WEBVTT
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Listening is is the b the basis of the whole thing.
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You know, I I always talk about a pyramid in in my teaching.
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Listening, if you imagine a pyramid with three tiers, listening is the base.
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You can't communicate well if you can't listen.
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You can't be a good speaker if you can't listen, because you need to understand the people you're talking to every time.
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The middle tier is powerful speaking.
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So the bottom tier is conscious listening.
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That's the phrase I use, and we can unpack that in a moment.
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The middle tier is powerful speaking, and the top tier is presenting, where, you know, that that's kind of more formal and it's a sk it's a separate skill entirely, platform skills, being able to stand on a stage and hold an audience.
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So that's the stuff I focus on most of the time.
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And it all happens inside of a context, of course, which is the sound around us, which is how I got into this in in the first place.
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But the bass is listening, and it's the most forgotten skill.
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I mean, most people don't even realize it's a skill.
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It gets collapsed with hearing.
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Hearing is a capability.
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You don't have to do anything to hear, it's automatic.
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If you as long as you haven't got damaged hearing, which is now one in ten of the world's population.
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But if you hearing is just automatic, listening is a skill.
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It's a mental skill, it takes work, and if you're not conscious that you're listening, you're probably just hearing.
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And that's a different thing.
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Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trey Show.
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I'm here with an amazing guest today.
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Would you like to tell people who you are and what you do?
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By all means, yes.
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Well, thank you for inviting me, Sean.
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I'm Julian Treasure.
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I am a writer, speaker, and trainer on the subject of or four subjects actually, primarily conscious listening, powerful speaking, masterful presenting, and also effective business sound, by which I largely mean designing healthy and productive sonic environments for people.
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So those are the four things I I uh talk and write about.
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I have five TED Talks which have collectively been seen more than 140 million times on TED.com and the TED YouTube channel.
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Um one of them is the sixth most viewed TED Talk of all time.
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And I have three books, uh, Sound Business, How to Be Heard, and Sound Effects.
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And these days I travel the world delivering keynotes and workshops to take this message out into organizations, hopefully, largely.
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And um also I'm launching a new course this autumn called The Sound Leader, which we can talk about perhaps later on.
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I'd love to talk about all of it.
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I don't know if we have enough time, but I'm I'm excited and I'm you know fascinated at the same time.
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But I I want to I've got a question for you.
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Like, why do you think so many people feel unheard today, despite being more connected than at any point in human history?
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Aaron Powell Well, it's an interesting one, isn't it?
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And I think the answer there there's a clue to this in the fact that my TED talk about speaking, which is called How to Speak so that people want to listen, has been seen by six times as many people as my TED talk about listening.
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So I think largely the answer to your question, Sean, is you know, everybody, well, most people at least are conscious of the need to express themselves, of you know, the importance of speaking, having a voice.
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Being heard is a different thing.
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And the reason that most people don't feel heard is because nobody's listening.
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That's that's the problem.
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Right.
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We play like we're listening, but we're we're thinking about what we're gonna say.
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We're thinking about what we want to do, we think about where we want to take the conversation.
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And, you know, I I've been guilty of this many, many, many times.
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And I try to work at it, but I think that there's just constant distraction.
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There is constant distraction around us.
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There is so many, there are so many things competing for our attention between not just like, I have to be very careful.
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I work in media and content.
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And there are certain social platforms that if I even open it up to go and do an activity that I need to do, I'm gone.
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I'm just like, I'll look back and I'm like 10 minutes later, I was like, what was I doing?
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And I have my my my my project management software open and I see it right there.
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And I was like, where did that rabbit hole come from?
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But you know, when it comes to listening, it's even worse.
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Absolutely.
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Well, we're all victims of the algorithm in that way, aren't we?
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And uh the tech is a big reason why listening has declined.
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All the evidence shows that listening is in decline.
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I call it an endangered species.
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Uh there are a lot of misconceptions about it and it's being uh eroded by huge forces.
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Tech is one of the biggest.
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I mean, there are some huge organizations who are spending billions and billions of dollars to seize your attention and mine at all times, because that's their currency, that's their product.
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So, you know, they're they're pretty powerful and they're very good at it.
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And, you know, like you, if I go onto YouTube for more than 30 seconds, the algorithm puts something up that it knows I'm gonna go, oh, that's interesting.
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And the rabbit hole has opened up.
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So we have to be very careful and marshal our attention because listening requires attention.
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But there are other reasons why we don't listen.
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The world is noisy.
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We're a noisy bunch, and there are more than 8 billion of us and growing.
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Uh some of the, you know, half of humanity lives in cities now.
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And cities are very noisy places.
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In my book, Sound Effects, I've got a table of the noisiest cities in the world.
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Dhaka in Bangladesh is number one.
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The noise level, the average noise level, is 119 decibels in the streets of Dhaka.
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That's rock concert loud.
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How people can survive in that, I have no idea.
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But listening becomes something you don't want to do in a situation like that.
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You get used to blacking out the noise around you, just blanking it.
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And of course, then people put headphones on, and we all go into little bubbles of our own curated sound, which is very understandable in noisy offices or noisy streets or noisy, you know, tube trains or whatever it may be.
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But it cuts us off from other people.
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So there are a lot of reasons that we don't listen.
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They're all becoming more and more powerful as time goes on.
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And the problem is that listening is fundamental.
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It's the base of all human relationships, and it's the most powerful form of connection that we can form with another human being.
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And you can see the effects of not listening in all of the evidence we now see of increasing rates of loneliness, depression, anxiety, suicide, especially among the younger people, among digital native generations.
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So it's a major issue, and of course I don't even have to mention polarization, which everybody, I'm sure, is already thinking about as I speak.
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Polarization in politics, polarization in society, violence, hatred, you know, uh objectifying other people, dismissing them, demeaning them, uh all of this kind of stuff can be solved by listening.
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And unfortunately, it's not something we teach our children at school for some strange reason.
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100%.
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100%.
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And I I don't know why.
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I mean, it it I wonder if it's that the people that are teaching don't have those skills as well.
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They've never been taught, you know?
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And as we've drifted away, maybe people have forgotten those things.
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But I want to ask you like, what are the consequences of a society that has forgotten how to truly listen?
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What starts happening?
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Well, as we just touched on, polarization happens, uh, demonization of people who are different.
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I think, you know, if you want to boil it down to one thing, it's that difference becomes a threat.
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Because we can deal with difference by understanding people.
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You know, if I'm living next door to somebody with whom I fundamentally disagree, which can happen in a democracy, and you know, if there's 51 of them and 49 of me, their can't the country gets run their way, not my way.
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I have to understand them.
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And we have created a kind of fiction that there's a zero-sum game here, which is if I'm right, you're wrong.
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If you're right, I'm wrong.
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But that's not true.
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You can have two people with very different points of view, and they can both be right because of their own perspective, background, their own appreciation of the world.
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You know, we are different people.
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And being able to hold that, being able to understand that somebody can disagree with you and also be right, even if you feel you're right, that is the secret to unlocking so much of the conflict that we have in our societies, where people are judgmental and dismiss anybody who disagrees with them.
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And of course, this is all made worse again by the internet, by the echo chain chambers that get set up where people just surround themselves with views that are similar to theirs and don't ever encounter or understand or attempt to understand different views.
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You know, there's a there's a very powerful technique that I teach in uh in my classes, which is validation.
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And what that sounds like is Sean, do you know what?
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I don't agree with what you just said, but I can absolutely see why you believe that.
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Now that's so different from Sean, that's crap.
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Which is where we go in modern society.
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Sean, you're wrong.
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That's rubbish.
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And if if if I respond in that way, the only thing that's going to happen there is escalated conflict and divisiveness.
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And that's where we are in society now.
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So I think that's the fundamental schism that we're dealing with.
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Cracks are appearing all over society because of the lack of willingness of people to validate different points of view, to live with people who are different.
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And that's so dangerous.
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I wonder about that all the time: being a father and trying to teach my daughter how to connect.
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One of the things that is a non-negotiable for me, with for my daughter and my nephews, is that at the dinner table, when we go out to eat as a family, the phones are put away.
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They are not able to sit there on devices, they're not able to stare down and try to converse because they don't.
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They just stare at the device and try to eat.
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And I say, you know what?
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If we're here and we're doing something social together, sit down.
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And my nephew's like, what am I gonna do?
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And I said, talk to the person next to you.
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You know, ask them a question.
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Tell them something.
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Tell them about this cool thing you learned.
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I'm not saying that the phones are bad.
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They have so much knowledge that these kids can tap into.
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My nephew knows so much about science that at his age I had no idea.
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My daughter uses YouTube to find cool patterns and things that she wants to create.
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But the danger is that when we come together, that we stay there on those devices and not stare at each other.
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But you know, I wanted to ask you this because you'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, at the number of people that come on my podcast and talk about loneliness.
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They talk about the challenges people face, even though we are surrounded.
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And I want to ask, like, how much of loneliness and division and polarization we see today is actually a communicate communication problem.
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I I think the vast majority of it, to be honest.
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And um, listening is is the the basis of the whole thing.
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You know, I I always talk about a pyramid in in my teaching.
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Listening, if you imagine a pyramid with three tiers, listening is the base.
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You can't communicate well if you can't listen.
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You can't be a good speaker if you can't listen, because you need to understand the people you're talking to every time.
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The middle tier is powerful speaking, so the bottom tier is conscious listening.
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That's the phrase I use, and we can unpack that in a moment.
