From today’s post of fs.blog, there is the following excerpt:

Author Paul Smith, on seeing what we want to see:

“What we see in people is determined, in large part, by what we expect to find.”

This reminded me of one of the best advice I had received. It is about how we communicate with people and what people listen to. While it all depends on a person’s attention and memory span, not everything you talk about or communicate gets registered with the other person or the group, depending on the size of the audience you are talking to.

People only listen to what they want to listen to, not to what you want to tell them.

Think of this like to how you consume information. Let’s say you are watching news, how much do you remember from it and for how long? You watch a movie or a web series, what from that you are watching you actually remember? Do you remember the dialogues or certain scenes? There is something about songs or music, it makes me nostalgic depending on the song and my mood. Takes me back to those times that I want to cherish and reminisce.

Ok, coming back to communication and this related advice, as a leader it has helped me a lot. I need to over communicate and no communication is a waste because not everyone is in the moment to listen to. Every over-communicated topic can still be the first time someone is listening to, for the first time.

People only listen to what they want to listen to, at any given point of time.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?