PRACTICE 10
DO YOU LISTEN TO OTHERS WITH THE INTENT TO REPLY OR TO UNDERSTAND?
If you listen with the intent to reply, you may want to consider
PRACTICE 10: TALK LESS, LISTEN MORE.
When you don’t talk less and listen more, your room may feel like Sartre’s hell because:
• You rarely get to the heart of an issue, if at all.
• You lose the opportunity to be influenced by others and, in turn, have greater influence yourself.
• You alienate people who might otherwise respect and confide in you.
Imagine one of those 1950s sitcoms on a black-and-white TV set where, after the appropriately cheesy opening-theme music, we find a married couple about to have two very different conversations at the same time. It might go something like this:
John sits at the kitchen table, his trusty old vacuum cleaner in pieces as he flips through the ragged pages of the owner’s manual. He hardly notices Barbara, his wife, who takes a seat opposite him.
“John, I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
“Sure, sure,” John replies as he picks up a screwdriver and begins fiddling with something.
Barbara frowns. “Are you listening to me?”
“Of course I am, dear,” John answers as pleasantly as he can, turning the screw and releasing the old vacuum’s dust bag.
His wife takes a breath. “I think we should invite my mother to move in with us,” she exclaims, looking at John nervously.
John shakes his head, frowning at the broken-down vacuum on the table in front of him. “There’s something wrong with the old bag if you ask me.”
“John!” his wife exclaims. “That’s my mother you’re referring to!”
John grunts absentmindedly as he turns a part over. “Definitely got a screw or two loose.”
Barbara gasps and folds her arms. “I never knew you had such animosity in you!”
John sighs, the vacuum cleaner getting the best of him. “You know, there’s just a point when the old girl is so broken down it’s not worth trying to keep her around anymore. Just takes up space, never works when you need her to, and honestly, ever since last summer, she kind of smells funny.”
“Well, I never!” Barbara exclaims, standing and storming off. John looks up from his project, more confused than ever. “I’m sorry, did you say something, dear?”
The television audience breaks out in laughter as the episode breaks for a commercial.
• • •
Television writers have used miscommunication to great effect over the years. Unfortunately, when it comes to real-life relationships, our propensity to talk more than we listen can get us into real trouble. Of course, in the rush to solve problems and get things done, there’s a natural tendency for all of us to simply tell. And we’re quite good at it. Think of the great communication classes you may have had over the years. While called “communication,” they were all about how to deliver or present a message. I challenge you to find one that was about how to effectively listen.
Of the various aphorisms handed down by the ancient Greeks, perhaps Zeno of Citium offered one of the most practical: “We have two ears and one mouth, so we should listen more than we say.” Now, you can’t argue with logic like that. And the truth is, when we take it upon ourselves to do all the talking, we almost always pay a price.
Making quick decisions and judgment calls will often lead to misdiagnosed solutions, faulty assumptions, narrow perspectives, and misunderstood facts. As a result, we deprive others of the opportunity to solve problems on their own. If losing out on the efficacy of our plans weren’t a steep enough price to pay, when we fail to take time to truly listen, we threaten trust. Imagine having a sore throat and headache and going to a doctor, but instead of her listening to you describe your symptoms, she takes one look at your knees and writes a prescription for physical therapy. Would you ever return for another visit? Would you trust the doctor again? While this example may sound ludicrous, many of us prescribe before we diagnose all the time.
I got my first taste of the downside of not listening as a youth when my father was the coach of our Little League baseball team. I wasn’t a natural athlete, and playing baseball wasn’t my number-one priority. Despite all the time with my dad, our practices, and even our games, I rarely paid attention to instructions about the game, and instead used the time as my social hour to catch up with friends. After several games in which I struck out repeatedly, I was next up to bat during a particularly close game. I routinely dreaded this position, as I could vividly picture myself swinging and striking out yet again. However, as I watched the batter ahead of me, I noticed that he wasn’t swinging at the ball at all. And then, incredibly, after four successive pitches and four refusals to swing, the umpire waved him on. I watched in astonishment as he slowly jogged to first base, without a care in the world. This new information changed everything! I’d finally figured out how to save face and get around the bases at the same time.
