In order to listen, you have to be in a place where people will talk with you.
At the first of the year, I moved to a new office.
My old one was, frankly, too much. And, given my company's structure, it just did not make sense for me to be there. I usually talk with just one person at a time. Yet this office had my desk, lots of shelves and storage space -- and I do not need to be encouraged to hoard -- a table, an outer office with an executive assistant and, besides my chair, six others. Yet, I rarely need to talk to more than one or two people at a time.
Another, high-ranking editor, frequently had to shoehorn three or more people into his smaller officer so they meet. It just made sense for the organization for me to give my office to that editor and to take a smaller one. Besides, I am working in other parts of the newsroom, our bureaus or out of town about a third of the time, leaving this prime real estate vacant.
I figured that a move like this was inevitable, given the company's needs, and I wanted to be in charge of the timing of my move and my new location, so I suggested it.
As it turns out, my timing couldn't have been better. Besides giving myself a long time to clean out, I
wound up moving just a couple of our smaller offices were becoming available.
When I moved into my new office, the woman who cleans our offices and who observes more than I had realized, said I had just put myself into The Hub.
She was right. My old office has lots of windows, but could see just one end of the newsroom and the path into the main conference room.
The new office could see some of that, plus the main stairway connecting our two floors, both of the main entryways into the newsroom, as well as several departments and my boss. In my new office, I could see that the pathway for a lot of people almost never took them by there.
But the real improvement was in the number of people who felt comfortable just dropping in.
Because they saw me more often -- and because I didn't have an assistant at the door -- people began dropping in for all kinds of reasons -- and no reason at all. At first, some of them were just checking out the novelty of the new space. But the traffic continued. People I saw only if I stopped by their desk felt comfortable stepping in or standing in the doorway to talk about things. It is even easier to wave or invite them in.
I am hearing a lot more -- and I think people will get even more used to seeing me and talking. And it's all because of my new location in The Hub.
What about you? Have you noticed how location can affect a leader's listening opportunities?
I'd like to hear from you.
