Workplace Multiplier by Tola Akinsulire

May 15, 2026

Welcome to the Workplace Multiplier newsletter. Published Monday to Friday, equipping you to achieve your professional goals faster and without burnout or overwhelm.

They ARE listening. Just not the way you think.

Howdy ,

Here's something I hear a lot in the workplace.

"Management is not listening to me."

I had a conversation once upon a time where someone said exactly that. Her frustration was real. She had made some recommendations — and none of them had being accepted.

I understood her pain. But I also saw the problem.

Her conclusion was built on a faulty assumption: that because her recommendation wasn't adopted as-is, it wasn't heard.

Those are two very different things.

Over the years, I've learned to think of my recommendations not as decisions waiting to be rubber-stamped, but as ideas entering a system. And in that system, there are really only five things that can happen to an idea:

1. It gets accepted as-is.

2. It gets rejected as-is.

3. It gets shelved for future use.

4. It gets folded into something bigger.

5. It gets revised into something better.

Five possible outcomes. Only one of them looks like "yes, exactly as you said."

If I tie my sense of being heard to that one outcome, I've already set myself up for frustration…no matter how good my ideas are.

Listening doesn't mean compliance. Decision-makers carry context you may not have…budget pressures, timing, competing priorities, a 360-degree view of the situation. Their job is to weigh your input alongside everything else, not simply execute it.

Your idea doesn't have to be the final word to have mattered.

Keep bringing great ideas. Bring them consistently, bring them clearly, and bring them without needing to control where they land.

The world of work gets better when more good thinking enters the room.

Including yours.

Keep winning at work and in life.

Tola Akinsulire

Your Strategy Workplace Mentor