direct insights as to why certain items weren’t selling well.

5. Don’t overcomplicate it

Getting this feedback doesn’t need to be complicated. Go sit with a customer service group, hold a focus group, or create an easy way to collect suggestions and feedback electronically. By going right to the source, you’re not only going to get valuable input and data, you’re involving your people in solving the problem.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy and design agency.

Listen Up

There are a lot of differing opinions about what good listening really means, let alone what it can do for your business. In one camp, good listening simply means not speaking over others when they are talking. While others think listening is about verbal acknowledgement. And there are those who wait until the speaker is done, then promptly repeat everything back to them. But are any of these really impactful, productive ways of listening?

Falling Short

This kind of one-dimensional listening falls short for many reasons. It isn’t what great listeners are actually doing – good listening is more than a one-way exchange. Saying “I understand” sometimes just isn’t enough. Especially in a world ripe with distractions. In fact, many argue that technological advances have made impactful listening increasingly rare.

Face-to-face conversations aren’t as common, and people’s levels of attention, engagement, and interaction have decreased because of constant emails, texts, and other device-produced distractions. Even when two people find themselves face-to-face, they are often not fully engaged.

But good listening – dynamic, thought-provoking, empathetic, free of distraction – is powerful. Giving energy to people, encouraging creativity, learning, innovation, problem solving, strengthening relationships, and helping people see things through a different lens is key to business today. Here’s why.

How We Listen

At Emotive Brand, our work requires effective listening. In order to get to the heart of our client’s business problems and help get leadership teams aligned around an impactful strategy, we need to be great listeners. It’s how we understand a business, its current situation, where it needs to go, and why. It’s also how we work effectively as a team to collaborate and create the most impactful strategy that will move our client’s businesses forward.

Here are some practices we’ve adapted that help foster good listening:

1. Asking questions:

Productive listening is about creating a two-way dialog. And this requires asking questions. Asking questions can generate new ways of thinking, foster creativity, challenge long-held assumptions, and fuel real, transformative change for businesses.

A lot of our work at EB is about asking questions – especially at the beginning stages. By listening, absorbing, and posing questions that move the conversation further, we move closer and closer to getting to the depth of business problems and creating solutions tailored for success.

2. Creating a supportive environment:

Productive listening hinges on creating an environment where both parties feel safe, especially when conversations are more complex. Making everyone involved feel safe and confident in voicing their individual opinions requires building trust and openness.

Listening becomes more productive the more you do it well. And often, the more someone feels listened to, the more they open up.

3. Making it collaborative, not competitive:

Listening should be part of a feedback flow not a competition about who’s right. It’s important to be willing to disagree as a listener, but it’s not about winning. It’s about coming to the best conclusion together through productive listening.

4. Putting away distractions:

Eye contact can go a long way. Sometimes, it’s necessary to put away cellphones and laptops in order to really be engaged during listening. The gesture itself makes a cue to people that you are fully present and really care about what they are saying.

5. Using nonverbal cues:

That being said, body language is key to successful listening. An open posture can indicate that you are open to listen and engage. On the flip side, cues like crossed arms or wandering eyes do not foster good listening.

6. Showing empathy:

Showing empathy is arguably the most important element of successful listening. It’s natural to disagree, but showing that you are trying to understand something from another person’s perspective can go a long way. You may even expand your own way of thinking. Seeing alternative paths and considering other opinions can foster innovation and creativity as well.

In our work at EB, we strive to get inside the minds and hearts of our clients and all of their integral audiences to really understand what’s going on. And showing empathy while we listen to these different perspectives is key to our success as brand strategists.

The Power of Listening in Business

Depending on the depth of the conversation at hand, different levels of listening engagement are needed in order to be productive. Good listeners know when to pull closer and also when to pull away. Sometimes, an affirmative nod is all that is needed. Other times, it’s more complicated. And knowing when to use these practices takes just that, practice.

Listening is a key part of how we do business, but it applies to every business – internally and externally. Good listening can lead to a more collaborative, productive, and inspired workplace. Businesses who listen to their outside audiences prove to be more successful because they understand their audiences, can adapt according to their shifting needs, and are constantly engaging to make the brand relationship stronger. Foster good listening skills to build a successful business and brand positioned to thrive.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy agency.

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Tag: Listening

Remembering to Listen: Why Employee Input Is Key to Moving Your Brand Forward