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The middle tier is powerful speaking, and the top tier is presenting, where you know that that's kind of more formal, and it's a sk it's a separate skill entirely, platform skills, being able to stand on a stage and hold an audience.
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So that's the stuff I focus on most of the time, and it all happens inside of a context, of course, which is the sound around us, which is how I got into this in in the first place.
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Uh but the bass is listening, and it's the most forgotten skill.
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I mean, most people don't even realize it's a skill.
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It gets collapsed with hearing.
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Hearing is a capability.
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You don't have to do anything to hear, it's automatic.
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If you as long as you haven't got damaged hearing, which is now one in ten of the world's population.
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But if you hearing is just automatic, listening is a skill.
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It's a mental skill, it takes work, and if you're not conscious that you're listening, you're probably just hearing.
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And that's a different thing.
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And there are many ways of listening.
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I talk about listening positions in my work, and you know, you mentioned one earlier, which is uh the one Stephen Covey made famous, listening to respond, which is what an awful lot of people do most of the time, really.
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You know, while you're talking, I'm composing my next brilliant bit of monologue, and I call it speech writing.
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Uh so I'm not really listening to you, and it often gives rise to the anyway interjection where I just dismiss what you were talking about and move on to what I want to talk about, which is it is dismissive, and people get upset if you do that to them, um, certainly if you do it regularly.
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Uh because we we all want three things in this world.
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We want to be heard, understood, and valued.
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Right.
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And listening does all three of those things.
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So that's why listening is so important.
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But there are many ways to listen.
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And the reason I use the phrase conscious listening, I mean, many people have come across what people talk about as active listening, and that's not what I teach.
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It's one way of listening.
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It tends to be a little bit performative, I think, when it's taught in management training seminars and so forth.
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You know, tick the box, look at the person, respond, repeat back what they said, and try to do something about it later, you know, and then you've tick the box for active listening and you move on.
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I think it's a much bigger issue than that, listening.
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Listening is a step to consciousness.
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It's a very important part of enhanced consciousness and of being more present as a human being.
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And there are many ways to listen.
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The key thing is to be conscious of how you're listening and ask yourself, is this the best way I can listen right now in this conversation with this person?
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And then move yourself into the appropriate listening position.
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Now that's what I call conscious listening.
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There's nothing wrong with distracted listening, you know, if I'm tapping away at my phone, uh, you know, I'm uh when people tap away and they're saying, I am listening, well, it's it's not a very deep form of listening, that it's distracted listening or partial listening.
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And it's fine if some if you're having a bit of banter with somebody, or you know, they're telling you a little joke, or it's it's very light and frothy conversation.
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But if somebody is pouring their heart out to you, or it's something complicated or very important, that's the time to go, well, one second, let me just finish this, I'll put it down, then I can listen to you.
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And that's moving your listening position to something that's more appropriate.
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Being unconscious about that gives rise to so much miscommunication in the world.
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And we know now that that has such a cost in conflict and also in business.
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I mean, there's a survey recently that found that miscommunication is costing American business, wait for it,$1.2 trillion a year.
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That's insane.
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Because, but you think about it, it makes complete sense because we are sitting there and you know, yesterday I had a miscommunication with someone, and it resulted in some pretty big problems because both people were in here, not paying attention out here.
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And when I think about that, um, it could have been fixed, it couldn't have been avoided if we simply had of listened to where the other person was at and where they were coming from and what they were saying.
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But everyone was too caught up in their own space and their own thing and their own stuff.
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And I think that one of the secrets that I'm learning is that if I really want to communicate well, I have to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.
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I'm trying to do this.
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I used to think I could multitask.
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I am realizing that I cannot.
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And I don't think anyone really can.
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And I think that's a, you know, if you want to do I I had a project management guest on, and he said that if you want to do something well, you do it one thing at a time and you go all the way to the end.
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Because if you try to balance all this different stuff, it you can't.
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You just can't.
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You will get distracted and you're doing 50% of what you could be doing.
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You know, and that's a danger.
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Well, we know that multitasking is impossible in the brain, but what what you do is you flit from one thing to the other thing very quickly, bouncing back and forth.
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And uh y that can happen at a slower pace with, you know, butterflying around with 50 tasks you've got to do today, and you're jumping from one to the other every few minutes, which again, you know, some people can work that way, but it may not be the most productive way.
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I'm I'm a big fan of focus, as you just described.
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Uh, you know, when I write a book, I just kind of lock myself away and the world doesn't exist for quite a long time.
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My family have to put up with it.
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Um so yeah, I think focus is very important.
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Um, but communicating is about getting the ball over the net, isn't it?
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So whether you're talking or listening, this is a transaction and it requires both ends to be there, which is why so many people don't feel heard because they they're talking to somebody who's not listening, and then they they get obsessed about the sending end of this.
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It's like with education, you know, we're obsessed about the sending of education.
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How good are the teachers?
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:51.519
How good is the curriculum?
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:56.559
We don't ever think about the receiving of the education.
00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:59.279
So can the students hear?
00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:03.119
Well, most of them can't because acoustics in schoolrooms are terrible.
00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:06.559
So we've got a hearing problem in the first place.
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:08.960
And then do we teach them how to listen?
00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:11.359
No, they don't even know it's a skill.
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:16.000
And so huge amounts of that very carefully curated education.
00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:21.599
It's like, you know, spraying a sprinkler all over a garden and missing the flowers completely.
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:26.160
It just gets wasted because we are not focusing on receiving.
00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:27.920
Receiving is critical.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:33.440
So, you know, I have tools which I teach on both ends of this uh delivery.
00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:38.319
And the receiving, you know, there's a very simple way you can improve your receiving in a conversation.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:44.079
It's a tool I call rasa, which stands for receive, appreciate, summarize, ask.
00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:45.440
R-A-S-A.
00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.400
Appreciate, summarize, ask.
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:51.680
Receive means paying attention to the person.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:20:02.880
And that generally means eye contact, which is very important and it helps you to listen far better if you're not looking around or doing something else.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:09.200
Appreciate is the little noises and gestures that we make to show that we are actually in the conversation.
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:15.359
So as you're doing or eyebrow raises, head bobs, you know, whatever it may be.
00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:17.759
Summarize is critical.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:20.240
So when you finish speaking, I go, okay.
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:22.559
So what I understood you to say is this.
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:23.599
Did I get you?
00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:37.440
And that means I'm confirming that I received what you sent, which is always, not always the case, very often not the case, because we filter stuff through our own perception and so forth.
00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:40.319
So that summarize is a big check.
00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:47.440
And it's important, you know, if you're having a long conversation, you can do that to lock down bits of the conversation.
00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:51.519
It's the word so, which is a very important word, especially in a meeting.
00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:52.880
So we've all agreed that.
00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:54.400
Now can we move on to this?
00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:58.720
And if you don't have a so person in the meeting, it can be a very, very long meeting.
00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:03.519
And then the A is ask, of course, questions ask all the way through, ask at the end.
00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:19.599
Ideally questions which uh start with W, you know, the why, what, which, when, where, who questions which do not permit the answer yes or no, and are a great way to engage somebody when you're trying to build a relationship with somebody.
00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:27.119
And there's a wonderful magic phrase you can use at the end of what they've said, which is tell me more about that.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:31.599
That is a wonderful phrase because everybody likes to feel interesting.
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:35.200
And if you finish speaking and I go, sure, tell me more about that.
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:36.319
That's really interesting.
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:47.440
You immediately have a little surge of probably endorphins or you know, some sort of uh happy neurotransmitter which is going, ah, he likes me, he's interested, this is good.
00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:49.039
You know, we all like that.
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:54.559
And it can really help to make a conversation flow and to build a relationship.
00:21:54.799 --> 00:21:56.400
So that's rasa.
00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:57.359
It does work.
00:21:57.920 --> 00:21:59.279
Can you tell me more about that?
00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:14.559
Is Beautiful, and it's one of the most powerful things that I can think of because when my daughter comes in, and right now she's on summer vacation, I try to I have my own business and I try to balance the time with her with being present with her.
00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:23.279
Um but yet I get full sometimes, and I have to tell her, um, slow down, give me a second.
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:26.079
I can't I gotta finish this and I'm coming, and I turn to you.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.000
And I do that with all of my staff, actually.
00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.240
I say, give me a second to let me finish this, and then I will come and give you my attention.
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:37.440
And when I give my daughter my attention and she tells me something, I have two options.
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:40.799
Option one, thank you for telling me that, and then turning back to the work.
00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.400
Or option two, going deeper and asking more.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:50.640
And I'm not perfect at this, but now that you bring it up, I have noticed that when I say, can you tell me more about that?
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:57.200
The lights shine, the smile emerges, and it just this connection happens.
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:01.599
It's a deeper connection than just, yes, let's do it.
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:06.079
Um, okay, thank you for that, and moving on, you know, and I think that that's powerful.
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:12.079
But like, I want to ask you about mistakes because I know I make a ton of them, but I'm sure we all do.
00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:21.200
But what is the biggest mistake, the communication mistake leaders make that quietly destroys trust inside their families, teams, or organizations?
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:28.079
Yeah, it's an imbalance and an over-emphasis on speaking.
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:35.200
And I actually think there's an inverse relationship between seniority in organizations and listening.
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:37.759
And there are quite a few reasons for that.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:42.000
First of all, as you get senior, you're supposed to know stuff.
00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:47.119
So you're much more inclined to be telling people things than asking questions.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:50.319
There's a humility aspect to listening.
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:56.640
Um, because when I'm listening to you, I'm saying, at this moment, Sean, you're more important than I am.
