When You Feel Ignored

Hello, and welcome! Today's topic is something that so many of us deal with. A conversation that I had with a friend inspired this, it’s one of his biggest pet peeves. As I was reflecting on the conversation we had, I thought that you might appreciate understanding what's happening in this situation. Then, you can apply it to the conversations you have, the work you do, and to leadership coaching with your team. 

My friend told me he was at a corporate event where new people (executives and above) were being oriented to the company and the work. He was being called upon to share some information with this group, and he was in an uncomfortable situation. There were more people in the conference room than should have probably been assigned. They had to bring in seats, so it was already uncomfortable. Then, with the enthusiasm of the group, he was being over-talked. His perception was that he was being disregarded and ignored. It was hard for him to get the attention of the group, and hold the group's attention enough to communicate what he was there to do: to share with them. He walked away feeling, first of all, really frustrated, angry, and a little bit bitter. And worse, the people didn't get the information that he had originally been brought in to share.

This is so relatable. If you've ever tried to communicate with someone who is stuck in their own lane, or not paying attention to you, or blatantly disregarding you, you know what this feels like. It can, depending on your interpretation, make you feel really small, really angry, really heated, and it can really take the wind out of your sails. It can make you second guess yourself or have that imposter syndrome peak back up. Today, I want to unpack it a little bit. I want to look at what's happening when this situation comes up. Then, I want to share some executive coaching skills with you. It's four steps that I want you to think through the next time this happens so that you can redeem the opportunity, make the most of it, and work to be heard and understood as a leader so that the other people receive the knowledge, wisdom, and encouragement that you want to share with them.  Are you ready for this? It's going to be super good. 

Why does someone else ignore or disregard or just completely dismiss something that you say? What's happening in their brain when they are having this experience?  Fundamentally, their brain does not care about what you value. They're not trusting you or believing you. Maybe they don't know or like you, and they're definitely not hearing you. Their brain is running this constant filtration system (just like your brain is). It is always filtering for the most vital, the most relevant, and the most impactful tidbits of information in their environment. Always. I'm willing to bet you're probably multitasking, so you've got a wide array of inputs coming through your brain and all of your senses. You are having an experience and weighing whether or not to pay attention to (or give weight to) the words that are coming through this blog post. The same thing happens in real-life conversations. 

Your brain has to value the information that someone else is giving you. When you make that decision, your brain is running this algorithm and equation based on the history they have, the history they have with you, and the most dominant needs they have at that moment. Your brain, when you're ignoring someone, is emphasizing other priorities. This makes sense, but we can kind of objectively understand where your brain is coming from. With the sea of information swirling around our brains all day, it can be tricky to make that call. If we're the ones who're being ignored, our brain is running a similar evaluation to decide how we're interpreting the feedback that we're getting. Okay, so there's feedback upon feedback. It gets really meta, really fast. I have good news and bad news here. You can't control how their brains perceive and evaluate. I know that's a bummer. You may feel like this is a bait-and-switch of a blog post, but hang with me. 

You can't control the ultimate decision that they make about what to listen to, what to heed, and what information is most relevant. So what can you control? You can control your intention to be heard and understood. You can control the messaging that you use, you can control the tone of your voice, and you can control the dance you do while you're trying to persuade them, influence them, or inform them. How do you use all of those different tactics? There's literally a library full of resources that can help you upskill in the arts of persuasion or presentation. What I want you to use is a coaching professional development skill. You have the ability to set your intention around what you want to communicate. Not what is understood, done, or felt by them, but how you feel about the message that you want to communicate, and how you want to communicate it. At the end of the day, the only thing you ever get to control is your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and behaviors. 

The same goes for this example conversation. My friend could not have ever controlled if the other people in the room heeded his advice, or received the training that he was there to give. What he can control is his observations, the meaning that he assigns to those observations, and how he pivots or responds to that feedback. He can also control his intention for the actions that he's taking for his behaviors. What outcome does he ultimately want there? That's the first step I want you to do. When you're feeling over-talked, when you're feeling disregarded, when you're feeling misunderstood, the very first thing that I want you to do is to start with your intention here. What is the data of the message that you want to have understood?

