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The Ear of an Ally

The Lost Art of Listening

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.

Karl A. Menninger

Take a close look at the photo on this page. It happens to be Chip’s youngest granddaughter, Cassie. But she could be your son, daughter, grandchild, or someone special to you. Now imagine you are in a quiet, undistracted conversation with your “Cassie.” If we could secretly eavesdrop on that dialogue, what would be its features?

You would likely be noticeably gentle—softly gauging your cadence and comportment in a fashion that conveys warmth and acceptance. You would likely be completely nonjudgmental and valuing in your style, manner, and attitude. Your interest would be telegraphed through sincere eye hugs, total openness, and complete authenticity. You would care more about cultivating inclusiveness than making an impression, more about fostering trust than winning a point. You would be intensely curious and loudly affirming no matter the elegance of what you heard.

We typically display our most ideal self when communicating with an innocent child. Stripped of pretension, agenda, and plot, we unleash a reciprocal innocence that triggers confidence and courage. The result can nurture self-esteem and bolster pride. Think of your “Cassie” the next time you are in any important conversation or any unimportant conversation with an important person. To paraphrase a well-known truism—listen to others with the best that you have and the best will come back to you.

Knowing that listening is important and being a good listener are two very different things. Ask employees about the listening skills of their bosses, and most will give them at best a C+. With zillions of books on how leaders should listen, why do employees continue to ding their bosses on listening? Is this a competence crisis?

In our experience, the gap between “should” and “would” has less to do with communication management than with noise management. Most leaders can be great listeners. Let their eight-year-old come home crying about a neighborhood conflict and you will see great listening. Zero in on a quiet corner conversation in the funeral home during the wake for a friend and you will see great listening. Put a leader between a hostile union steward and a potential shut-you-down strike and you will witness some of the best listening in history. Yet mix the normal pace of work, the typical persona of “I’m the boss,” and the traditional orientation that “employees don’t need to be babied,” and you have the prescription for “just get to the punch line” leader listening.

Listening is crucial to mentoring. Ask fifty people who had great mentors what attribute they found most crucial, and forty-nine will probably mention their mentors’ listening: “I felt I had his undivided attention when I most needed it.” “You felt there was absolutely nothing happening on the face of the globe but you, her, and your problem.” “He was so engaged in my concern that his secretary had to interrupt us to tell him his phone had been ringing. I sure wasn’t going to mention it.”

How do the best mentors evade the demands of daily distractions to give dedicated listening? The sounds of great listening tell us effective listeners don’t start doing anything special—they stop doing something normal.