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:07.519
And leaders have a problem with that, because as you get very senior in an organization, your ego builds and gets rather inflated, and you're the most important person in the room.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.400
So you should be the person talking, not them.
00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:17.200
So I think that all of these kind of influences tend to mean that leaders don't listen well.
00:24:17.279 --> 00:24:18.240
And we know that's true.
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:25.440
There was a s a study recently, um, I think it was by LinkedIn, of 14,000 employees.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.640
Only one in 12 of them rated their leader as a very good listener.
00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:35.920
So that's 11 out of 12 saying they're not a very good listener, which is not great.
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:39.200
And the results of that are devastating in business.
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:42.319
Because you get people who eventually shut up.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:52.880
If you don't listen to somebody who's bouncing out, you know, around being tiggerish and having lots of ideas, if they don't get listened to, they eventually go quiet and then they leave.
00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:55.200
And they may be the best person you ever had, you know.
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:56.400
That's what happens to people.
00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:02.079
They get disengaged and they get demotivated and they they don't bother.
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:13.200
And the the cost of that globally is estimated to be$8.8 trillion a year to global business, the cost of disengagement.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:14.640
It's massive.
00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:25.279
You may think you've got different problems, high staff turnover, conflict in teams, or shoddy teamworking, or mistakes, or uh all these sorts of things.
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.160
To me, they're all one problem, wearing different clothes.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.000
It's a problem of listening.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:38.960
And if you have a leader who's not listening, that culture tends to propagate all the way down through an organization.
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:56.559
So to create a listening organization, it's very important that you have uh a commitment to listening at the top and some sort of back channel, you know, so it's not just management giving a town hall for 50 minutes and having two pre-arranged questions and then calling that communication.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:25:58.960
And that's that's one way.
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:04.720
And we're very, very tempted to communicate in that sort of one-to-many way all the time.
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:05.599
Yep, done.
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:08.079
The new mission is out there, everybody understands it.
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:09.440
Well, no, they don't.
00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:15.039
And you haven't given them, excuse me, you haven't given them an opportunity to ask questions.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:19.680
And it may even be that asking questions is stigmatized.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:21.359
Well, you mean you didn't understand that?
00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:22.559
That's perfectly plain.
00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:24.000
What are you talking about?
00:26:24.319 --> 00:26:32.960
So if you kind of stigmatize people who pipe up and say, well, that wasn't very clear to me, then you're never going to get the pushback.
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:38.079
You won't get the understanding that, whoa, so almost everybody has said they didn't understand that.
00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:39.839
We need to rephrase it.
00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:54.000
But if you've got this kind of omerta, it's not permitted, you have to pretend that you've got everything first time, otherwise you're you're thick, then you can be communicating the absolute rubbish and you wouldn't know.
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.720
And you never find out what's going on, what's really going on in the organization.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:12.240
If you don't have the back channels, if you don't encourage uh stuff to come up, which may be great ideas, or it may be, you know, the first signs of a really big problem, which if ignored is going to be, you know, potentially terminal.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:15.279
So many, many reasons for not listening.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.559
Leaders are not good at it, and there's a massive cost.
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:22.880
So I'm I'm trying to work a work on a more positive spin on this.
00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:26.559
I'm trying to work out what is the return on listening.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:28.319
You know, we all know ROI.
00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:30.000
Well, I want there to be an ROL.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:32.880
Because at the moment, this is hidden.
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:35.920
And my problem is that we have a world in denial.
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:40.400
You know, almost everybody thinks they're a good listener, and almost nobody is.
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:44.160
So there's this huge gap that nobody's aware of.
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:52.160
And this is the wall of denial that I'm booting the whole time and trying to make holes in so that people understand this is a critical skill.
00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:55.440
And there are so many advantages to learning how to do it well.
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:57.359
I have a question for you then.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:04.559
You know, we've talked about the problems and how things are not necessarily going right right now.
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.559
But how do we change it?
00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:10.240
What is conscious listen can't even talk today.
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:11.519
It's one of those days.
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:15.200
What does conscious listening actually look like in practice?
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:17.839
And and why is it so powerful and how do we do it?
00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.759
Well, I think in a perfect world, it starts at school.
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:28.000
And you know, I'm I'm it it's very difficult to change educational curricula.
00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:30.880
Uh we have seen signs of movement.
00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:37.039
In the UK, they're starting to teach something called orasy, which is a parallel to literacy.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:41.279
But unfortunately, what they mean by oracy is the ability to speak.
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:44.960
Well, that's very important, but it's only one side of the coin.
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:47.839
It's the middle tier in the pyramid, not the base.
00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:50.720
So they're not talking about teaching children how to listen.
00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:51.839
That's the start.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.559
If we start to teach children how to listen, we can transform the world in a generation.
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:09.200
If that's not done, then we have to take older people and transform their understanding, which is my mission, my life is my mission is to regenerate the world's listening.
00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:33.119
So that is going to involve persuading CEOs and leaders, ideally also political leaders, of the importance of listening and of the sanctity of it, the the critical element that it is in a successful society slash organization, slash team, slash family.
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:38.400
So that's what I'm setting out to do, but it's a huge task.
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:42.720
And you know, I really welcome anybody who wants to get on this bandwagon with me.
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:45.119
Um and you know, I've had some success.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.359
The TED Talks have been seen 150 million times or whatever it is.
00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:56.319
Uh so you know, that's good, but it's still a drop in the ocean compared to the world's population.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:02.880
And the number of people are completely unconscious of the need to listen well and how to do it.
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:08.720
Uh training, you know, obviously, training is going to be the way to do it in organizations.
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:15.839
It's very interesting, isn't it, that listening is acknowledged as an important skill when people are recruiting.
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:21.920
So they always put good listener near the top of the list of things you want for somebody when you're recruiting them.
00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:25.279
But the moment you've got them, it's forgotten.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:27.119
It's taken for granted.
00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:31.920
So we've got somebody who's a good listener in inverted commas, and we don't have to do anything about that.
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:33.359
We don't rate them.
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:35.759
It's not in the 360-degree review.
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:38.640
There's no question about is this person a good listener?
00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:41.599
There's no reward for being a good listener.
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.519
I mean, does any organization pay people more for being good listeners?
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:46.799
I don't think so.
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:52.720
So the it's kind of immediately forgotten about not trained and so forth.
00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.000
We need to train.
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:56.240
We need training programs on listening.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:58.400
We need to understand the return on this.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:05.200
So, for example, we know that the most successful salespeople listen twice as much as they speak.
00:31:05.599 --> 00:31:10.559
The least successful salespeople speak twice as much as they listen.
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:17.359
And that's coming from research in the field of thousands and thousands of B2B sales calls.
00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:19.519
So, you know, there is a return on this.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:31.920
When we have people who really understand the importance of listening and can do it well, they sell more, businesses are more successful, teams work better, people are more engaged, there's less mistakes and miscommunication.
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:42.240
So somehow we have to get this message into the mainstream of leadership and have people understand that it's it's not innate.
00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:44.160
Listening is not a capability.
00:31:44.319 --> 00:31:49.279
It's a it's a very important skill that needs to be invested in everywhere.
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:50.640
I 100% agree.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:54.079
I think it's interesting to see how people can do that.
00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:57.039
You know, I do it with my daughter.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:58.640
I try to slow her down.
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:02.000
And one of the things we try to do is just to simply be more mindful.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:11.839
And one of the ways that we're doing mindfulness is just to breathe, just take those moments where we're not putting things out and we're allowing things to come in.
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:18.960
But you know, I want to ask you like, how can you tell when someone is genuinely listening versus simply waiting for their turn to speak?
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.880
How do you know if they're just sitting there biting their time, you know?
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:24.799
Well, uh, you don't.
00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:35.440
And I I would also say there's no future in going around telling people that they're not very good listeners because we all like to think we are, and you'll get a pretty abrupt response if you say to somebody, do you know what?
00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:36.799
You're a terrible listener.
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:45.279
So um what you can do with people who are poor listeners is make appointments to listen for them to listen to you.
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:48.160
So, Sean, I've got something really important to say to you.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:51.599
Can you give me five minutes of your undivided attention?
00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:54.400
And if you say yes, then we have a contract.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.640
And everybody likes to be true to their word.
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:05.440
So if you start doing your email in my five minutes, I think I have a right to say, Sean, oh, you did say five minutes of undivided attention, is that okay still with you?
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:06.079
Not now?
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:08.400
Well, maybe later, what time would be good for you?
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:10.160
You know, make an appointment to listen.
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:15.200
That's a good way of dealing with many people in the world who don't listen uh inveterately.
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:20.640
You know, they they talk, talk, talk, or interrupt or uh just don't take things on board.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:28.799
Um so that's that's that's one important thing uh which can improve the situation in a business.
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:34.240
Um I think silence, you you you talked about silence, that's very important.
00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:38.400
And many people don't have a very good relationship with silence.
00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:47.200
And it's critical not only for listening, because of course listening requires you being silent, but it's also very important for speaking.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:34:00.240
One of the biggest problems or mistakes that I see people making when I'm training people, you know, I train people who've got TEDx talks coming up, or uh people who've got an important talk that they can they've got to give.
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:05.440
And very often I'll find when we start working that they gabble.
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:08.400
They don't feel comfortable stopping.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:12.880
Now, just that little stop I did there, you know, it's half a second.
00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:15.280
I can I can stop for far longer than that.
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:21.760
But you know, when you're talking about radio or broadcast media, people feel uncomfortable because it's called dead air.
