Quote from John Freeman on April 14, 2023, 12:08 pm

Hello everyone,

since my recent adaptation at work, I'm listening way more, especially to my superiors. I found it an effective way to know people.

What I found is that it makes people feel heard, understood, accepted. It builds trust quite effectively. 3 examples:

Supervisor 1 talking about her insecurities

My supervisor had insecurity about her skills, my friend John was right. She told me about things in her private life. The more she saw I was not going to judge her and I could be trusted, the more she confided. She told me about the skills she was not feeling secure. This is totally normal as in our job as generalists, by definition you won't be good at everything. It's important to say that I think she felt that I would keep those to myself.

Supervisor 2 telling me what he thinks about portuguese people

The more I listened to him over weeks, the more we got to know one another. We saw that we had many similarities. We got to trust one another more. At one point he told me that he thought that portuguese people had names that were not originals. It seems a little thing but I think it's something he does not share: a certain disdain for portuguese people.

Supervisor 3 tells me about "foreigners"

Also, the more I listened to my other female supervisor, the more she trusted me. So I could see what she really thinks about vaccines and foreigners. About vaccines, I could hear what she says when she feels no one is listening. I could feel that she was speaking without any self-censorship. Also, my current plan is to work with refugee children. She told me: "so you... still want to work with... foreigners?" on a tone expressing a bit of disdain. So again, I could see that it confirmed what I thought when I heard her talk about "blacks". Some racism/xenophobia.

Another medical assistant expressed that she felt safe in New York, despite all the "blacks". So again, this told me she was definitely racist.

By making myself more adaptable to them and a better listener (not a threat, somebody who can be trusted), I could learn from them that I would have not otherwise. They felt comfortable to express what they really think in front of me.

I could now imagine also how many people are racist/xenophobic but keep it to themselves...