I eagerly took my spot over home plate with a whole new appreciation for the sport. I loved the idea of not swinging at the ball, then walking to first base. Why hadn’t anyone let me in on this liberating option? So I did just that. I rested the bat on my shoulder and not even once thought about taking a swing. I vaguely remember my dad and the other players yelling at me. But again, I wasn’t listening; it was just noise. I knew what I wanted to do, and I was determined to do it.
Three pitches came in successive order. Then, to my surprise, the umpire yelled, “Strike three, you’re out!”
“What?” I said, not understanding what was going on.
As I moped my way back, passing the next batter on my way to the dugout, I wondered, What did I do wrong? Didn’t I not swing just like I was supposed to? If Greg got to walk to first base without swinging, why do I have to go back to the dugout?
After a long and uncomfortable drive home with Coach Dad, I realized that talking to friends during practices instead of listening to learn the difference between a ball and a strike had failed me. Even up at bat, when I had a final chance to understand, I was so focused on what I wanted (an easy walk to first base) that I didn’t hear all the good advice being yelled at me, and I misinterpreted the events that unfolded. Although embarrassing at the time, it was a good lesson to learn: one of the best ways to avoid looking like a fool is to listen to the people around you, especially your dad.
Think about a time when you felt misunderstood by someone. How did it make you feel? Maybe you got defensive and vented your anger and frustration. Or maybe you felt intimidated or shut down, perhaps committing never to open up to that person again. Regardless of the response, each time we feel misunderstood (not truly heard) by someone important to us, we can feel disrespected and hurt. We may even experience an unintentional breach of trust, as if an essential part of the relationship bond had been chipped away.
I remember working at a previous company with Gary, a new salesperson, who worked diligently to try to acquire a potential client’s business. Getting the account would be the largest deal he’d created to date and would have allowed him to reach his yearly revenue goal—which would qualify him for a nice bonus and a spot in the coveted President’s Club. Over a seven-month period, Gary met with the potential client several times, discovering what he thought were their major concerns. He then tried (perhaps a little too hard) to frame the conversations in a way that favored the solutions he had for solving their specific issues. He was confident he had what they needed.
Just when Gary thought the client was ready to seal the deal and sign a contract, he got a call from them. “Thank you so much for the time you spent consulting with us. But after talking with my partners, we’ve decided to go in a different direction.” Gary was devastated. After getting over the initial disappointment, he was curious to understand what was behind the client’s decision and called his contact a few days later.
“We’ve found a different vendor that better addresses a unique problem we’re facing,” the man told Gary, sharing more of the problem and why it had been so troubling to them.
Gary was perplexed as he listened to the explanation. “But we never even discussed that in all of the conversations we had together,” he replied.
“Exactly,” the man continued. “To be honest, I tried to explain our challenges in a couple of meetings, but the conversation kept changing to the solution you had and how perfect it was for our needs. And frankly, the questions the other vendor asked helped us uncover an underlying issue that we didn’t think mattered at first. Once she helped us uncover it, we knew her solution would fit better and that she understood our needs.”
Gary learned a difficult but valuable lesson that day. By being too quick to offer a solution, he missed the opportunity to listen and uncover the real issue needing to be solved.
“WISDOM IS THE REWARD YOU GET FOR A LIFETIME OF LISTENING WHEN YOU’D HAVE PREFERRED TO TALK.”
—DOUG LARSON, NEWSPAPER COLUMNIST
One of the most profound gifts you can give another human being is your sincere understanding. To do so requires clearing away your mental clutter, suspending (at least temporarily) your agenda, and stopping long enough to focus and hear what someone is really saying. When it comes to creating effective relationships, a famous adage I’m often mindful of is: With people, fast is slow and slow is fast. An attentive, unbiased, listening ear gives people the rare opportunity to feel understood—a gift some psychologists argue we need as much as the air we breathe. (I assume most of those psychologists are not deep-sea divers, but it’s still a good point.) Being truly present provides a safe environment in which people can learn to listen to themselves, assess their own behavior, diagnose their own problems, and come up with their own solutions.
