5 WAYS TO BE A BETTER LISTENER IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE

In one of our “Listen to Learn” workshop, a participant asked – “Rupak, no offence, the listening techniques are nice, but I cannot apply them. As an entrepreneur, I meet 15-20 new people daily and if I allow them all to speak without interrupting, I will never have time for other activities. Can you share few listening tips for someone like me?”

Similarly, I know many of you are busy professionals. You are looking for not just effective listening tips but also time efficient ones. Following are the 5 ways for that. 

The power of an ideal is in the power of the practical - Swami Vivekananda 

1- Stipulate the time limit

In trying to be polite, you do not stipulate the time for a meeting. You go with the assumption that the person won’t consume a lot of time. Unfortunately, when the meeting continues for a longer period, you start getting frustrated and hope for the person to stop. You start giving subtle clues like checking the time or frequently interrupting, trying to cut a topic short, etc., hoping the other person will take the hint and stop. Sadly, most people do not get these hints. This makes them wonder about your lack of interest in the topic. This can spoil that too.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” – George Bernard Shaw

The simplest way to avoid all this by stipulating the condition. In the beginning, set a time limit for the meeting. When the person knows time is limited, s/he will stick to the important topics in that time frame. Be strict with your time limit for other people to take it seriously.

Once the decided time is over and if the person is still continuously talking, feel free to interject. A delay in one meeting can disturb your entire schedule. In case, there are other meetings planned, you won’t be able to do justice as you will have less time for them. People who always take more time, meet them less frequently and schedule it on a minimum workload day.

2- Ask for the agenda in writing

A meeting will be faster when the person is clear about what is needed to be discussed. The best way to get that clarity is by asking the agenda of the meeting, not just verbally but in writing. Clear writing always comes from clear thinking. When the person writes about what s/he wants to discuss, you not only know about topics to be discussed, by putting it on paper, the person also gets more clarity. The in-depth meeting agenda also helps to set a suitable time limit for the meeting. Let’s look at one example

Perky - "Hey, can I meet you at 4 today?"

Rupak – "Sure, for how much time? And what is the agenda?"

Perky – "I need to discuss social media marketing strategy, would take around half an hour."

Now people stop here, I would expect you to go a one step further.

Rupak – Okay. See you at 4. Please message me about exactly what is needed to be discussed.

Perky – Following three things to discuss.

1. Budget extension for Facebook ads
2. LinkedIn Marketing Briefing
3. Brainstorm new strategy replacing Instagram ads

If you feel asking this might come out as too demanding and then please say that knowing the details will help you to prepare better for the meeting. Having the agenda in writing also makes it easier to share with others. For example in point 1 of the agenda, you might need to talk to the person from finance team before taking any decision. Thus you can share the agenda with finance team and ask for them to attend the meeting.

Once the agenda is decided, it is important to stick to it. Keep that agenda email/message always in front while meeting. In case the person starts discussing other topics, gently remind to discuss the important topics first. Whenever you feel an urge to ask or share something while the person is speaking, don’t interject, just write it down and ask once the person is done speaking. Not writing it, will make it difficult to focus on listening, as you will be in constant fear of forgetting about it. After every important meeting, write down the key points discussed and decisions made. This will be kind of a meeting summary. It will take extra 5 minutes after meeting but saves a lot of time while execution.

“Clear thinking is not possible in the absence of clear writing” – Thomas Famula

If someone is meeting to pitch about a particular product or any service then please ask for the product/service profile. Please read it before the meeting, that will help you to prepare better for the meeting.

3- Have a buffer

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for few minutes… including you – Anne Lamott

No matter how carefully you plan for the meeting, there will be few meetings which will take more time. If you do not keep a gap of minimum 15 minutes between two meetings, you will find it difficult to listen once the time is done. You will be constantly worried about being late for the next meeting. Having few spare minutes are always better as it keeps you calm, plus it gives the other person freedom to discuss other important topics. This reminds me of an incident from Michael Dell’s life

Dell had been in Japan shortly after the company launched operations there. He was meeting with Sony to talk about monitors, CD-ROM drives, and other technologies which Sony was developing. During that course of the meeting, someone from Sony’s energy power system said he wanted to speak with him afterwards. At first, Dell was confused. Energy system? What would they possibly talk about? Dell wasn’t in power plant business after all. It sounded like this guy was about to waste his time.

