I was facilitating a conversation between some ten people in a luxurious meeting room. The conversation was lively and active. Everyone agreed a new service was needed, and its core value proposition was argued.
Yet, there was something off and it was only after the meeting I managed to wrap my head around it.
The interaction was an imitation of a true conversation. Rather than being influenced, many were more keen on making an impression with their arguments and anecdotes. They wanted others to listen to them fewer were willing to push themselves to listen.
This conversational narcissism runs rampant in the world of business. It is counterproductive to design, disrupts collaboration, builds unhealthy disagreements, and keeps people from reconsidering their opinions.
To collaborate and create something beyond our personal experience, it is an imperative we stop and listen.
Listening as a skill
My colleague started playing soccer as an adult. After a year of playing in a local club, he started practising on his own. He took an online course guiding his practice on dribbling, getting a good feel on the ball. An intense training of four weeks had a significant effect: How have improved so much? his fellow players wondered.
My colleague had trained a skill he didnt realise he needed. Similarly, one of the reasons many people are not very good at listening is that they dont know it is a skill.
When asked, everyone can name at least a few people who they find very good listeners. These are the people you would call when you need someone lend their ear. At the opposite end, there are those friends who never listen. They do share their thoughts, but fail to pay attention to those around them.
Did any people pop in your head just now?
Listening exists as a skill along-side many other psychological, social, and emotional skills our formal education system often fails to mention.
The basics in active listening includes four techniques: [1] Establishing a connection between the two parties by showing genuine interest and giving the other party your full attention. With this foundation in place, the conversation goes deeper into the topic through [2] carefully selected questions, and [3] shared understanding is ensured through paraphrasing. [4] The interaction is closed with a short summary.
Technique 1: Focus your attention
Our attention is a curious little fellow. It is prone to wander to our personal worries, expectations, day-dreams, and to-do-lists. Often our environment contributes to this. Smartphones, social media, and fast-paced work life makes it hard to stop and focus.
The cornerstone of active listening is staying in the present. You have to dedicate your full attention to the other person, and stay in the moment.
You can prepare for this. Acknowledge it takes time to transition from one project to the next. Start the transition well before the interaction: consciously leave previous projects behind and tune to the next situation by going background materials, CVs, or key themes of the project.
Thus, when other person or people arrive, you are able to start the situation fluidly. Pay attention, and focus on the moment. Naturally, a dedicated time and space also contribute towards establishing a good connection, and communicate to the other party their time and opinions matter.
Technique 2: Ask better questions
Guides on interview techniques often focus on asking questions. Understandably, questions frame the discussion from the very beginning and guide the course of the exchange. However, as many know, there are more to questions than meets the eye.
When we want better answers, we have to ask better questions. The first step is to go from closed to open questions: from Are you working? to Tell me about your current work. The second step is to craft the question in a way that builds rapport and engages the other party: What did you most enjoy with your work last week?.
Questions can open up new topics but also serve exploring an area in more depth. When we want to understand what caused the other person to think or behave in a certain way, we can use the five-whys technique: After a key interviewee answer, the interviewer asks Why is that?, and then four times more to each answer. This is useful especially when a topic has to be understood very thoroughly.
Active listening uses questions to explore topics and ensure common understanding. Questions are especially useful when something surprises you as a listener perhaps due to a unique viewpoint, internal inconsistencies in the narrative, or perhaps that the other party challenges your preconceptions. Exploring these fields allows you to understand the other persons perspective.
Technique 3: Paraphrase
Paraphrasing is a less used tool that every design and business professional should add to their interview and conversational toolbox.
When paraphrasing, repeat what the other party said in your own words and see whether you got the gist of it.
This does not mean putting words into another persons mouth. The intent must be humble: Did I get this right? Allow the other party to correct when needed.
The aim of paraphrasing is to ensure both parties understand what was said. This feedback allows the other person to verify they got their message cross. Importantly, the parties do not need to agree. They merely need to understand how the other party views the situation: they are on the same page.
Technique 4: Summarize at the end
While paraphrasing is useful a couple times during the conversation, summary is a tool to close it. A great summary collects the highlights of the conversation and shares them.
Summary is especially useful when the conversation has been long, winding, disagreeing, or otherwise complicated. I often use it to close workshops. In a summary I restate why we were talking in the first place, what conclusions were reached, what opinions were found, what differences remain on the table, and what are the next steps if any are agreed.
A great summary highlights several things. It is an explicit symbol of collaboration and the will to move things forward. It also states that you have been paying attention and working hard to understand the variety of viewpoints, and have been able to prioritize them.
Empathetic summaries may be surprising to some people who are unaccustomed to a more soft, collaborative way of interacting. They may catch people off-guard with their precision and the attempt to find common solutions.
What surprises me is the fact that people have previously not done everything they can in order to understand each other.
Listening presents intellectual humility
Active listening is a highly useful tool for designers in user interviews, board workshops or essentially any interaction. It serves to counteract our innate tendency to make assumptions. It explores, seeks, and ensures shared understanding, the bedrock for any collaboration.
However, active listening is more than a tool. It is also reflects your personal outlook in life. Through active listening, you can become more curious, open to new ideas and perspectives, and care even for people whose views differ from yours. It means you are willing to grow beyond your thoughts.
Gallups list of Most Admired People is populated with people who have changed, repented, evolved, and grown not people who got it all right the first time.
Shane Snow
References and readings
Intellectual Humility: The Ultimate Guide. Shane Snow. Stop Talking, Start Listening. Adrian Zumbrunnen. Active listening, Wikipedia. Five Whys, Wikipedia.
Photo credits
Two people holding hands, Andrik Langfield. Soccer, Kuan Fang. Man reading, Chris Benson. Two people on a hill, Marta Esteban Fernando. Woman with a map, Katie Drazdauskaite. Bridge, Andrik Langfield.