I can’t tell you how many times when people come to me to solve a problem, they end up solving it themselves. By the end of the conversation (which really amounts to my simply talking less and listening more), they know what they need to do. For instance, last week an employee, Alec, came to me complaining about what he believed was an unfair workload distribution on a team project.
“This happens to me all the time,” he said with some anger. “Remember last year when I ended up taking on twice the number of assignments as everyone else?”
“It seems like you’re feeling that you frequently get the short end of the stick,” I replied. And for the next hour, that’s about all I said. I sat there listening, occasionally paraphrasing back to him what he’d said. Here are some of the phrases I used during the conversation:
“Sounds like you’re feeling overwhelmed.”
“You don’t feel that others are carrying the same burden as you?”
“It seems like balancing work and your personal life is becoming more of a challenge.”
I also asked a few clarifying questions along the way:
“Remind me what happened last year and how you handled the additional work at that time.”
“I know your team leader relies on you a lot. Does he know how you feel?”
The more Alec talked and the more I listened, the more he understood what he needed to do. With space to explore his own thoughts and feelings, he came up with an idea. We ended the meeting with Alec rehearsing a very brave yet considerate conversation he was going to have with his boss.
“Thanks for talking. You always have great advice,” he said as he left. I smiled after he walked out. I hadn’t advised him at all! He ended up advising himself. In this case, that was the key.
Besides our crazy, busy lives, what else causes us to talk more and listen less? Let me offer a few ideas:
1. We’re trained to talk more. As was stated earlier, we take all sorts of classes to become better communicators, speakers, or more persuasive negotiators. But we rarely take classes on how to listen.
2. We’re fixers by nature. Most of us want to jump to a solution as soon as possible. And not with malicious intent; we just want to help. We tend to acknowledge the fixers as those worthy of praise.
3. The world is in a hurry. In today’s world, we live in a sound-bite society. Information is coming at us twenty-four/seven. All of our communication styles have devolved into “How fast can we communicate?” And it’s become almost commonplace to see how fast we can interrupt each other.
4. We want to be right. Dr. Covey summed it up this way: “If you’re like most people, you want to seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation, or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. Most people listen with the intent to reply, not to understand.”
Many of these reasons can be summed up in what we at FranklinCovey call autobiographical listening. Simply put, everything you think and say comes from your point of view. You listen to yourself (your own story) while others are talking, preparing in your mind what you want to say or what you want to ask. You filter everything you hear through your own experiences. And then you check what you hear against your own story to see how it compares. When you engage in autobiographical listening, you end up deciding prematurely what people mean before they finish talking, which can create huge communication divides.
Autobiographical listening can lead to giving people advice before they’ve asked for it:
“Oh, I had that same problem a few years ago, and what I did was . . .”
“I think you’re ignoring the facts.”
“When I had your job, I just told them to . . .”
“If I were you, I would prepare the meeting this way . . .”
Autobiographical listening can lead to asking too many questions—not to get more understanding on an issue, but to satisfy our own curiosity:
“So where were you when this happened?”
“What were you trying to accomplish by using that approach?”
Unfortunately, when we filter what others say through our own stories and experiences, we draw conclusions based on what we might do or feel in the same situation. Or worse, because we might be uncomfortable with the situation, we prescribe a solution that makes us feel better. We’re often afraid that if we listen too closely, we may be influenced and not get our way. While it’s natural to do so, jumping to conclusions or replying too soon with advice can make people feel like we are judging or evaluating them—certainly not listening to them. It can also make people dig in their heels even more, investing in their own point of view and being less open to looking at other alternatives.
• • •
Corinne had grown up in the United Kingdom, but worked in the United States for a decade and a half. While she missed her family, she had made a life in the States and was amazingly adept at leading high-profile projects for her company. During one of those projects, she got an emergency call from a hospital in Manchester, letting her know that her father had died suddenly and unexpectedly. It hit her hard—she hadn’t had time to prepare nor had she been there for him and her family. A few short weeks later, after Corinne had returned from his funeral, her mother had a series of illnesses resulting in two hip replacements and a heart attack. Afraid of losing her mom so soon, and not wanting to be so far away from her during an important time, Corinne took four trips to Manchester in a little over fourteen months to help care for her mother. When she returned to work after each visit, she reported that her mother was getting increasingly depressed and weary of trying to recuperate from all of the loss.
