Chapter 5

Essential Skills: Listening and Note-Taking

Why ask the question if you don’t listen to the answer?

—Maryann Karinch

In 1978, Maryann and her boyfriend began a three-week backpacking trip through Mexico. She had no knowledge of Spanish when they arrived, although the boyfriend was fluent. He tried to teach her a few words and phrases, and then urged her to put them to the test. She went up to someone on a street corner and asked, “¿Qué hora es?” The man looked at his watch and told her what time it was. Maryann went back to her boy-friend and excitedly asked, “How did I do?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “What time is it?”

“Huh?” She was so excited about asking the question that she didn’t listen to the answer.

In a related blunder, I remember a journalist telling me that he was very excited about the opportunity to interview a particular celebrity. He took his digital recorder to the meeting and drew some witty quotes and engaging insights out of the star. When he went back to his hotel room, he realized that the recorder had malfunctioned. There was nothing on it, and he had taken no notes. To compound the problem, his memory was spotty because he was so distracted by being with the celebrity that he didn’t really listen to her.

I’ve already made the case for listening and note-taking in these two stories, but now I want to share some techniques to do them both with excellence. The advantages you are cultivating in your professional and personal life as a result of learning how to question well can be enhanced immediately with these techniques.

LISTENING

If you can’t listen well, there’s no point in asking a question. So questioning and listening carry the same weight.

One of the most important skills a questioner needs to develop is that of effective listening. If you are not listening, you are going to miss something pertinent. It’s just as bad as Maryann asking for the time, getting the answer, and then leaving the answer behind. The follow-up story to that is when she practiced the phrase, “Where is the bathroom?” in Spanish in case she ever needed it. When she did, she went up to a native speaker and posed the question. The person responded and then walked away. Once again, thrilled with mouthing words a Spanish-speaking person actually understood, she never actually listened to the words that told her where the bathroom was. Too many people who ask questions are like that; they are so caught up in posing the question that they don’t absorb the information that results.

Another reason why people don’t hear the answer is that they are preoccupied with thinking of and asking the next question. You can’t be getting ready to ask your next question while someone is answering the current one. You won’t know what the next best question is until you have heard the answer to the current question.

Our multi-tasking lifestyle has also damaged our listening skills. We hear a text message come in or the phone ring—these may even be barely audible signals of someone trying to reach us—and we are acutely distracted from whatever we were doing. If we were listening, we are suddenly listening less effectively.

Human beings have two ears and one mouth; the best questioner will use them in that ratio. The questions mean the focus is on the person responding to an inquiry; the exchange is not about the questioner. If the questioner is doing most of the talking, she is not questioning well.

EXERCISE

Listen to any interview program on the radio or television and rank the interviewer on a scale from 1 to 5 on the basis of listening.

On one end of the spectrum—give a 5 to the interviewers—a single question kept Steve Jobs and Bill Gates talking about each other’s contributions to technology for about three and a half minutes. It was a rare joint appearance at All Things Digital 5, in which the initial questioner asked, “What has each contributed to the computer and technology? Starting with you Steve for Bill, and vice versa.” That’s an extreme example, of course, since most people would not have the nerve to interrupt either one of those legendary executives. The point is that the question was short and the listening was long.

Contrast that with questions asked by interviewers who want to expose their knowledge of a subject or person and keep talking, finally posing a yes-or-no question at the end. Those questioners get a 1.

People usually don’t listen purposefully; they listen passively. Listening has to be an active engagement because you want to listen to more than what the person is saying. You are listening to how they say things so you can pick up on cues that tell you if you need to continue the conversation to seek clarification or ascertain accuracy.

Where does your curiosity drive most of your attention? This is the underlying question leading to tips to sharpen your listening skills:

Be face-to-face with the person you are listening to. If you or the other person turn to the side or walks away, you have opened up the possibility for distraction and diminished the ability to listen.

Turn your phone off. No, I’m not kidding. If you were having a meeting with an oncologist about the protocols needed to cure your cancer, would you respond to a text message in the middle of her instructions to you? When someone is sharing information with you, treat that person and that information with respect. Treat yourself and your need for that information with respect. If you bother to ask someone a question, then do everything in your power to listen to the answer.

Engage your body and mind together. Active listening has physical components as well as an intellectual one. The intellectual component involves listening for keywords, as indicated by emphasis on the words and perhaps frequency of use. You also want to listen for the gaps. If you ask someone about her boss and she gives an answer about her work situation that sidesteps any mention of her boss, then you’ve “heard” a problem. The physical components involve what you do and what you don’t do.

Eye contact, posture, and gestures can all provide physical evidence that you are listening attentively and with multiple senses. A slight lean toward the person speaking, for example, suggests that you find the person’s words interesting. Open, relaxed hands are also more invitational than hands closed in a kind of fist. If you’re taking notes, but sure to look at the person speaking as much as possible.