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:29.840
But if you're on a stage and you're speaking and you make an important point, you can just stop and let it settle like that.
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:45.199
Now, people who are uncomfortable with silence don't feel comfortable doing that, and they'll fill that with anyway, so uh, you know, and you move on, or you have all the filler words, the ums and uhs, and you know what it means, and all of those things which fill every gap.
00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:51.840
And if it's all filled, you know, there's no light and shade, there's no uh dynamic to the talking.
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:55.679
It becomes just a stream, and it's very hard to keep with people's attention.
00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:02.559
So silence is a hugely important tool, and it's of course critical for listening.
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:10.239
So I do recommend, dear listeners to this, give yourself three minutes of silence a couple of times a day.
00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:12.079
Just sit quietly.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:24.000
You don't have to meditate, you don't have to do anything else, just sit with the silence, and your ears will recalibrate, you'll be able to listen afresh, because you've stopped the noise for a little bit.
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:32.079
And it's also connecting you with something that's very important, which is to be comfortable with silence.
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:37.119
And that's something that many people who live in cities particularly feel uncomfortable with.
00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:46.400
You know, they I know a lot of people who come into a quiet room and they want to put something on, you know, put the TV on, put put put music on, or let's start talking, or you know, can't deal with this.
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:49.199
They come to the country and they go, Oh, it's so quiet.
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:55.199
Well, it's great to be comfortable with that, because it's the baseline for all sound.
00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:58.719
And it's you know you have to have the valley in order to have the peak.
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:01.119
I want to ask you this question.
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:08.159
If you could teach every 10-year-old one communication skill, it would transform their future, what would it be?
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:25.280
I think it would be to understand the complex nature of listening, to understand this is a wonderful uh kind of organic process that you can really start to investigate and master.
00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:27.920
You can go very, very, very deep into listening.
00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:39.519
Um I think if I boiled it down to one thing, it would be um one of the most important things I teach about listening again, which is that every human being's listening is unique.
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:43.679
So your listening, Sean, is different from mine.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:47.360
We listen through a whole set of filters, these build up through our whole lives.
00:36:47.519 --> 00:37:01.599
I won't go into what they all are now, but if you understand that nobody listens like I do, you're not making the most fundamental mistake which most people make when they're speaking, which is assuming everybody listens like I do.
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:02.320
They don't.
00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:03.360
It's not you.
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:09.679
And if that's your assumption, you're basically going around talking to yourself the whole time, which isn't very effective because it's not you.
00:37:10.079 --> 00:37:30.480
Now, if children can understand that, if we can teach children that everybody's listening is different, every human being's different, and to embrace that difference and not see it as a threat to their existence or their ego, we would be in a very different situation where we can start to learn from people who are different.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:39.920
Oh, I don't agree with that, but maybe there's something in that that I could integrate into what I do believe, or, you know, wow, that's a fascinating, different perspective.
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:42.079
Wow, they may be right.
00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:52.159
So it it's a much more inclusive um you know, the Greeks used to have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis came out of putting those two together.
00:37:52.880 --> 00:38:01.920
A much more synthetic in that way life where we start to take the best out of everybody instead of dismissing anybody who's not us as an idiot.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:12.079
I think that would be the biggest thing I would teach children is to listen for the listening that they're speaking into or that they're dealing with and to respect it.
00:38:12.159 --> 00:38:16.159
Aaron Powell Where can people go to learn more about you and what you do and what you teach?
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:19.920
Uh well I have a website, of course, studenttreasure.com.
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:25.519
Um I have a Substack newsletter, which is not quite as regular as I would like.
00:38:25.679 --> 00:38:32.639
I try and do it weekly, but it's more like fortnightly, uh, where I post about sound, listening, speaking, and presenting.
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:47.519
Um and um also I am active on social media, so I'd be delighted if people want to connect with me on LinkedIn particularly, um, then I do get to see some of that stuff and I do respond there.
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:55.840
Uh and as I say, I've got a my new course, The Sound Leader, which is aimed at squarely at CXOs, this one.
00:38:56.079 --> 00:39:01.119
Uh it's going to be a cohort of just 12 people this autumn for you.
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:09.599
Um and uh it is a live course, which is kind of unusual, but I think this is going to be really effective.
00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:18.800
So it's just 10 minutes a day with me live, Monday to Thursday, and then an hour of Q ⁇ A on Friday for eight weeks.
00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:29.679
And I'm going to be teaching everything I know to that group of 12 CXOs to turn them into masterful communicators and managers of sound.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:32.400
And uh I'm very excited about that.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:45.760
Um the reason I'm I'm squarely focused on CXOs is because I believe if I can show this and teach this to people who are running big organizations, then it's a big rock into the pond.
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:49.199
And a lot of ripples move out from that.
00:39:49.440 --> 00:40:00.159
So I'm actually having a substantial impact in the world and changing the world, changing the happiness, effectiveness, and well being of thousands of people, not just one.
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:01.840
So that's important.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.759
Listening is is the b the basis of the whole thing.
00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.879
You know, I I always talk about a pyramid in in my teaching.
00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:10.720
Listening, if you imagine a pyramid with three tiers, listening is the base.
00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:13.519
You can't communicate well if you can't listen.
00:00:13.759 --> 00:00:20.000
You can't be a good speaker if you can't listen, because you need to understand the people you're talking to every time.
00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.480
The middle tier is powerful speaking.
00:00:22.559 --> 00:00:24.559
So the bottom tier is conscious listening.
00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:27.519
That's the phrase I use, and we can unpack that in a moment.
00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:41.200
The middle tier is powerful speaking, and the top tier is presenting, where, you know, that that's kind of more formal and it's a sk it's a separate skill entirely, platform skills, being able to stand on a stage and hold an audience.
00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:45.200
So that's the stuff I focus on most of the time.
00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:52.240
And it all happens inside of a context, of course, which is the sound around us, which is how I got into this in in the first place.
00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:56.719
But the bass is listening, and it's the most forgotten skill.
00:00:56.880 --> 00:01:00.479
I mean, most people don't even realize it's a skill.
00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:02.960
It gets collapsed with hearing.
00:01:03.280 --> 00:01:04.640
Hearing is a capability.
00:01:04.799 --> 00:01:07.200
You don't have to do anything to hear, it's automatic.
00:01:07.359 --> 00:01:12.480
If you as long as you haven't got damaged hearing, which is now one in ten of the world's population.
00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:16.879
But if you hearing is just automatic, listening is a skill.
00:01:16.959 --> 00:01:24.640
It's a mental skill, it takes work, and if you're not conscious that you're listening, you're probably just hearing.
00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:26.400
And that's a different thing.
00:01:31.359 --> 00:01:33.920
Welcome everybody back to the Sean Trey Show.
00:01:34.079 --> 00:01:35.920
I'm here with an amazing guest today.
00:01:36.079 --> 00:01:38.719
Would you like to tell people who you are and what you do?
00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:39.920
By all means, yes.
00:01:40.079 --> 00:01:41.439
Well, thank you for inviting me, Sean.
00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:43.040
I'm Julian Treasure.
00:01:43.200 --> 00:02:05.040
I am a writer, speaker, and trainer on the subject of or four subjects actually, primarily conscious listening, powerful speaking, masterful presenting, and also effective business sound, by which I largely mean designing healthy and productive sonic environments for people.
00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:09.520
So those are the four things I I uh talk and write about.
00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:17.360
I have five TED Talks which have collectively been seen more than 140 million times on TED.com and the TED YouTube channel.
00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.360
Um one of them is the sixth most viewed TED Talk of all time.
00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:28.000
And I have three books, uh, Sound Business, How to Be Heard, and Sound Effects.
00:02:28.319 --> 00:02:38.080
And these days I travel the world delivering keynotes and workshops to take this message out into organizations, hopefully, largely.
00:02:38.319 --> 00:02:45.199
And um also I'm launching a new course this autumn called The Sound Leader, which we can talk about perhaps later on.
00:02:45.599 --> 00:02:46.800
I'd love to talk about all of it.
00:02:46.960 --> 00:02:52.240
I don't know if we have enough time, but I'm I'm excited and I'm you know fascinated at the same time.
00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:54.240
But I I want to I've got a question for you.
00:02:54.319 --> 00:03:01.520
Like, why do you think so many people feel unheard today, despite being more connected than at any point in human history?
00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:03.120
Aaron Powell Well, it's an interesting one, isn't it?
00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:18.800
And I think the answer there there's a clue to this in the fact that my TED talk about speaking, which is called How to Speak so that people want to listen, has been seen by six times as many people as my TED talk about listening.
00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:32.080
So I think largely the answer to your question, Sean, is you know, everybody, well, most people at least are conscious of the need to express themselves, of you know, the importance of speaking, having a voice.
00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:34.159
Being heard is a different thing.
00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:38.240
And the reason that most people don't feel heard is because nobody's listening.
00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:40.159
That's that's the problem.
00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:40.879
Right.
00:03:41.120 --> 00:03:45.680
We play like we're listening, but we're we're thinking about what we're gonna say.
00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:51.199
We're thinking about what we want to do, we think about where we want to take the conversation.
00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:57.199
And, you know, I I've been guilty of this many, many, many times.
00:03:57.280 --> 00:04:02.159
And I try to work at it, but I think that there's just constant distraction.
00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:04.639
There is constant distraction around us.
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:12.560
There is so many, there are so many things competing for our attention between not just like, I have to be very careful.
00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:14.400
I work in media and content.