I'm going to give you a silly example. We just went through a recent string of colder weather. It's not our norm. We live in a very hot climate here on the Gulf Coast. So we had temperatures dip into the teens and the twenties, and one of my beautiful children wanted to wear their flip-flops to walk the dog. Now, most of the time (like 99.44% of the time), my kids get to wear whatever they want, however they want. If they underdress or overdress, those are their own natural consequences. It helps them make their own decisions. Honestly, I think I was cold, I didn't want my child to feel cold, and so I felt strongly that my child should not wear flip-flops to walk the dog outside in 22℉ weather. I tried to communicate this with her in different ways, but I felt ignored and disregarded. I was beginning to feel really frustrated because I perceived that she was deliberately ignoring me, didn't care about what I said, or didn't value what I thought or taught her.  

Are you with me? Does that sort of make sense? You can see this happening right now. I caught my brain, and you can do this too. You can listen to your thoughts, you can listen to your body, your emotions are trying to show you things. I heard my frustration. I could see the sentences running through my mind. I could feel myself getting elevated in this state of frustration, and what I did next was I got really clear about what I wanted her to know. I want you to do the same thing. What I wanted her to know was that it was cold, and she would be uncomfortable and would not enjoy the outside time, or the walk with the dog, if she was uncomfortable. That's it. That's the data that I really wanted her to internalize. Now, for my friend who was feeling disregarded and ignored, the data he wanted to transfer to these other people were the facts about the product he was there to talk about, the features he was there to talk about, and the plan for what was coming. As you set that intention, you also get to choose your intentional feeling. How do you want to feel as you're communicating? How do you want to feel in this conversation? For my kid, I wanted to feel pretty neutral, right? I wanted to feel unruffled. I want to feel fine either way. Calm. Collected. My friend wanted to feel empowered and encouraged to entertain and connect to his peer group. How do you want to feel in this conversation that you want to have? 

Once you know the data you want to communicate, you want to know how you feel while communicating that information, too, so pay attention. I want you to pay attention to how you're presenting it, what's not working, and what's going on with them. I'm not asking for a dissertation, what are the competing sources of information that their brain is trying to weigh against your message? Just for the sake of empathy, for the sake of understanding how their brain is making that evaluation so that you can address them more impactfully in the next step.

I'll use the example of my kiddo again: she was really excited to have outside time. The dog was hyped up because he needed outside time, and she was busy hustling to get ready and go out quickly. That makes a lot of sense. Of course, her brain is deprioritizing the mom's voice that she was hearing, which may (or most likely) have sounded like nagging a little bit, or one more thing to do.

Now, I want you to imagine my friend in this conference room, observing his colleagues in tight quarters. They were new people. They were having a fun event. They were distracted. There were people who were members of the company who had greater deals of influence, and higher-ups in the company were also present. So these new people were trying to make a good impression and sort of schmooze. These were all neutral observations, and it made sense why their brains would deprioritize the information my friend wanted to share. Okay, so we have a little bit of empathy. If you're doing this attention-giving step correctly, you will generate a little bit of an understanding. It may even feel like, “Oh yeah, of course. That makes sense.” 

You've set your intention. That was step number one. You've paid attention. That's step number two. Now, step number three, with what you've observed so far, I want you to message to them and for them. Now we're switching to actually taking action. If you're an office fan, do you remember the episode where Michael Scott negotiates a salary for Darryl? Michael went to Wikipedia and pulled down all the negotiation tactics, and one of them is that you speak really softly, so the other person has to lean in more. Anyway, it's a comedy of errors, of course. There are all sorts of different ways that you can frame your message. There is no right or wrong way. If you're interested in this, I would love to nerd out with you and share some resources that have been fascinating to me as I learn about how human brains receive information, but what you need to hear in this step, what you need to take away from this step is compassion for where the other person is and compassion for what they need to know. Then, figure out the message that will most directly translate that information to them in a way that feels good to you. In a way that feels like how your intention was to feel.