Understandably, her mom started losing the will to improve, avoiding physical-therapy appointments and isolating herself. Barely home after the fourth trip, exhausted emotionally and physically herself, Corinne got a call from her mom’s doctor who relayed the latest news: Her mother was badly in need of triple bypass heart surgery. If she didn’t make a concerted, genuine effort to recuperate from her previous hip surgeries, her mother would most certainly be dead in less than a year. The problem was, her mother was opposed to another surgery.
“I’m not going to do this, Corinne. I’m not up for it, and I can’t manage it,” her mother told her over the phone. Fearful of losing her mother, and on the heels of spending a great deal of effort to help her recuperate, Corinne began slipping into an autobiographical response: You have to have this surgery! You can’t give up. You have to go forward with it.
Instead, Corinne stopped herself, letting go of her wants and fears. Rather than arguing with her mother, and either manipulating her or telling her what to do, she simply listened. As her mother shared her fears, Corinne began to see things through her mother’s eyes. “It sounds like you’re really concerned about going into the hospital again,” she replied. And later, “I really get it when you say the past eighteen months have been so difficult, and that you don’t think you can manage this on your own.”
Corinne spent about thirty minutes really listening, not with the intent of getting her mom to switch to Corinne’s agenda, but simply trying to understand and empathize. Finally, after going back and forth expressing fear and anxiety, her mother said, “You know, I really want to be here when the grandkids grow up.”
Even then, instead of jumping on that encouraging phrase to turn the conversation toward her own agenda, Corinne simply reflected back what her mom had said and felt: “That’s pretty special, isn’t it, being able to be part of their lives?”
“Yes, I want to see more of my grandkids. It’s become even more important to me to spend time with them as I’ve become older.” Corinne’s mother opened up, finally asking, “Do you think you could come home one more time when I have the surgery?”
“Yes, Mom, I can do that.”
There was a moment of silence before Corinne’s mom continued. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
During the entire conversation, Corinne never suggested her mom have surgery, even though that’s what she desperately wanted. By listening just to understand, she was able to suspend her agenda, allowing her to hear how painful her mother’s previous surgeries had been, and how alone and afraid she’d become. Corinne realized that it wasn’t fair to foist her own anxiety on her mom—that her mother had a right to make decisions for her own life. By the end of the call, Corinne was feeling so much empathy for her ailing parent, that if her mom had decided not to go through with the procedure, Corinne would have supported the decision.
Two months later, Corinne flew to the United Kingdom, and was there for her mother’s recovery. She later told me she wasn’t sure if her mom would even still be here if she hadn’t taken time to really hear her on the phone that day.
It’s important to note that while there are several skills to listening well, none of them are as important as having the right attitude while listening. If you’re good at the skill but aren’t sincerely interested in understanding the other person, you’ll fail. In contrast, if you don’t get the skill right, but your intentions are sincere, people will feel your genuine concern and often give you the benefit of a doubt.
Before we get into the specifics, please understand that talking less and listening more is not the same as agreeing with people. When I talk about listening, people often push back: “I can’t let them go on and on. I don’t want them thinking I agree with them.” You may ultimately disagree with what a person is saying or feeling, but while you’re listening, you’re not imposing your views on the person. You’re not trying to figure out how to get him or her to see it your way. Instead, you’re suspending your opinions long enough to really step into that individual’s world and try to understand it from his or her point of view. This approach sounds simple, but it’s one of the most difficult mindsets to master, especially if you’re diametrically opposed to that person’s point of view or emotionally involved. It takes an incredibly mature person to master this skill. (See all other practices in this book for details on how to increase your maturity level.)
A few years ago we made a change in the pay plan for our sales leaders. One of our highest-producing individuals emailed me and communicated just how upset he was about the change. My phone rang, and I saw his name pop up.
“Thanks for taking my call, Todd,” he said.
“You’re welcome. I know you have a lot of questions about why we made the change, which I’m happy to answer. But first, I really want to hear your concerns. So I’m just going to listen.”
“I want to give you context for why I’m upset and share with you how a few of my colleagues are feeling,” he continued.