00:04:14.479 --> 00:04:22.240
And there are certain social platforms that if I even open it up to go and do an activity that I need to do, I'm gone.
00:04:22.399 --> 00:04:25.279
I'm just like, I'll look back and I'm like 10 minutes later, I was like, what was I doing?
00:04:25.360 --> 00:04:29.279
And I have my my my my project management software open and I see it right there.
00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:32.079
And I was like, where did that rabbit hole come from?
00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:34.959
But you know, when it comes to listening, it's even worse.
00:04:35.279 --> 00:04:35.680
Absolutely.
00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:38.480
Well, we're all victims of the algorithm in that way, aren't we?
00:04:38.639 --> 00:04:43.600
And uh the tech is a big reason why listening has declined.
00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:46.240
All the evidence shows that listening is in decline.
00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:48.399
I call it an endangered species.
00:04:48.720 --> 00:04:56.000
Uh there are a lot of misconceptions about it and it's being uh eroded by huge forces.
00:04:56.240 --> 00:04:57.519
Tech is one of the biggest.
00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:06.879
I mean, there are some huge organizations who are spending billions and billions of dollars to seize your attention and mine at all times, because that's their currency, that's their product.
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:10.399
So, you know, they're they're pretty powerful and they're very good at it.
00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:18.639
And, you know, like you, if I go onto YouTube for more than 30 seconds, the algorithm puts something up that it knows I'm gonna go, oh, that's interesting.
00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:21.279
And the rabbit hole has opened up.
00:05:21.519 --> 00:05:27.920
So we have to be very careful and marshal our attention because listening requires attention.
00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:30.079
But there are other reasons why we don't listen.
00:05:30.240 --> 00:05:31.279
The world is noisy.
00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:36.240
We're a noisy bunch, and there are more than 8 billion of us and growing.
00:05:36.399 --> 00:05:40.160
Uh some of the, you know, half of humanity lives in cities now.
00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:43.040
And cities are very noisy places.
00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:47.040
In my book, Sound Effects, I've got a table of the noisiest cities in the world.
00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:49.519
Dhaka in Bangladesh is number one.
00:05:50.079 --> 00:05:55.439
The noise level, the average noise level, is 119 decibels in the streets of Dhaka.
00:05:55.759 --> 00:05:57.279
That's rock concert loud.
00:05:57.519 --> 00:06:00.319
How people can survive in that, I have no idea.
00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:05.120
But listening becomes something you don't want to do in a situation like that.
00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:09.600
You get used to blacking out the noise around you, just blanking it.
00:06:09.759 --> 00:06:23.360
And of course, then people put headphones on, and we all go into little bubbles of our own curated sound, which is very understandable in noisy offices or noisy streets or noisy, you know, tube trains or whatever it may be.
00:06:23.839 --> 00:06:26.079
But it cuts us off from other people.
00:06:26.399 --> 00:06:29.279
So there are a lot of reasons that we don't listen.
00:06:29.439 --> 00:06:34.240
They're all becoming more and more powerful as time goes on.
00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:39.040
And the problem is that listening is fundamental.
00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:48.240
It's the base of all human relationships, and it's the most powerful form of connection that we can form with another human being.
00:06:48.480 --> 00:07:04.399
And you can see the effects of not listening in all of the evidence we now see of increasing rates of loneliness, depression, anxiety, suicide, especially among the younger people, among digital native generations.
00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:13.040
So it's a major issue, and of course I don't even have to mention polarization, which everybody, I'm sure, is already thinking about as I speak.
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:28.319
Polarization in politics, polarization in society, violence, hatred, you know, uh objectifying other people, dismissing them, demeaning them, uh all of this kind of stuff can be solved by listening.
00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:33.519
And unfortunately, it's not something we teach our children at school for some strange reason.
00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:34.240
100%.
00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:35.519
100%.
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:37.839
And I I don't know why.
00:07:38.079 --> 00:07:44.800
I mean, it it I wonder if it's that the people that are teaching don't have those skills as well.
00:07:44.959 --> 00:07:46.480
They've never been taught, you know?
00:07:46.720 --> 00:07:50.639
And as we've drifted away, maybe people have forgotten those things.
00:07:50.959 --> 00:07:55.519
But I want to ask you like, what are the consequences of a society that has forgotten how to truly listen?
00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:56.639
What starts happening?
00:07:56.959 --> 00:08:05.279
Well, as we just touched on, polarization happens, uh, demonization of people who are different.
00:08:05.439 --> 00:08:11.439
I think, you know, if you want to boil it down to one thing, it's that difference becomes a threat.
00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:16.160
Because we can deal with difference by understanding people.
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:28.879
You know, if I'm living next door to somebody with whom I fundamentally disagree, which can happen in a democracy, and you know, if there's 51 of them and 49 of me, their can't the country gets run their way, not my way.
00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:32.080
I have to understand them.
00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:40.879
And we have created a kind of fiction that there's a zero-sum game here, which is if I'm right, you're wrong.
00:08:41.120 --> 00:08:42.720
If you're right, I'm wrong.
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.639
But that's not true.
00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:55.039
You can have two people with very different points of view, and they can both be right because of their own perspective, background, their own appreciation of the world.
00:08:55.120 --> 00:08:56.799
You know, we are different people.
00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:20.320
And being able to hold that, being able to understand that somebody can disagree with you and also be right, even if you feel you're right, that is the secret to unlocking so much of the conflict that we have in our societies, where people are judgmental and dismiss anybody who disagrees with them.
00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:35.919
And of course, this is all made worse again by the internet, by the echo chain chambers that get set up where people just surround themselves with views that are similar to theirs and don't ever encounter or understand or attempt to understand different views.
00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:45.039
You know, there's a there's a very powerful technique that I teach in uh in my classes, which is validation.
00:09:45.679 --> 00:09:48.559
And what that sounds like is Sean, do you know what?
00:09:48.639 --> 00:09:54.320
I don't agree with what you just said, but I can absolutely see why you believe that.
00:09:54.879 --> 00:09:58.559
Now that's so different from Sean, that's crap.
00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:01.919
Which is where we go in modern society.
00:10:02.159 --> 00:10:03.120
Sean, you're wrong.
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:04.159
That's rubbish.
00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:12.080
And if if if I respond in that way, the only thing that's going to happen there is escalated conflict and divisiveness.
00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:14.799
And that's where we are in society now.
00:10:14.960 --> 00:10:18.879
So I think that's the fundamental schism that we're dealing with.
00:10:19.039 --> 00:10:28.720
Cracks are appearing all over society because of the lack of willingness of people to validate different points of view, to live with people who are different.
00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:30.639
And that's so dangerous.
00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:38.000
I wonder about that all the time: being a father and trying to teach my daughter how to connect.
00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:47.919
One of the things that is a non-negotiable for me, with for my daughter and my nephews, is that at the dinner table, when we go out to eat as a family, the phones are put away.
00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:53.279
They are not able to sit there on devices, they're not able to stare down and try to converse because they don't.
00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:55.759
They just stare at the device and try to eat.
00:10:55.919 --> 00:10:57.440
And I say, you know what?
00:10:57.600 --> 00:11:00.320
If we're here and we're doing something social together, sit down.
00:11:00.399 --> 00:11:02.080
And my nephew's like, what am I gonna do?
00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:04.559
And I said, talk to the person next to you.
00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:06.720
You know, ask them a question.
00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:08.080
Tell them something.
00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.559
Tell them about this cool thing you learned.
00:11:10.720 --> 00:11:12.799
I'm not saying that the phones are bad.
00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:15.440
They have so much knowledge that these kids can tap into.
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.000
My nephew knows so much about science that at his age I had no idea.
00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:26.639
My daughter uses YouTube to find cool patterns and things that she wants to create.
00:11:27.120 --> 00:11:34.399
But the danger is that when we come together, that we stay there on those devices and not stare at each other.
00:11:34.480 --> 00:11:44.480
But you know, I wanted to ask you this because you'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't be surprised, at the number of people that come on my podcast and talk about loneliness.
00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:48.559
They talk about the challenges people face, even though we are surrounded.
00:11:48.879 --> 00:11:56.879
And I want to ask, like, how much of loneliness and division and polarization we see today is actually a communicate communication problem.
00:11:57.200 --> 00:11:59.679
I I think the vast majority of it, to be honest.
00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:04.559
And um, listening is is the the basis of the whole thing.
00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:07.679
You know, I I always talk about a pyramid in in my teaching.
00:12:07.840 --> 00:12:11.519
Listening, if you imagine a pyramid with three tiers, listening is the base.
00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.320
You can't communicate well if you can't listen.
00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:20.799
You can't be a good speaker if you can't listen, because you need to understand the people you're talking to every time.
00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:25.360
The middle tier is powerful speaking, so the bottom tier is conscious listening.
00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:28.320
That's the phrase I use, and we can unpack that in a moment.
00:12:28.480 --> 00:12:42.000
The middle tier is powerful speaking, and the top tier is presenting, where you know that that's kind of more formal, and it's a sk it's a separate skill entirely, platform skills, being able to stand on a stage and hold an audience.
00:12:42.320 --> 00:12:53.039
So that's the stuff I focus on most of the time, and it all happens inside of a context, of course, which is the sound around us, which is how I got into this in in the first place.
00:12:53.279 --> 00:12:57.519
Uh but the bass is listening, and it's the most forgotten skill.
00:12:57.679 --> 00:13:01.279
I mean, most people don't even realize it's a skill.
00:13:01.440 --> 00:13:03.759
It gets collapsed with hearing.
