The Power of Deep Listening
Jules Roberts is an executive coach and therapist. As a leader in Starbucks, she led the North of England and Scotland opening 2 new markets in Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland. Throughout her career, she has worked with a diverse range of people from prisoners to Politicians. She joined Leaders in Conversation to talk about the transformative power of deep listening practices in the workplace. Here’s some of what she said.
To thrive as a human, we want to feel safe, to know where we belong, to feel trusted. We also want to be listened to and be heard. If we provide the right environment for our people and we see them as humans first, then we can support them to do their best.
We’re not employing resources. We’re employing human beings. Not one of us knows the whole answer so why wouldn’t we want to listen to what the wonderful human beings we’ve employed have got to say? As leaders, we don’t need to know all the answers, but we do need our experts to know them, and we need them to be passionate and care about what it is they’re doing. So to have all of that richness around you and not to hear it or to listen to it, is a lost resource to your business.
All too often when listening, we are caught up with our own internal dialogue: “What do they mean? I’m really hungry. . . I should have had lunch. Do I actually want to listen to this? I don’t have time to pay full attention and if I do she’ll expect me to listen like this every single time I speak to her…” There are so many different things running through our minds at the same time.
Stephen Covey identified that there are five different levels of listening:
- Ignoring. This is straightforward. We’re not listening at all.
- Pretending. This isn’t helpful. And something people with teenage children may recognise.
- Selective. Where we choose to pay attention to only part of the conversation.
- Attentive. Where we are present in the conversation and pay attention to what the person is saying.
- Empathic. This really is the best form of listening as it means that you hear and feel what it is someone is saying, and that you are providing the speaker with the space to do that without any judgment.
When practicing emphatic listening you’ve got to trust yourself in that moment to turn up and to just be. It’s not that there’s an absence of thinking in your head or that you are no longer you, but that your intention and focus is such that I’m here in that moment.
You can ask two or three questions and get two or three different answers. But what I’m really wanting through empathic listening is to help the person I’m listening to, to go deeper. To really answer those questions in a way that perhaps makes them feel a little bit vulnerable but not uncomfortable, allowing them to get out some of those thoughts that have been going on in their head. By being interested in them and allowing them to take it as far as they want, can unlock their intellect and capacity to think.
Does empathic listening improve the bottom line? Yes, there’s no two ways about that, if you want to develop a group of like-minded people who are experts within their own field, who care about other humans, who connect with their customers and their communities, who feel hugely valued and listened to, whose ideas are put forward, whose creativity becomes part of the common purpose and who want to develop within an organization because it fits with their values is powerful. . .then YES empathetic listening matters!
Listening can be learnt. When we go to school, we’re taught how to listen to your teacher but not necessarily listening to ourselves. There was a 14-year-old who I was coaching and she didn’t listen. We would try and engage but it felt really painful and really hard. I was thinking, ‘I’m offering you the core conditions and giving you everything that I need to give you, what’s going wrong?’. One time, she turned around after she’d been playing on her phone and said to me: ‘I don’t listen to you because you’re not going to listen to me’. When I asked her why she felt that way, she started to cry and told me that nobody had ever asked her what she thinks.
Some people have never been listened to. They have just been barked at, shouted at, told what to do and treated poorly. And they have been accepting of that because they think that’s what they deserve or that’s what the world is about. They may try to test you and to push you away or shock you. You can’t let that happen. Keep going back — what they’re saying to you is not always what they mean.
Difficult conversations are, of course, difficult, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore them. Get yourself grounded. This is not personal so don’t make it personal. Think about their intentions, what actually happened and what were the behaviours that led to wherever they’ve got to. When you’ve worked out what the intention was that hopefully gives you a firm foundation to start thinking about where you want to take this conversation. Also, what’s the outcome that you’re looking for? Is the outcome just to bring something to someone’s attention? Is the outcome that the difficult conversation could lead to disciplinary or to someone leaving the organization? You need to do some good thinking in advance of your conversations and not enter into a challenging conversation based on a hunch or because you’re feeling frustrated or angry. You do not need to be stern, you do not need to stop caring for that person. You can say anything, nothing is difficult is you speak with kindness and compassion.
Don’t we all go to work to do our absolute best? We all want to feel included and want to be part of the tribe. It’s fundamental to how we’re designed. Leaders need to create an environment where people can show up and be themselves. Listen, with the positive intentions. And utilize the opportunity to tell the person you’re listening to what you’ve actually heard.
8 things you can do today to become a more empathetic listener:
1. Be present
2.Be open with no judgment as to what’s going to be said
3.Close off your own agenda enough so that it doesn’t come out
4. Don’t interrupt: allow them to finish what they want to say
5. Feel comfortable with the silences; that’s them thinking and trying to work great stuff out
6. Encourage them through body language, such as nodding at appropriate moments
7. Make sure they don’t feel pressurised or rushed
8. If they’re getting a little bit stuck or when they’ve finished, show you have been listening by saying “can I share with you what I’ve just heard?” This is a great way to demonstrate how much you have been listening.
If you’d like to know more about what we do and how we help organisations listen and build trust get in touch: hello@nothernvaluecreators.com