“Okay,” I responded. “That would be helpful.” He spent the rest of the call sharing his frustrations and the impact the new plan was having on his and others’ compensation. Several times I reflected back what I heard him saying—not agreeing or disagreeing with him; just seeking to understand. Here are a few things you might have overheard during the call:
“You don’t feel that your compensation should be tied so closely to a new salesperson’s revenue who reports to you?”
“You sound pretty frustrated with the new plan.”
“You feel like our pay plans have changed too frequently?”
I also asked several clarifying questions during the call:
“What would you have done differently in communicating the sales plan?”
“What revenue goal do you believe is possible to achieve with your new people?”
“What could we do in supporting you to achieve that goal?”
Once he felt comfortable that my intent was to understand, he started to ask more questions about why we’d switched plans. I explained the reasons as best I could. We were into the conversation about thirty minutes when, to my surprise, he said, “I wish we could have waited until the end of the year to make this change. But after talking, I don’t know if there will be a better time than now. You know, I’d probably do the same thing if I were in charge.” Because I didn’t jump in to explain or defend the corporate position, my colleague had a chance to vent. Once he felt understood, he was in a better position to return the favor and listen to another point of view.
Now, please don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying that all you have to do is listen and solutions will magically appear. There are appropriate times to talk more and listen less. Often it’s necessary to give advice and provide clear answers and direction to get the job done. But there are times when it’s also vital to do the opposite. When a person is highly emotional, or when the Emotional Bank Account balance is low (see “Practice 8: Take Stock of Your Emotional Bank Accounts”), or you’re not sure you fully understand, you’ll almost always benefit from talking less. By carefully listening and understanding first, before you advise or give solutions, you are in a much better position to grasp the real issues. Once you accurately address the situation as well as the person’s feelings, he or she will feel more respected and trust will grow.
Once you have the attitude of really listening, it’s time to apply the skill. It’s counterintuitive yet ridiculously simple. Essentially, it’s the ability to reflect back to people what they are saying and what they are feeling. But when it’s done earnestly and authentically, it creates magic: it brings the speaker to a greater awareness of what he or she is feeling; it brings the listener into a rare state of empathy, and it creates a trust and rapport in the relationship that can’t be matched.
Years ago in one or our training courses, we had a very powerful activity where we would test how close individuals could come to understanding another’s point of view, and how open they would be to the accompanying vulnerability. We did this by sharing the following true story:
At the age of nineteen, DB Richards (fictitious name) was drafted into the Vietnam War. After a year of combat, he was home on a leave and got into a scuffle at a local pub. The pub’s owner got those involved to move outside, where the arguing continued. At one point, DB pulled out a gun and fired it, later saying he did so only to disperse the crowd. Unfortunately, the bullet struck and killed a young man. DB was imprisoned with a ten-year sentence, but in his second year, he escaped. He climbed under a fence and disappeared into society. During the next twenty-five years, he got a job, paid taxes, and bought a home. He never had any further brushes with the law and lived by himself. Eventually, the sister of the young man who had been killed located DB on the internet and had the police arrest him.
At this point in the activity, we would ask class participants what they would do with DB if they were the judge and jury. They had to choose between lock him up or let him go. The class was almost always equally divided between the two options. Each participant was paired up with someone who had the opposing view. Then together, they would be instructed to take turns listening to each other without talking. Only when one person felt completely understood about their position could the other person then share their perspective. It was a fascinating activity to discuss afterward. Time and time again, I would hear participants share how surprised they were at the change in their line of thinking once they had taken time to understand the perspective of another. Rarely would anyone announce that they had completely changed their mind. But they would say, “I can absolutely understand why my colleague feels the way they do, and I’m starting to see this a little differently now.”
Talking less and listening more feels risky. It’s a practice only highly emotionally mature people can master. When we are mature and confident enough to set aside our own agenda long enough to get into the hearts and minds of those important to us, we not only get to solutions more quickly, but we offer them our best selves. The reward for talking less and listening more is a deep understanding of one another. As Dr. Covey said, “The deepest need of the human heart is to feel understood.” When I first heard that quote, while it seemed to make sense, I wondered if it were true. But after years of experience with the most important people in my life, I can say, for me at least, it is true 100 percent of the time.