00:13:04.080 --> 00:13:05.440
Hearing is a capability.
00:13:05.600 --> 00:13:08.000
You don't have to do anything to hear, it's automatic.
00:13:08.159 --> 00:13:13.279
If you as long as you haven't got damaged hearing, which is now one in ten of the world's population.
00:13:13.519 --> 00:13:17.600
But if you hearing is just automatic, listening is a skill.
00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:25.440
It's a mental skill, it takes work, and if you're not conscious that you're listening, you're probably just hearing.
00:13:25.679 --> 00:13:27.440
And that's a different thing.
00:13:27.679 --> 00:13:29.519
And there are many ways of listening.
00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:43.120
I talk about listening positions in my work, and you know, you mentioned one earlier, which is uh the one Stephen Covey made famous, listening to respond, which is what an awful lot of people do most of the time, really.
00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:49.759
You know, while you're talking, I'm composing my next brilliant bit of monologue, and I call it speech writing.
00:13:49.919 --> 00:14:05.519
Uh so I'm not really listening to you, and it often gives rise to the anyway interjection where I just dismiss what you were talking about and move on to what I want to talk about, which is it is dismissive, and people get upset if you do that to them, um, certainly if you do it regularly.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:09.120
Uh because we we all want three things in this world.
00:14:09.279 --> 00:14:13.039
We want to be heard, understood, and valued.
00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:13.440
Right.
00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:16.960
And listening does all three of those things.
00:14:17.200 --> 00:14:20.000
So that's why listening is so important.
00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:22.080
But there are many ways to listen.
00:14:22.240 --> 00:14:30.799
And the reason I use the phrase conscious listening, I mean, many people have come across what people talk about as active listening, and that's not what I teach.
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:33.120
It's one way of listening.
00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:39.120
It tends to be a little bit performative, I think, when it's taught in management training seminars and so forth.
00:14:39.200 --> 00:14:49.360
You know, tick the box, look at the person, respond, repeat back what they said, and try to do something about it later, you know, and then you've tick the box for active listening and you move on.
00:14:49.759 --> 00:14:53.519
I think it's a much bigger issue than that, listening.
00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:56.080
Listening is a step to consciousness.
00:14:56.320 --> 00:15:02.399
It's a very important part of enhanced consciousness and of being more present as a human being.
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:04.559
And there are many ways to listen.
00:15:04.720 --> 00:15:15.600
The key thing is to be conscious of how you're listening and ask yourself, is this the best way I can listen right now in this conversation with this person?
00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:20.399
And then move yourself into the appropriate listening position.
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:22.879
Now that's what I call conscious listening.
00:15:23.120 --> 00:15:36.559
There's nothing wrong with distracted listening, you know, if I'm tapping away at my phone, uh, you know, I'm uh when people tap away and they're saying, I am listening, well, it's it's not a very deep form of listening, that it's distracted listening or partial listening.
00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:44.320
And it's fine if some if you're having a bit of banter with somebody, or you know, they're telling you a little joke, or it's it's very light and frothy conversation.
00:15:44.639 --> 00:15:56.559
But if somebody is pouring their heart out to you, or it's something complicated or very important, that's the time to go, well, one second, let me just finish this, I'll put it down, then I can listen to you.
00:15:56.799 --> 00:16:01.519
And that's moving your listening position to something that's more appropriate.
00:16:02.080 --> 00:16:06.960
Being unconscious about that gives rise to so much miscommunication in the world.
00:16:07.039 --> 00:16:12.000
And we know now that that has such a cost in conflict and also in business.
00:16:12.159 --> 00:16:20.879
I mean, there's a survey recently that found that miscommunication is costing American business, wait for it,$1.2 trillion a year.
00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:22.320
That's insane.
00:16:22.639 --> 00:16:44.000
Because, but you think about it, it makes complete sense because we are sitting there and you know, yesterday I had a miscommunication with someone, and it resulted in some pretty big problems because both people were in here, not paying attention out here.
00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:57.919
And when I think about that, um, it could have been fixed, it couldn't have been avoided if we simply had of listened to where the other person was at and where they were coming from and what they were saying.
00:16:58.159 --> 00:17:03.440
But everyone was too caught up in their own space and their own thing and their own stuff.
00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:16.480
And I think that one of the secrets that I'm learning is that if I really want to communicate well, I have to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.
00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:17.599
I'm trying to do this.
00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:19.839
I used to think I could multitask.
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:21.920
I am realizing that I cannot.
00:17:22.079 --> 00:17:23.839
And I don't think anyone really can.
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:34.319
And I think that's a, you know, if you want to do I I had a project management guest on, and he said that if you want to do something well, you do it one thing at a time and you go all the way to the end.
00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:38.480
Because if you try to balance all this different stuff, it you can't.
00:17:38.720 --> 00:17:39.519
You just can't.
00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:43.599
You will get distracted and you're doing 50% of what you could be doing.
00:17:43.839 --> 00:17:45.279
You know, and that's a danger.
00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:55.119
Well, we know that multitasking is impossible in the brain, but what what you do is you flit from one thing to the other thing very quickly, bouncing back and forth.
00:17:55.279 --> 00:18:09.200
And uh y that can happen at a slower pace with, you know, butterflying around with 50 tasks you've got to do today, and you're jumping from one to the other every few minutes, which again, you know, some people can work that way, but it may not be the most productive way.
00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:12.079
I'm I'm a big fan of focus, as you just described.
00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:18.640
Uh, you know, when I write a book, I just kind of lock myself away and the world doesn't exist for quite a long time.
00:18:18.799 --> 00:18:20.480
My family have to put up with it.
00:18:20.640 --> 00:18:24.160
Um so yeah, I think focus is very important.
00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:29.039
Um, but communicating is about getting the ball over the net, isn't it?
00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:44.960
So whether you're talking or listening, this is a transaction and it requires both ends to be there, which is why so many people don't feel heard because they they're talking to somebody who's not listening, and then they they get obsessed about the sending end of this.
00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:48.640
It's like with education, you know, we're obsessed about the sending of education.
00:18:48.799 --> 00:18:49.920
How good are the teachers?
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:51.519
How good is the curriculum?
00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:56.559
We don't ever think about the receiving of the education.
00:18:56.880 --> 00:18:59.279
So can the students hear?
00:18:59.440 --> 00:19:03.119
Well, most of them can't because acoustics in schoolrooms are terrible.
00:19:03.279 --> 00:19:06.559
So we've got a hearing problem in the first place.
00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:08.960
And then do we teach them how to listen?
00:19:09.119 --> 00:19:11.359
No, they don't even know it's a skill.
00:19:11.599 --> 00:19:16.000
And so huge amounts of that very carefully curated education.
00:19:16.079 --> 00:19:21.599
It's like, you know, spraying a sprinkler all over a garden and missing the flowers completely.
00:19:21.680 --> 00:19:26.160
It just gets wasted because we are not focusing on receiving.
00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:27.920
Receiving is critical.
00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:33.440
So, you know, I have tools which I teach on both ends of this uh delivery.
00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:38.319
And the receiving, you know, there's a very simple way you can improve your receiving in a conversation.
00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:44.079
It's a tool I call rasa, which stands for receive, appreciate, summarize, ask.
00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:45.440
R-A-S-A.
00:19:46.319 --> 00:19:48.400
Appreciate, summarize, ask.
00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:51.680
Receive means paying attention to the person.
00:19:52.319 --> 00:20:02.880
And that generally means eye contact, which is very important and it helps you to listen far better if you're not looking around or doing something else.
00:20:03.200 --> 00:20:09.200
Appreciate is the little noises and gestures that we make to show that we are actually in the conversation.
00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:15.359
So as you're doing or eyebrow raises, head bobs, you know, whatever it may be.
00:20:15.680 --> 00:20:17.759
Summarize is critical.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:20.240
So when you finish speaking, I go, okay.
00:20:20.559 --> 00:20:22.559
So what I understood you to say is this.
00:20:22.640 --> 00:20:23.599
Did I get you?
00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:37.440
And that means I'm confirming that I received what you sent, which is always, not always the case, very often not the case, because we filter stuff through our own perception and so forth.
00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:40.319
So that summarize is a big check.
00:20:40.480 --> 00:20:47.440
And it's important, you know, if you're having a long conversation, you can do that to lock down bits of the conversation.
00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:51.519
It's the word so, which is a very important word, especially in a meeting.
00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:52.880
So we've all agreed that.
00:20:52.960 --> 00:20:54.400
Now can we move on to this?
00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:58.720
And if you don't have a so person in the meeting, it can be a very, very long meeting.
00:20:58.880 --> 00:21:03.519
And then the A is ask, of course, questions ask all the way through, ask at the end.
00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:19.599
Ideally questions which uh start with W, you know, the why, what, which, when, where, who questions which do not permit the answer yes or no, and are a great way to engage somebody when you're trying to build a relationship with somebody.
00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:27.119
And there's a wonderful magic phrase you can use at the end of what they've said, which is tell me more about that.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:31.599
That is a wonderful phrase because everybody likes to feel interesting.
00:21:31.759 --> 00:21:35.200
And if you finish speaking and I go, sure, tell me more about that.
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:36.319
That's really interesting.
00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:47.440
You immediately have a little surge of probably endorphins or you know, some sort of uh happy neurotransmitter which is going, ah, he likes me, he's interested, this is good.
00:21:47.680 --> 00:21:49.039
You know, we all like that.
00:21:49.279 --> 00:21:54.559
And it can really help to make a conversation flow and to build a relationship.
