The massive cost of not listening in the modern world

“Listen to the sound of silence”  ~ Paul Simon

Irene arrived at work and she is greeted by a series of back-to-back, all-day meetings in her calendar. No time to have lunch, grab a refreshment or just pause and recollect her thoughts. She is already frustrated and anxious and she hasn’t walked in the door. Irene knows that today is the same as yesterday and tomorrow won’t be any different.

People want Irene in their meetings to help make decisions, to join the ideas and provide an outside perspective. Yet she is already struggling to have perspective of her own. Most of these meetings are a waste of time. She is on autopilot, predicting the meetings that will be productive and those that are going to be disasters.

As Irene approaches the meeting room, her internal chatter is filling up the space in her head. Irene sees two people walk into the room she don’t recognise, so racing through her mind questioning why they are there, who invited them and what will they bring to the meeting.

Suddenly Irene is fast-forwarding to a high-stakes decision she needs to make by the end of the week. The decision is critical to the future of the division and many people will be impacted by it. Irene remembers the need to have two more meetings between now and the time to make that decision.

Irene’s phone beeps to reminding her that she needs to pick up a friend from the airport tonight. What time does she need to leave work to make it in time? Traffic will be terrible because there is a storm coming. What if the flight will be delayed?

Irene is so lost in her own internal stories that she walks past the meeting room so she has to turn back. Her thinking is all over the place. she need to get focused on the matter in hand.

Irene enters the room and introduces herself to the people she realises that she doesn’t even know and asks them what they want to achieve from the meeting. Then Peter walks over – what’s he doing here - he wasn’t invited was he? Irene remembers the last time Peter was in a meeting with her it was all discussions and no decisions.

In comes Alice, announcing they are already running 10 minutes late. Irene is sitting in the chair in the room, but her mind isn’t available for the discussion. Everything is a blur because she has been talking to herself incessantly. All this noise in her head is incredibly difficult to clear. Irene makes a commitment to give her complete and utter attention to the speaker for the next five minutes.

As soon as Irene makes this commitment, the little monkey in her brain swings in with another idea and Irene realises that the communications update is due. She needs to brief Stuart, so she makes a note of what to do on her phone.

Irene looks up and Peter is giving her a judgmental ‘pay attention’ kind of look. This is exhausting – she looks at her watch, we’re 15 minutes into the meeting, Irene hasn’t been listening to the discussion because of all the distractions in her mind and because of all of this – she is frustrated, disappointed and unproductive.

Irene’s mind continues to drift from the discussion, to the people in the room to the people outside the room, to the airport pick up tonight and an upcoming meeting with her manager. Before Irene has time to contribute, she excuses herself because she is now late for her next meeting.

Which meeting is this one? Irene knows it’s a critical one , but is still frustrated with herself from the last meeting and she hasn’t connected with what she needs to listen to in this meeting.

Irene feels like a lab rat running from one meeting to the next without processing the last meeting, let alone getting ready for the next meeting.

Does this story sound extreme?

Or are you nodding along in familiarity?

I felt anxious writing this story, let alone reading it. Yet it is a very common scenario I hear from my clients and anyone working at all levels of organisations today.

It’s typical in the public sector and small to large enterprises. The frantic pace we are asked to perform at in our modern workplace creates a productivity paradox where we think more meetings, discussions and debates lead to higher quality discussion, decisions and impacts.

Not true!

The modern workplace creates so many distractions that we are lost in our own mind before we start a discussion with someone else.

You know when someone is listening intently to you. Equally, you sense when someone isn’t.

Dialogue is a shared experience that involves hearing, watching and exploring the landscape of the conversation.

Great dialogue is like the ebb and flow of the waves on a beach. There is a natural tempo and movement between the water and the sand. Done well, there is an easy and effortless interaction between two different people. Occasionally, like a poorly formed wave, a conversation can come crashing down around you – messy and wasteful.

So what’s the trick to this effortless flow?

You must listen deeply to yourself before you start the process of listening to others.

This means clearing space in your own mind to make room to hear others. 

Clear the clutter

We have many conversations every day in our workplace, yet we don’t prepare for them.

Before you engage in a conversation, you need to clear away the clutter in your mind and find a quiet place within. If you and your self-talk are in a deep discussion, then it’s going to be difficult for you to make space to listen deeply to someone else.

Like the story at the start, we usually move from meeting to meeting with little time to process what has just happened, let alone what is about to happen in the next meeting. This means you are exploring issues in your own mind rather than focusing on the discussion about to take place. The result? It dramatically decreases how effectively you lead and listen to anyone else.

You need silence, space and time to tune in.

Find the frequency

There is a simple equation you can use to help you find the ideal frequency that is free from any static:

Your breathing = the deeper, the better.

It almost sounds too simple and easy to be true, but to listen deeply you have to listen to your breathing.

Try it now.

Notice the speed and depth of your breathing. What can you do to slow it down? What can you do to deepen it and hold it a little longer?

This act of slowing your breath automatically creates a space in your mind where you can listen to yourself more deliberately. This is great to practice when you’re preparing for the next meeting or conversation with someone.

It’s your breathing that is the best indicator of your listening.

The slower and more deliberate your breathing is then the more likely you are to be present for the process of listening. It also aids in understanding what the other person is communicating.

When you focus on your breath, you connect with your natural human rhythm rather than the random patterns around you in your workplace, on the move, at home or anywhere else.

Before you can tune into the frequency of a conversation with someone else, you need to create a clear frequency free from static within yourself. Internal noise chews up your energy and bandwidth. If you’re trying to listen to someone else with lots of static then your wires will become crossed and you’ll think you’ve heard something when actually they said something else.

If you’ve ever had a crossed line on a phone call then you will know exactly what I mean.

Create the right space

Finding the frequency internally relies on creating the right space externally. You need space for the conversation to land and expand in your mind without competing for your attention or receiving any judgment.

Your environment plays a big role in this. In a nutshell, the quieter, the better.

Your ability to listen and tune your hearing to the frequency of someone else relies on you finding internal silence so you can contrast it with the noise around you.

It’s critical to understand that silence is the tuning fork for your listening ear.

I am not proposing you need to become a workplace monk or find a meditation room. Rather, you need to look for a distinct and different location or environment in which you can sit, be still and silent for just 15–30 seconds.

This is not a lot of time at all, so there is really no excuse for rushing to the next meeting. The space you create in your mind from just 15 seconds will significantly improve your ability to listen and take in information.

Close your eyes for 15 seconds before a meeting. If you are uncomfortable with closing your eyes you can place your head in your hands to block out the light and reduce the noise in your mind.

This space that you create for yourself will create a space in your mind that is open to receive what the other person is saying. If your mind is full of self-talk, this will immediately impact your ability to listen and your ability to hear – ultimately detracting from your ability to lead.

By completely listening and understanding what you are saying to yourself, you have reached the starting position of being able to listen to someone else.

Register now for a copy of my next book Deep Listening – How to have an impact beyond words

About Oscar Trimboli

Oscar Trimboli is a Speaker, Author and Mentor helping people to explore how clarity creates change and challenging their assumptions about what is possible.

I really appreciate you reading my post and if you enjoyed it here are some other recent articles I have written on LinkedIn:

• Three transformational hacks to make you a great listener
• Is listening more like exploring than discovery?
• If you want to make an impact - stop listening to the words
• Between listening and hearing is the gap in the words