12 Oct Answer: These People Have No Clue
My family reunion isn’t your typical 400 extended family members who haven’t seen or spoken to each other since the last one. Our family reunion is an annual gathering of what I consider my immediate family—my mom, my siblings and their spouses, my boyfriend and me, 12 adult children and their kids.
Let me start off by saying my family is very close. My brother and two sisters, along with their spouses, are also my friends. The cousins could be mistaken for siblings. I’m telling you this because what happened at our recent Saturday night festivities was mind-boggling.
The entertainment was a combination of two classic TV game shows, Jeopardy for the format of answering in the form of a question, and Family Feud, with bell buzzers and two teams. With only three very basic categories all dealing with our family, I thought the game would be over in a matter of minutes. Much to my surprise, and slight dismay, it was a bit frightening how little we knew the correct responses.
For example, one answer was “Dates a younger person but thinks she/he is younger.” I’ll clue you in that is me, but the two people at the podium had no clue. Let me clarify…I am the only one in the room who dates a younger person. And we’ve been together for four-and-a-half-years. This is common knowledge.
Another answer was “The scary monster who came out at night to scare us.” The correct response was “Who is the Clutching Hand?”–a creature my dad made by holding his forearm at 90 degrees coming around a wall. My sister buzzed in with “Who is Dad?” Dad was anything but a monster, so she obviously wasn’t listening.
Why am I writing about my family reunion and our lack of basic knowledge about each other? Because we DO know a great deal about one another. We know top-level secrets that will definitely go to the grave. We were so caught up in the laughter, ribbing and competition that we stopped thinking clearly. We were distracted. We didn’t listen.
This happens quite often in the workplace. Think of a time when you’ve been in a meeting when a question is posed that you know the answer. For whatever reason, you don’t spill. Perhaps it is a matter of fear of speaking up, self-doubt of the right answer or not wanting to appear arrogant? Perhaps you just weren’t listening?
Just because you consider the question to be easy, don’t assume the answer is easy.
Take these three examples of a question posed in a meeting:
- The person next to you knows the answer. He may speak too quickly and not hear the entire question, therefore missing an important element that would call for a different response.
- Your boss knows the subject matter backward and forward. However, she freezes when asked a simple question because she is thrown off her train of thought.
- You have experience with solving the problem being addressed. That doesn’t matter if you become bored and fail to respond since you didn’t listen to the question.
I know I’ve been guilty of all three examples above. So what to do? Here’s my simple advice to answering questions, whether coming from your boss, a colleague or a customer:
- Listen to the entire question being asked.
- Listen to how the question is being asked.
- If you didn’t listen, have the courage to ask for the question to be repeated.
You know the old saying that you have two ears and one mouth to use accordingly. Unless you are an alien or from the Black Lagoon, this should hold true.
As for my family’s inability to concentrate on providing the easy answers (questions in the case of the Jeopardy game), we won’t be submitting an application to Family Feud anytime soon. We need to work on listening to what is going on right in front of us.