00:21:54.799 --> 00:21:56.400
So that's rasa.
00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:57.359
It does work.
00:21:57.920 --> 00:21:59.279
Can you tell me more about that?
00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:14.559
Is Beautiful, and it's one of the most powerful things that I can think of because when my daughter comes in, and right now she's on summer vacation, I try to I have my own business and I try to balance the time with her with being present with her.
00:22:15.200 --> 00:22:23.279
Um but yet I get full sometimes, and I have to tell her, um, slow down, give me a second.
00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:26.079
I can't I gotta finish this and I'm coming, and I turn to you.
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:28.000
And I do that with all of my staff, actually.
00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:32.240
I say, give me a second to let me finish this, and then I will come and give you my attention.
00:22:32.480 --> 00:22:37.440
And when I give my daughter my attention and she tells me something, I have two options.
00:22:37.599 --> 00:22:40.799
Option one, thank you for telling me that, and then turning back to the work.
00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:44.400
Or option two, going deeper and asking more.
00:22:44.480 --> 00:22:50.640
And I'm not perfect at this, but now that you bring it up, I have noticed that when I say, can you tell me more about that?
00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:57.200
The lights shine, the smile emerges, and it just this connection happens.
00:22:57.279 --> 00:23:01.599
It's a deeper connection than just, yes, let's do it.
00:23:01.759 --> 00:23:06.079
Um, okay, thank you for that, and moving on, you know, and I think that that's powerful.
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:12.079
But like, I want to ask you about mistakes because I know I make a ton of them, but I'm sure we all do.
00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:21.200
But what is the biggest mistake, the communication mistake leaders make that quietly destroys trust inside their families, teams, or organizations?
00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:28.079
Yeah, it's an imbalance and an over-emphasis on speaking.
00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:35.200
And I actually think there's an inverse relationship between seniority in organizations and listening.
00:23:35.440 --> 00:23:37.759
And there are quite a few reasons for that.
00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:42.000
First of all, as you get senior, you're supposed to know stuff.
00:23:42.480 --> 00:23:47.119
So you're much more inclined to be telling people things than asking questions.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:23:50.319
There's a humility aspect to listening.
00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:56.640
Um, because when I'm listening to you, I'm saying, at this moment, Sean, you're more important than I am.
00:23:57.279 --> 00:24:07.519
And leaders have a problem with that, because as you get very senior in an organization, your ego builds and gets rather inflated, and you're the most important person in the room.
00:24:07.680 --> 00:24:10.400
So you should be the person talking, not them.
00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:17.200
So I think that all of these kind of influences tend to mean that leaders don't listen well.
00:24:17.279 --> 00:24:18.240
And we know that's true.
00:24:18.400 --> 00:24:25.440
There was a s a study recently, um, I think it was by LinkedIn, of 14,000 employees.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:30.640
Only one in 12 of them rated their leader as a very good listener.
00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:35.920
So that's 11 out of 12 saying they're not a very good listener, which is not great.
00:24:36.160 --> 00:24:39.200
And the results of that are devastating in business.
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:42.319
Because you get people who eventually shut up.
00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:52.880
If you don't listen to somebody who's bouncing out, you know, around being tiggerish and having lots of ideas, if they don't get listened to, they eventually go quiet and then they leave.
00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:55.200
And they may be the best person you ever had, you know.
00:24:55.279 --> 00:24:56.400
That's what happens to people.
00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:02.079
They get disengaged and they get demotivated and they they don't bother.
00:25:02.319 --> 00:25:13.200
And the the cost of that globally is estimated to be$8.8 trillion a year to global business, the cost of disengagement.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:14.640
It's massive.
00:25:16.480 --> 00:25:25.279
You may think you've got different problems, high staff turnover, conflict in teams, or shoddy teamworking, or mistakes, or uh all these sorts of things.
00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.160
To me, they're all one problem, wearing different clothes.
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.000
It's a problem of listening.
00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:38.960
And if you have a leader who's not listening, that culture tends to propagate all the way down through an organization.
00:25:39.119 --> 00:25:56.559
So to create a listening organization, it's very important that you have uh a commitment to listening at the top and some sort of back channel, you know, so it's not just management giving a town hall for 50 minutes and having two pre-arranged questions and then calling that communication.
00:25:57.119 --> 00:25:58.960
And that's that's one way.
00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:04.720
And we're very, very tempted to communicate in that sort of one-to-many way all the time.
00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:05.599
Yep, done.
00:26:05.759 --> 00:26:08.079
The new mission is out there, everybody understands it.
00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:09.440
Well, no, they don't.
00:26:09.599 --> 00:26:15.039
And you haven't given them, excuse me, you haven't given them an opportunity to ask questions.
00:26:15.279 --> 00:26:19.680
And it may even be that asking questions is stigmatized.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:21.359
Well, you mean you didn't understand that?
00:26:21.519 --> 00:26:22.559
That's perfectly plain.
00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:24.000
What are you talking about?
00:26:24.319 --> 00:26:32.960
So if you kind of stigmatize people who pipe up and say, well, that wasn't very clear to me, then you're never going to get the pushback.
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:38.079
You won't get the understanding that, whoa, so almost everybody has said they didn't understand that.
00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:39.839
We need to rephrase it.
00:26:40.240 --> 00:26:54.000
But if you've got this kind of omerta, it's not permitted, you have to pretend that you've got everything first time, otherwise you're you're thick, then you can be communicating the absolute rubbish and you wouldn't know.
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:58.720
And you never find out what's going on, what's really going on in the organization.
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:12.240
If you don't have the back channels, if you don't encourage uh stuff to come up, which may be great ideas, or it may be, you know, the first signs of a really big problem, which if ignored is going to be, you know, potentially terminal.
00:27:12.559 --> 00:27:15.279
So many, many reasons for not listening.
00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.559
Leaders are not good at it, and there's a massive cost.
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:22.880
So I'm I'm trying to work a work on a more positive spin on this.
00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:26.559
I'm trying to work out what is the return on listening.
00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:28.319
You know, we all know ROI.
00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:30.000
Well, I want there to be an ROL.
00:27:30.400 --> 00:27:32.880
Because at the moment, this is hidden.
00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:35.920
And my problem is that we have a world in denial.
00:27:36.079 --> 00:27:40.400
You know, almost everybody thinks they're a good listener, and almost nobody is.
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:44.160
So there's this huge gap that nobody's aware of.
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:52.160
And this is the wall of denial that I'm booting the whole time and trying to make holes in so that people understand this is a critical skill.
00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:55.440
And there are so many advantages to learning how to do it well.
00:27:55.839 --> 00:27:57.359
I have a question for you then.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:04.559
You know, we've talked about the problems and how things are not necessarily going right right now.
00:28:04.880 --> 00:28:06.559
But how do we change it?
00:28:06.960 --> 00:28:10.240
What is conscious listen can't even talk today.
00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:11.519
It's one of those days.
00:28:11.759 --> 00:28:15.200
What does conscious listening actually look like in practice?
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:17.839
And and why is it so powerful and how do we do it?
00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.759
Well, I think in a perfect world, it starts at school.
00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:28.000
And you know, I'm I'm it it's very difficult to change educational curricula.
00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:30.880
Uh we have seen signs of movement.
00:28:31.039 --> 00:28:37.039
In the UK, they're starting to teach something called orasy, which is a parallel to literacy.
00:28:37.359 --> 00:28:41.279
But unfortunately, what they mean by oracy is the ability to speak.
00:28:41.440 --> 00:28:44.960
Well, that's very important, but it's only one side of the coin.
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:47.839
It's the middle tier in the pyramid, not the base.
00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:50.720
So they're not talking about teaching children how to listen.
00:28:50.880 --> 00:28:51.839
That's the start.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:56.559
If we start to teach children how to listen, we can transform the world in a generation.
00:28:57.680 --> 00:29:09.200
If that's not done, then we have to take older people and transform their understanding, which is my mission, my life is my mission is to regenerate the world's listening.
00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:33.119
So that is going to involve persuading CEOs and leaders, ideally also political leaders, of the importance of listening and of the sanctity of it, the the critical element that it is in a successful society slash organization, slash team, slash family.
00:29:33.839 --> 00:29:38.400
So that's what I'm setting out to do, but it's a huge task.
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:42.720
And you know, I really welcome anybody who wants to get on this bandwagon with me.
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:45.119
Um and you know, I've had some success.
00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.359
The TED Talks have been seen 150 million times or whatever it is.
00:29:49.519 --> 00:29:56.319
Uh so you know, that's good, but it's still a drop in the ocean compared to the world's population.
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:02.880
And the number of people are completely unconscious of the need to listen well and how to do it.
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:08.720
Uh training, you know, obviously, training is going to be the way to do it in organizations.
00:30:09.279 --> 00:30:15.839
It's very interesting, isn't it, that listening is acknowledged as an important skill when people are recruiting.
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:21.920
So they always put good listener near the top of the list of things you want for somebody when you're recruiting them.
00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:25.279
But the moment you've got them, it's forgotten.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:27.119
It's taken for granted.
00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:31.920
So we've got somebody who's a good listener in inverted commas, and we don't have to do anything about that.
00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:33.359
We don't rate them.
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:35.759
It's not in the 360-degree review.
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:38.640
There's no question about is this person a good listener?
00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:41.599
There's no reward for being a good listener.
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.519
I mean, does any organization pay people more for being good listeners?
00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:46.799
I don't think so.
00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:52.720
So the it's kind of immediately forgotten about not trained and so forth.