Indulging this Sony employee, dell listened patiently. Turns out it was a good move. They had been developing the Lithium battery that had the potential to last longer and weigh significantly less. Sony was already looking to use it in smaller devices and saw laptop as a potential market.

Dell immediately saw this as a potentially game-changing breakthrough technology and moved forward quickly. It was risky proposition though. He selected entirely new and untested technology rather than existing one. A year and a half after that spontaneous conversation in Japan, the first Dell Laptops with Lithium batteries were introduced – an industry first – in a media event in August 1994 in which laptop was run on battery power on a non-stop flight from New York to Los Angeles.

Five and half hours later, the laptop had broken all records and become industry standard. A rushed conversation that almost didn’t happen had led to a move that leapfrogged the competition.

Lithium battery leap was possible only because Dell listened to the person from energy power system. If Dell had rejected the meeting saying lack of time or feeling it is not important, it would have been difficult. Therefore having few extra minutes in between two conversations will give enough patience to listen to a new topic even if you may initially feel the topic is not important.

4- Interject suitably

For listening to a topic carefully, sometimes you need to interject a person. You cannot be silent throughout. Therefore it is important to know when to interject. If you come out as if you are judging or advising, the person starts getting defensive and diplomatic. After that, the conversation will never go smoothly. You can surely interject to clarify doubts or for more information or to check if you are on the same page. Please read this article to know more about interjecting properly - https://goo.gl/CSYTTc

Be careful with your words. Once they are said they can only be forgiven, not forgotten - Carl Sandburg.

5- Summarise what you already know

This point, I would request you to use sparingly. As discussed in point number 2, you need to write a summary of the meeting after it is done. In this point, I am saying summarise before letting the person share everything. This is not the ideal listening skill but a practical one. Please avoid it while discussing sensitive topics. Do it on a topic where you already have an idea about.

Let me share an example – I have a lot of experience of conducting free open workshops (training which anyone can attend and not restricted to a particular organisation/background). Whenever any trainer wants to share about s/he has learnt about the attendance in free open workshops, I summarise whatever I know before allowing the person to speak. This makes sure time is spent more on discussing topics which I don’t know, thus helping me to listen better.

I summarise saying “It would be great to learn from your experience. Let me share what I have learnt so you can help me by adding points to it. These are the top 4 things I learnt.”

1. Around 40% people of the total registered members show up.
2. If it is a long weekend, attendance is less
3. People who register in the last week of the workshop, have more probability of turning up rather than people who registered before. Therefore focus should be more in marketing the workshop in last week rather than before it.
4. Conversion ratio increases by 10-20% when you regularly send workshop reminders via email or SMS.

These are my 4 learnings, did you had the same experience or different? And what other things have you learnt? Now, once I share what I know, I become open to listening to the new learnings. Then the person might share – “Even I had the same learnings, one learning which I would like to add is people between age group 25-34 have 20% more ratio of turning up to the workshop as compared to other age groups.” And I reply – “Wow, that’s a nice insight. And what are the other things you learnt?”

Summarising is never done to sound smart or brag or to take the topic in a different direction. Hence, you need to continuously ask questions to be on the same page. After summarising, ask questions like - Did I miss something? Or what different insights did you get?

“If you don’t go through life with an open mind, you will find lot of closed doors” – Mark Perrett

It is important to have the entire knowledge before deciding to work or not to work on some project or with someone. You won’t be able to reach those decisions if you don’t listen carefully. A few extra minutes spent in listening carefully can save hours in the execution of tasks. Therefore don’t leave listening to a chance and take efforts to listening properly. These 5 ways will help you to be a listen better in professional life.

1- Stipulate the time limit

2- Ask for the agenda in writing

3- Have a buffer

4- Interject suitably

5- Summarise what you already know

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