I mean really listen.
As you well know, business officers are bombarded daily by the noise of demands. You walk in the door with a full to-do list, only to be repeatedly blindsided by new “fires” that push your planned tasks to the back burner. Undoubtedly you sometimes find it difficult to take a breath, let alone truly listen and make meaning of everything you hear.
In especially busy and social times like the Annual Meeting, listening is equally difficult and important. According to Julian Treasure, who studies sound and advises businesses on how best to use it, we spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening, but retain only 25 percent of what we hear. “We are losing our listening,” Treasure said in a TED Talk titled “Five Ways to Listen Better.” That’s not an insignificant reality “because listening is our access to understanding. Conscious listening always creates understanding.”
Better listening is essential, Treasure argues. “A world where we don’t listen to each other at all is a very scary place indeed,” he says. In fact, not listening—whether due to differences in dogma, language barriers or just plain laziness—can lead to misunderstandings, cruelty and worse.
Thankfully, Treasure believes that it is possible to regain our ability to listen well. He provides five tips:
- Spend three minutes a day in silence (or quiet, if silence isn’t possible) to “reset your ears and re-calibrate so that you can hear the quiet again.”
- When in a crowded setting like a coffee shop, try to distinguish how many unique channels of sound you can hear, e.g. the coffee grinder, the espresso-maker’s steam, the barista taking orders, the scrape of a chair against the floor, etc. Treasure calls this exercise “The Mixer.”
- Take time to enjoy mundane sounds like the patter of rain against the roof. The art of “savoring,” as he calls it, is a way to hear “the hidden choir … that’s around us all the time.”
- Tune into how you’re listening, whether it’s active or passive listening, reductive or expansive listening, or critical or empathetic listening. These “listening positions” are hugely important.
- Treasure’s last suggestion takes the form of the acronym “RASA,” the Sanskrit word for “essence.” A listener should “receive” by paying attention to the speaker; “appreciate” the speaker with noises like “okay” to reassure him that you’re listening; “summarize” what’s said to make sure what you heard is in fact what was said; and then “ask” questions afterward.
Treasure believes that “every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully.” My goal is to make that a practice that endures long after this busy week. I hope you’ll strive for the same.
