Not feeling heard is a concept we are all familiar with. We've also been on both sides of this interaction. If we want to continue to try and build high-performing teams and deliver exceptional service to internal and external customers, we need to understand how feeling heard works and how we can become better teammates by being aware of it.
Welcome to the Firefighter Craftsmanship Podcast where we coach you to deal with the stressors of the job as a first responder as well as how to thrive off duty. My name is Kevin Housley, a Human Performance Coach and a Firefighter since 2005. I've been able to coach over a thousand emergency responders on ways to be more resilient, better prepared for the job, and how to be happier and healthier at home.
So let's get to it and talk about how to be better about feeling heard or making other people feel heard. So today's topic is the five components of feeling heard. The last week on episode 23, we spoke about the psychology behind feeling heard and what the research across multiple domains said about this concept. If you haven't listened to that episode, head back to episode 23. It's linked in the show notes as well. And check it out. So a quick review.
We're not going to dive back into the literature per se, but we are going to talk about the entities that were involved in feeling heard. And this is going to be a foundational principle when we start looking at the five components. So there's three entities to feeling heard. There's a me, a you, and a we. And all parties involved in the communication have these same foundational entities. And we really need to acknowledge it.
We also need to realize that the me, each party in that has a me and each party has the you, but they're mirror images of one another. And so we just really need to be aware of that, that my me entity is different than your me entity, et cetera. So let's continue to review with the study titled feeling heard, operationalizing the key concept for social relations by Ruse and colleagues. And that's linked in the show notes and has some really, really interesting stuff.
And again, in that article specifically, they talked about two different studies about feeling heard that encompassed over 1200 participants. So a pretty good sample size on that one. So from this paper, they identified the three entities, the me, the you, and the we, but they also identified five components of feeling heard. And these interact with those three entities. So what are the five components and how do they relate to me, you and we? Well, the first component is voice.
And if you start to listen, especially in organizations or cultures that maybe have some good opportunities for growth, you're going to really hear this word actually used verbatim quite a bit around voice. You're also going to hear it in positive cultures that are driven for change, driven for progress. You're going to hear the exact word used of voice. And so voice, the concept of voice is a foundational area within the me entity.
And all of us have been in that camp where we, you know, we really felt like we had some great input that gave us the floor, our ideas and opinions and all of those things were valued. And it doesn't even necessarily mean that they actually implemented those things. But there was definitely like active listening.
There was a lot of these other components that were involved, but we really at the end of that conversation or the end of that interaction or the end of that project felt like we had a voice and it was taken into account, even if it wasn't completely implemented the way that we thought it should be. So foundational area of me is voice. And that's something that all of us can really, really relate to.
One interesting thing from this study specifically was that participants felt less heard if they were in a subordinate position and or if the other person dominated the conversation.
So a lot of times we have one person that kind of dominates the conversation or they talk the most or though they're loudest and even some organizations that kind of gives them authority and authority position because they talk the most or they talk the loudest or we grant those with higher rank the opportunity to talk the most or to talk the loudest even though they might not actually be the most qualified to address the issue or solve the problem.
So this study right here talked about just from the simple fact of being in a subordinate ranking structure right away, those interactions already are somewhat damaged on the feeling heard scale where you're going to have to work a little bit harder to make sure that the subordinates are felt heard a little bit more.
And so really, you know, take turns in the sandbox, actively listen, put your phone down, look people on the eye and actually listen to what they're saying, especially if you're in a superior rank. It's really, really important for people to feel like they have a voice which equates to feeling valued and feeling engaged.
Another really interesting thing was the superior in those interactions or when they surveyed the superior in the feeling heard studies, they did not feel more heard than subordinates. So when we look at this from a detached angle a little bit, we also as subordinates in a rank structure need to make sure that we integrate the five components of feeling heard so that the supervisors actually feel heard and we can come to a common ground.
So this is just a humanistic human performance psychology issue. It has nothing to do with rank structure that people up the chain of command, down the chain of command, all kind of experience the same thing where they don't necessarily feel heard. And we see this organizationally in emergency services for sure of the line maybe is saying, Hey, this is what we really need to do or this is what we think we need to do and or from the top saying, Hey, this is what we need to do.
And this is what I think how we solve the problems. And a lot of times those two parties don't necessarily talk to one another, don't listen to one another or don't work in a collaborative environment. And neither of them actually feel heard, which doesn't lead to high performing teams by any means. So the next three components. So again, we have the three entities, the me, the you and the we, the biggest component of the me is voice. The next three components all fall into the you entity.
And they are attentiveness, empathy, and respect. So think about those conversations where you really did feel like you were heard. And I bet you felt like that you had a voice. You also felt that the other party, so the you was attentive. They had empathy of, Hey, I understand your problem, or I hear what you're telling me on your problem. And I'm going to walk with you through this. And you also feel felt respect, both mutual respect up and down or laterally across the chain of command.
So when we think about interactions that we've had with other people or negative interactions, and it's easy for us to trend negative. And I try not to trend negative all the time, even though that's kind of our inherent nature as humans is my use the example last week in episode 23 about, you know, having the phone out or working on a computer during the middle of a conversation, or during maybe a class or a presentation that you would much rather than actually be paying attention to.
