Episode #31: Be A Gold Medal Listener

There is a tremendous amount of noise buzzing around in the world of business today. The noisiest portion is the bit going on between our ears, inside our brains. We are so busy, so immersed in what we are doing, we are forgetting some of the basics.

We are running our lives as a meeting conveyor belt, moving from one topic to the next, multi-tasking like demons on speed. The upshot is that we are no longer really concentrating on what is happening around us, as we totally self absorb. We go through the motions of pretending to listen, but we are only involved in partial listening. Even worse, we are mainly specializing in selective listening. Seeking the content we agree with, we filter out the delivery and all the hidden codes therein.

We are also so quick. We are second guessing the conversation and rapidly forming our next intervention, well before the speaker has gotten to the point of the story. We are also pretty deadly when it comes to cutting off the story, as we believe we have cleverly guessed where the speaker was going with it, even if that is not the case. If we are habitual interrupters, we may be breezing through life existing on half conversations and never really plumbing the depths of what others are trying to convey to us.

Reflecting on these observations, do you feel you are a good listener, a gold medal winning listener? Here are some simple guides on how to better at the art of conversation by being a better listener.

1. Stay focused. Minimize external distractions and pay close attention to what others say. A classic example is the fact that we are often guilty of complaining we can’t remember the names of people we have just met. Part of the reason for that is we probably did not focus well enough to clearly catch the name in the first pace. If we can’t even get their name right we are at a big disadvantage. We need to really focus on the person and get their name right as a starting point of business discipline.

Staying focused also means suspending the desire to say anything and just let the other person speak. Everyone loves to talk, especially about themselves, so let them. Focus on them and they will appreciate it.

2. Interpret both words and emotions. The words people use are just one part of what they're saying. You can capture the whole message by also paying attention to the emotions behind the words. Japan is particularly challenging in this regard. The suppression of emotions or the disguising of the real emotion is well entrenched in the culture, so it can be very hard to gauge what is really behind the words. This distilling of what is behind the words requires full power of concentration on that person and a total visual interrogation of every morsel of body language and voice inflection that we can muster.

3. Do not interrupt. Interruptions decrease effective communication. We assume we are smarter than the person speaking, because we have super powers that allow us to anticipate where the conversation is headed, even before it gets there. Maybe we should be more humble and polite and let them finish.

4. Resist filtering. Be open-minded; don't judge what someone says by your values only. Offense is often taken in error. We attach a certain interpretation to something said which was never thought or intended. This does not stop us though from reacting and reacting quickly. We get ourselves into knots and lots of trouble because of this tendency.

5. Pathetic attempts at humour or sardonic wit can also become socially combustible when they are way short of the mark or the cultural differences are too great to understand the joke. Very few Japanese ever get the sardonic, ironic, self flagellating style of humour, because the cultural context is missing or because the comedian is fundamentally hopeless in the first place.

6. Summarize the message. Be sure you've heard something correctly by offering a quick summary of what the other person has said. This need not apply to all parts of a conversation or to all conversations, but when we are getting down to it, this is the time to clearly indicate you have fully understood what you are being told.


7. Try not to jump in too soon with your own opinion. Be sure to “wait your turn” to speak. Japanese is a great language for teaching us to be patient and wait until the punch line. In Japanese grammar, the verb comes at the end of the sentence, so as we are listening, we don’t know if the statement is going to be positive or negative, past, present or future. No point jumping in and cutting someone off when speaking Japanese, because you have no clue where they are going with the story.

The lost art of listening needs to make a comeback and we need to be the poster children for the revolution. Let’s get back to business basics and listen our way to great success.