So for me to calmly relay to my kid that I want them to be comfortable, to be warm, and to enjoy their time is a much different message than, “Oh my God, put on your socks and shoes!” I'm making a joke out of this, but you can literally feel the emotional and energetic difference between those two approaches, right? Create your message to them and for them. There are all sorts of different ways to do this. If you are really not getting through with someone in a situation that does not feel lighthearted, like the example I'm giving about my kid dog walking and flip-flops in 22 degrees, I want you to think about switching how you're messaging. What other avenues of communication do you have besides what you're trying right now? 

If things are escalating, if you are in a conversation and you're feeling disregarded or unheard, and you feel your own emotional reaction peaking, you have an intention for what you want to recommend, what you want to have heard, and you can observe where they're coming- the data of the circumstance that another person is in. I want you to see what other options you have for how you can communicate, where you can communicate, and what modes you can use. If conference calls in front of 20 other people are not working, maybe a one-on-one call would. Maybe an email that bullets your points could work. Maybe the best possible thing for you to do is to ask questions.

Sometimes question asking can be the best messaging, and I gotta tell you, that's actually the tactic that I took with my kid. Instead of reframing and trying to use the same words in a different tone, or trying to use the same setting, I stopped saying things and started asking:

“Why do you think I'm asking you to put on your socks and shoes?” 

This is a conversation that's a little familiar to her, so she's like, “Because you love me.” 

“Right. I totally love you. Why do you think I would want someone who I love to have on socks and shoes today?” 

She says, “I don't know. You don't want me to be cold.”

“Yeah, I don't want you to be cold. Because if you're cold, what's going to happen?”

She says, “I guess I'll just come in.”

“And do you want to come in?”

“No, I want to be outside.”

“Okay. So, I think that wearing your socks and shoes would help you be more comfortable, less cold, and able to stay outside longer.”

And you know what she said? She's like, “Yeah, but I just want to go right now.” 

Now, for you and me, she still was able to make the decision she wanted to make with the information I had given her. I was able to be heard and have her understand me. I want you to remember that it's not my job to control what she does, or the decision she ultimately makes, because my intention was to be heard and to be understood. I communicated in a way that helped her hear me and helped her understand my perspective, and she did. She still walked the dog in her flip-flops, but I knew I had done what I could do, and I maintained our relationship. I had a moment with her that wasn't frustrating but was honest communication, which I'm willing to guarantee is exactly what you want. Now, the last step to this process, if you really want to drive it home, after you have communicated efficiently and effectively in the emotional capacity where you want to show up, you can offer to help.

That's step number four- you can offer to help with whatever the next steps are. Hello, people pleasers, public service announcement here: I am not telling you to do it for them. I am saying that, as part of your communication, and as part of this relationship opportunity that you have, you can offer to help them figure out the next steps, delegate the next steps, identify resources for the next steps, follow up, and create accountability for those next steps. When you do that, their brain will say, “Oh, they really like care, and at least they want to help, so I know where to go next time I want help.” It also intrinsically incentivizes their brain to follow through on the point that you made. Their brain will recognize that the option and information you put forth had validity and is possible to have accomplished.

So the next time you feel ignored, the next time that you feel like you're being talked over, or that what you say isn't really registering or isn't being appreciated, these four steps can help you reframe. These four life coaching tools can help you dial in and take the conversation deeper, to be truly heard and understood. It is not a silver bullet to getting other people to do what you want, but it is a path forward to make sure that you are accountable for creating the communication and the relationship that you really do value. 

Okay, you're going to set your intention for the data you want to be relayed, the feelings you want to feel, and how you want to show up. You're going to pay attention to what's going on. You're going to observe the facts of their environment and create a little bit of empathy to connect with them. Then you're going to create a message for them, give it to them directly, and maybe in a different way than how it's been tried so far. And the last thing you can do is really offer to help.

This is really valuable. This is golden coaching work in action, in the real world, in your real job today, and in all your relationships. I would love to know how this goes for you. If you have questions, I am here for those too. Until next time, happy day. I'll talk to you soon.

If you’d like to book a discovery call to learn how coaching can help you lead well and live well, book your call here:

Or you can always reach out to me directly at tarah@tarahkeech.com