And those scenarios where you probably didn't feel heard if somebody's out plunking another computer while you're trying to go over a presentation, they're not taking notes, they're very clearly working on something else. So right away with that very first component of attentiveness is missed. And therefore, you have this gap in feeling heard. And empathy is an interesting one, you know, that's not sympathy of, Oh, I feel so sorry for you.
Empathy is, Hey, I'm going to walk with you on this journey. I'm not necessarily going to absorb all of your pain. But I am going to walk with you and help you navigate whatever this positive or negative scenario is. And empathy is an interesting one.
Some people have inherently a trait of empathy and other people really need to kind of work towards that through things like emotional intelligence to actually have empathy where they say, Hey, I understand that I'm maybe at the top of this organization. I understand that I don't actually know what you go through every single day because I haven't been there in a really, really long time, which means that what you are currently going through is completely different than my lived experience.
But I am going to sit here and listen attentively. I'm going to walk with you through that progress. Maybe it's a good time for mentorship. Maybe it's just a great time for me to listen to you and not actually save say anything. And then from by doing that, you probably have good respect both both ways in that conversation. So attentiveness, empathy and respect are three major components of feeling heard and they all fall into the you category.
And I think when you start to think about those three definitions specifically and how they might relate to you specifically, you're going to feel, Hey, this is really, really important if I have especially if I'm in a supervisor mode. So I will be the you and that other person. And if I'm not giving them good attention, having empathy and having respect right away, that subordinate is not going to feel heard. They're not going to feel like they have a voice.
And the final component of feeling heard is the really relates to the we entity. And it's a term that I used earlier in this podcast was common ground. And you know, really the point of conversations or interactions or relationships or anything like that is you're going to have a me and a you and then we come together as a we and that we would be that common ground.
We can absolutely have a common ground as I alluded to earlier, even if all the parties involved don't get their way or they adamantly disagree, we can still come to common ground. And from a leadership perspective, you know, in the good to great books specifically, we did a podcast about some of the good to great, get the right people on the bus, get the right people on the bus in the right seats.
And in that book, they talk a lot about, you know, those really, really high performing organizations that outperformed their competitors 300 to 500% over long periods of time was they at the leadership level, they had kind of knock them out, drag them out sort of fights in the boardrooms when they were trying to solve problems or had disagreements.
It was coming in there and really, really challenging the narrative, challenging ideals, challenging things through the lens of a company value perspective or operations perspective. And then when they came out of that after a decision was made, even if they didn't agree with it, right, they felt like they had a voice. Obviously, there was a tentiveness, there was empathy and there was respect within that room. And then they came to a common ground and they moved forward.
And then they just repeated that over and over and over. And sometimes, you know, they essentially won and sometimes they lost, but they didn't actually ever use those definitions specifically. It was like, Hey, I didn't necessarily get my way on this one. However, I do support the overall mission. And this is what we're going to do. So really, we're working towards a better than before kind of mindset, not, Hey, I have to win every single battle along the way, or every single war along the way.
But are we doing things that are in the best interest of the customer internally and externally? And are we better than we were before? You know, and this common ground is really, really important as we try to build cohesive teams, try to build cohesive units or companies or whatever your organization calls them and really tries to push for higher performing cultures that are filled with things like a tentiveness, empathy and respect.
So it's really important that we assess the we to figure out where have we come from, where are we going and how do we continue to progress? And are we doing the right things that meet what we said we were going to do? So here's the five components of feeling heard. And once you just kind of put a name to them, it's pretty easy to understand maybe why you feel a little frustrated or you don't feel heard along the way. One of those five is for sure missing.
It's going to be the voice, tentiveness, empathy, respect or common ground. And you're missing the mark maybe in one of those categories of, Hey, I don't feel valued. So that would be the me or I don't, I don't feel like they really understand my problem. That again would be a combination of the you, they don't understand my problem would be the you don't understand my problem, but it's impacting me personally.
And so the three entities of me, you and we are very, very important to realize that everybody is kind of positioning their me position, but you have an ability to impact that in the you category when the other person is talking like how are you treating them? Are you treating them again? Are you listening actively listening with attentiveness, empathy and respect? And then how do you come to some sort of common ground and how does that communication go?
And as a subordinate or maybe somebody that didn't get their way on one of those interactions, it's very important for you to also understand that even in a rank structure, the people that are at the top don't feel heard more so than the subordinates do. I thought that that study or that part of the study was very, very interesting. So try to put some of this in progress. We really appreciate all the support and the feedback on the firefighter craftsmanship podcast.
Please consider rating reviewing the podcast on one of your favorite podcast players. That's how this thing grows organically and a huge high five to all of you that have already done that. Please share this. You can come to firefightercraftsmanship.com and sign up for our weekly newsletter where we provide extra value over and above what the podcast does every single week.
Smash on the follow button in your favorite podcast player so you never miss one of these weekly episodes and get out there. Keep pushing and stay smart.