00:30:52.880 --> 00:30:54.000
We need to train.
00:30:54.160 --> 00:30:56.240
We need training programs on listening.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:30:58.400
We need to understand the return on this.
00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:05.200
So, for example, we know that the most successful salespeople listen twice as much as they speak.
00:31:05.599 --> 00:31:10.559
The least successful salespeople speak twice as much as they listen.
00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:17.359
And that's coming from research in the field of thousands and thousands of B2B sales calls.
00:31:17.599 --> 00:31:19.519
So, you know, there is a return on this.
00:31:19.680 --> 00:31:31.920
When we have people who really understand the importance of listening and can do it well, they sell more, businesses are more successful, teams work better, people are more engaged, there's less mistakes and miscommunication.
00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:42.240
So somehow we have to get this message into the mainstream of leadership and have people understand that it's it's not innate.
00:31:42.559 --> 00:31:44.160
Listening is not a capability.
00:31:44.319 --> 00:31:49.279
It's a it's a very important skill that needs to be invested in everywhere.
00:31:49.759 --> 00:31:50.640
I 100% agree.
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:54.079
I think it's interesting to see how people can do that.
00:31:54.319 --> 00:31:57.039
You know, I do it with my daughter.
00:31:57.279 --> 00:31:58.640
I try to slow her down.
00:31:58.720 --> 00:32:02.000
And one of the things we try to do is just to simply be more mindful.
00:32:02.640 --> 00:32:11.839
And one of the ways that we're doing mindfulness is just to breathe, just take those moments where we're not putting things out and we're allowing things to come in.
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:18.960
But you know, I want to ask you like, how can you tell when someone is genuinely listening versus simply waiting for their turn to speak?
00:32:19.119 --> 00:32:22.880
How do you know if they're just sitting there biting their time, you know?
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:24.799
Well, uh, you don't.
00:32:25.039 --> 00:32:35.440
And I I would also say there's no future in going around telling people that they're not very good listeners because we all like to think we are, and you'll get a pretty abrupt response if you say to somebody, do you know what?
00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:36.799
You're a terrible listener.
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:45.279
So um what you can do with people who are poor listeners is make appointments to listen for them to listen to you.
00:32:45.519 --> 00:32:48.160
So, Sean, I've got something really important to say to you.
00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:51.599
Can you give me five minutes of your undivided attention?
00:32:51.839 --> 00:32:54.400
And if you say yes, then we have a contract.
00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:56.640
And everybody likes to be true to their word.
00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:05.440
So if you start doing your email in my five minutes, I think I have a right to say, Sean, oh, you did say five minutes of undivided attention, is that okay still with you?
00:33:05.680 --> 00:33:06.079
Not now?
00:33:06.240 --> 00:33:08.400
Well, maybe later, what time would be good for you?
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:10.160
You know, make an appointment to listen.
00:33:10.400 --> 00:33:15.200
That's a good way of dealing with many people in the world who don't listen uh inveterately.
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:20.640
You know, they they talk, talk, talk, or interrupt or uh just don't take things on board.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:28.799
Um so that's that's that's one important thing uh which can improve the situation in a business.
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:34.240
Um I think silence, you you you talked about silence, that's very important.
00:33:34.640 --> 00:33:38.400
And many people don't have a very good relationship with silence.
00:33:39.279 --> 00:33:47.200
And it's critical not only for listening, because of course listening requires you being silent, but it's also very important for speaking.
00:33:47.519 --> 00:34:00.240
One of the biggest problems or mistakes that I see people making when I'm training people, you know, I train people who've got TEDx talks coming up, or uh people who've got an important talk that they can they've got to give.
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:05.440
And very often I'll find when we start working that they gabble.
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:08.400
They don't feel comfortable stopping.
00:34:09.280 --> 00:34:12.880
Now, just that little stop I did there, you know, it's half a second.
00:34:13.119 --> 00:34:15.280
I can I can stop for far longer than that.
00:34:15.440 --> 00:34:21.760
But you know, when you're talking about radio or broadcast media, people feel uncomfortable because it's called dead air.
00:34:21.920 --> 00:34:29.840
But if you're on a stage and you're speaking and you make an important point, you can just stop and let it settle like that.
00:34:30.079 --> 00:34:45.199
Now, people who are uncomfortable with silence don't feel comfortable doing that, and they'll fill that with anyway, so uh, you know, and you move on, or you have all the filler words, the ums and uhs, and you know what it means, and all of those things which fill every gap.
00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:51.840
And if it's all filled, you know, there's no light and shade, there's no uh dynamic to the talking.
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:55.679
It becomes just a stream, and it's very hard to keep with people's attention.
00:34:55.840 --> 00:35:02.559
So silence is a hugely important tool, and it's of course critical for listening.
00:35:02.719 --> 00:35:10.239
So I do recommend, dear listeners to this, give yourself three minutes of silence a couple of times a day.
00:35:10.880 --> 00:35:12.079
Just sit quietly.
00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:24.000
You don't have to meditate, you don't have to do anything else, just sit with the silence, and your ears will recalibrate, you'll be able to listen afresh, because you've stopped the noise for a little bit.
00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:32.079
And it's also connecting you with something that's very important, which is to be comfortable with silence.
00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:37.119
And that's something that many people who live in cities particularly feel uncomfortable with.
00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:46.400
You know, they I know a lot of people who come into a quiet room and they want to put something on, you know, put the TV on, put put put music on, or let's start talking, or you know, can't deal with this.
00:35:46.559 --> 00:35:49.199
They come to the country and they go, Oh, it's so quiet.
00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:55.199
Well, it's great to be comfortable with that, because it's the baseline for all sound.
00:35:55.360 --> 00:35:58.719
And it's you know you have to have the valley in order to have the peak.
00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:01.119
I want to ask you this question.
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:08.159
If you could teach every 10-year-old one communication skill, it would transform their future, what would it be?
00:36:08.719 --> 00:36:25.280
I think it would be to understand the complex nature of listening, to understand this is a wonderful uh kind of organic process that you can really start to investigate and master.
00:36:25.360 --> 00:36:27.920
You can go very, very, very deep into listening.
00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:39.519
Um I think if I boiled it down to one thing, it would be um one of the most important things I teach about listening again, which is that every human being's listening is unique.
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:43.679
So your listening, Sean, is different from mine.
00:36:44.079 --> 00:36:47.360
We listen through a whole set of filters, these build up through our whole lives.
00:36:47.519 --> 00:37:01.599
I won't go into what they all are now, but if you understand that nobody listens like I do, you're not making the most fundamental mistake which most people make when they're speaking, which is assuming everybody listens like I do.
00:37:01.840 --> 00:37:02.320
They don't.
00:37:02.480 --> 00:37:03.360
It's not you.
00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:09.679
And if that's your assumption, you're basically going around talking to yourself the whole time, which isn't very effective because it's not you.
00:37:10.079 --> 00:37:30.480
Now, if children can understand that, if we can teach children that everybody's listening is different, every human being's different, and to embrace that difference and not see it as a threat to their existence or their ego, we would be in a very different situation where we can start to learn from people who are different.
00:37:30.639 --> 00:37:39.920
Oh, I don't agree with that, but maybe there's something in that that I could integrate into what I do believe, or, you know, wow, that's a fascinating, different perspective.
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:42.079
Wow, they may be right.
00:37:42.559 --> 00:37:52.159
So it it's a much more inclusive um you know, the Greeks used to have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis came out of putting those two together.
00:37:52.880 --> 00:38:01.920
A much more synthetic in that way life where we start to take the best out of everybody instead of dismissing anybody who's not us as an idiot.
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:12.079
I think that would be the biggest thing I would teach children is to listen for the listening that they're speaking into or that they're dealing with and to respect it.
00:38:12.159 --> 00:38:16.159
Aaron Powell Where can people go to learn more about you and what you do and what you teach?
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:19.920
Uh well I have a website, of course, studenttreasure.com.
00:38:20.159 --> 00:38:25.519
Um I have a Substack newsletter, which is not quite as regular as I would like.
00:38:25.679 --> 00:38:32.639
I try and do it weekly, but it's more like fortnightly, uh, where I post about sound, listening, speaking, and presenting.
00:38:32.880 --> 00:38:47.519
Um and um also I am active on social media, so I'd be delighted if people want to connect with me on LinkedIn particularly, um, then I do get to see some of that stuff and I do respond there.
00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:55.840
Uh and as I say, I've got a my new course, The Sound Leader, which is aimed at squarely at CXOs, this one.
00:38:56.079 --> 00:39:01.119
Uh it's going to be a cohort of just 12 people this autumn for you.
00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:09.599
Um and uh it is a live course, which is kind of unusual, but I think this is going to be really effective.
00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:18.800
So it's just 10 minutes a day with me live, Monday to Thursday, and then an hour of Q ⁇ A on Friday for eight weeks.
00:39:19.039 --> 00:39:29.679
And I'm going to be teaching everything I know to that group of 12 CXOs to turn them into masterful communicators and managers of sound.
00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:32.400
And uh I'm very excited about that.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:45.760
Um the reason I'm I'm squarely focused on CXOs is because I believe if I can show this and teach this to people who are running big organizations, then it's a big rock into the pond.
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:49.199
And a lot of ripples move out from that.
00:39:49.440 --> 00:40:00.159
So I'm actually having a substantial impact in the world and changing the world, changing the happiness, effectiveness, and well being of thousands of people, not just one.
00:40:00.800 --> 00:40:01.840
So that's important.
