Turn Listening Into A Superpower

In a world saturated with noise – podcasts, audiobooks, videos, talk shows, webinars – what the world doesn’t lack is content. Yet, there are scores of new podcasters, new writers, new TV shows, new films, an amplification of the clutter that already swirls around us. As a writer, who is paradoxically contributing to the din, I can’t help but dwell on human aspects that are simultaneously shrinking or disappearing. Besides the alarming erosion in bio species, as a planet, we are possibly losing two critical tribes: deep readers and deep listeners.

It’s unsurprising then, that Ximena Vengoechea, who has worked as a user researcher for many top technology enterprises, including LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest, found that “listening” is not something modern humans are necessarily good at. After all, as she notes, listening, unlike binge-watching, is not a passive exercise; it requires the active participation of the listener. “Showing up – without engagement, attention, and encouragement – is not enough.” She found too, as she honed her own listening skills as a researcher, that listening could be turned into a sort of superpower in all relationships – with bosses, with colleagues, with friends and family members. Moreover good listeners, like good researchers, can be trained to exude certain qualities: “curiosity, empathy, and the ability to ask thoughtful questions.”

Engage in Empathetic Listening

Most of us engage in what Ximena calls “surface listening.” This is the kind of listening in which we imbibe the literal content of the speaker, but not the emotional undercurrents, or the subtext or other body language cues. It’s also the kind of listening where we allow our own assumptions and opinions to cloud what the speaker might be saying – while we signal our disinterest or distractedness. Like thumbing through our own phones while they talk, interrupting their speech before they have finished, or steering the conversation to topics we are more interested in. Instead, Ximena suggests we should engage in “empathetic listening” – which forges connections with others rather than thrusting our worldviews or cleverer arguments into tired ears. With this form of listening, we are more likely to hear all levels of a message – the literal words, the subtext and the feelings.

And fortunately, as Ximena puts it, there’s a payback to such listening: “The more we tune in to others, the more they tune in to us.”

Adopt Humility

Humility, without being patronizing, is particularly important with all kinds of research – user research, design thinking projects and also social science projects. The researcher or ethnographer has to make the participant feel like they are talking to a non-judgmental human being – someone who will not be hurt if their own design or product is criticized, someone who will be open to discomfiting feedback. This is easier in theory, more difficult in practice. Ximena starts by telling participants: “You cannot hurt my feelings.” In other words, she invites them to be outright critical, while retaining a neutral and interested expression.

Some of the conscious practices Ximena recommends to exude humility include:

a)     Dropping preconceived notions – Don’t keep thinking of your own opinions or comebacks as they are speaking.

b)    Abjuring judgment: A difference of opinion is just different – “not better or worse.”

c)     Assume the other is an expert

Stay Curious

According to psychologist Todd Kashdan, curious people are more attractive than the incurious. Curiosity is also a form of social currency. Curious folks are more likely to forge relationships with strangers, and even reach surprising levels of intimacy with new connections, at any stage in their lives. As Kashdan puts it, “Being interested is more important in cultivating a relationship and maintaining a relationship than being interesting.”

Curiosity cannot just be felt. It has to be demonstrated. If your eyes glaze over while listening to a colleague, or if you start looking at your phone, you are going to dampen your speaker’s enthusiasm. Ximena suggests for the seemingly desultory interactions – like with your family members, or colleagues – try to find a new “in” that can tug you into the conversation. Even if everything else they might be saying sounds repetitive or banal, you might be able to pick up small details that arouse your interest.

Be Present

Speakers can very quickly intuit when you are sleepy, distracted, bored, or zoning out while they chatter on about a topic that excites them. While most of us cannot turn into empathetic and deep listeners for all hours of the day, or even with all people, she suggests that for significant conversations, we should schedule them when we are able to “be present.” As in, you definitely do not want to pick a time of day when you are exhausted – like early mornings if you are a night owl. Being present in turn, requires self-awareness, trust and patience.

If, for example, you have a stressful conversation with your boss and then immediately after that, your subordinate approaches you with a seemingly trivial problem, your mind is likely to keep revolving around the previous conversation and you are unlikely to attend to the subordinate’s issue. In that case, telling yourself that you are stressed about the previous conversation is a beginning. In other words, it helps to verbalize what is going on inside your brain rather than just allowing thoughts to take siege. Naming feelings helps distance yourself from them. Ximena dismisses her own thoughts with a jaunty, “Thanks for the visit, but you can go now.” As she puts it: “When we name our wandering thoughts for what they are, we can choose what to do with them.”

Just like storytellers intentionally deploy emotions to draw readers in – researchers also ought to attend to user feelings, more than the other minutiae. And then they can dig deeper into the details that lead to those feelings, whether negative or positive.

Choose When To Be Empathetic

While Ximena offers a whole host of other techniques to become more empathetic and expansive in our listening, she also cautions against listening too much and all the time. After all, listening takes energy. For instance, if you have particular relationships where the speaker drains your energy by pouring out all their woes, and you are feeling depleted by the interaction, you might want to consciously shrink those conversations. After all, as human beings, we have limited stores of empathy too. If we offer it to one and all, we may not have enough for the ones who really need it in our lives. Sometimes, it makes sense, even with friends and family, to think like a financier. Surely, you can’t burn through your internal resources just to end up bankrupt?

References

Ximena Vengoechea, Listen Like You Mean It: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection, Portfolio, Penguin Random House, 2021