Physical things to avoid include nervous gestures like tapping your foot or clicking a pen. Also, be aware of whether or not someone feels comfortable with your touching him or his possessions. You can completely derail your rapport-building with a person by laying a hand on his shoulder or picking up a book on his table. And watch out for barriers—that is, things that put separation between you and the person you’re talking with. If you’re trying to build rapport and gain key information from a prospective client, for example, you are at a disadvantage if the two of you are at opposite ends of a long conference table.

So you asked the good question and followed that by listening. Your next step is to ascertain if that’s the information you need and want. Maybe it answers the question, but you still don’t understand what the other person is telling you. For example, you might ask how a particular app on a mobile device works, but you don’t quite understand the answer. That’s when clarification questions come into play. Or, you may be skeptical of the answer someone provides you and your quick analysis tells you that the person may be trying to deceive you. (I will address clarification questioning here, and guide you in detecting deception in the following chapter, “Analyzing the Answers.”)

One of my friends is technically savvy, although she is not an IT professional. She has the basic skills to create a Website, troubleshoot certain computer problems, and help people around her who find computing technology annoying unless it does exactly what they expect it to do. Part of her service to a volunteer organization is to help them with technology issues. Their chapter is part of an international organization that raises money for women’s education and has stipulated that chapters need Websites, e-mail addresses, and other basic electronic connectivity.

When she first showed them the Website she designed, they marveled. “How did you do that?” they asked. This question might sound silly to a lot of people, but there are still people of all ages whose exposure to the phenomenon of the World Wide Web leaves them dazed and confused about how the whole thing works. (Okay, I’m one of them.) The women all knew how to use the site, but they had genuine curiosity about how the site was created. When my friend started talking about the software she used to build the site, she could tell that her “simple” explanation was far too complicated for this audience. She said to her group, “Let’s table this conversation until after I think about how to explain what I did.”

She came to me and said, “They asked me a straight-forward question, and any answer I formulated in my head was incomprehensible to many of them. Help! How do you answer a question like this so they understand it?”

Listening is a critical part of the process. You need to ask the person questions so you understand what they know, what’s familiar to them, and what words and concepts drive them toward a greater understanding of the subject. You need to listen for keywords and leads; that’s why you want to have someone say more than “yes” or “no” in response to most questions. In short, the process of her answering their question about building the Website had to begin with her own questioning.

What does she need to ask in order to understand what they know, so she can provide an explanation they understand? What answers will give her baseline information on their knowledge?

The challenge: Explain to people with a very limited knowledge of technology how to build a Website.

The approach: Use questioning to determine what they know about technology. Build on the keywords and concepts in the answers to give an answer they understand.

The execution:

IT VOLUNTEER: What do you know about Websites?

RESPONDENT 1: I can buy things.

IT VOLUNTEER: What else?

RESPONDENT 2: I can look up things, like how to make nectar for the hummingbirds.

IT VOLUNTEER: What else?

RESPONDENT 3: I can get the news.

IT VOLUNTEER: What else?

RESPONDENT 4: I can go to Facebook and see what my daughter is up to after school.

IT VOLUNTEER: What else? [No answer.] Okay, then, where else can you buy things, get instructions on making nectar, find out the news, and get a sense of what your daughter is doing?

RESPONDENT 4: Around town. I can go to the store, go the library, grab a newspaper, and go to the high school my daughter attends and ask people where the heck she is!

IT VOLUNTEER: So the Internet is like a town, and a Website is a part of the town. You asked me, “How did I build your Website?” I built it with pieces and parts, analogous to those that make a real place—a store, or a library, or a newsstand, or a high school.

RESPONDENT 1: Why did you even want to build it for us, though? We aren’t selling anything, and we don’t have any news or information that somebody can’t find someplace else.

IT VOLUNTEER: That’s a great question! I built it so that people know where you are if they want to contact you to find out what you do, or what you’re up to. It’s like your clubhouse in the Internet town. People who might want to donate money for your projects would know where to find you. They have your address.

RESPONDENT 2: We’re back to square one. How did you build the clubhouse?

IT VOLUNTEER: How do you take pictures?

RESPONDENT 2: I point my phone at something and click, and send it to my son who makes a picture out of it.

RESPONDENT 3: I use my digital camera to take a picture and then upload it to my computer.

IT VOLUNTEER: So the pictures you take are stored in your devices. That means, you can send them to me electronically by e-mail. If you wrote something and wanted to share it with me, how would you do it?

RESPONDENT 1: I’d e-mail it.

IT VOLUNTEER: To build your Website I take photos like that and text like that and use software to put them together so you see the pages that make up your Website.

RESPONDENT 1: What do you mean by software? You mean something like Word or Pages?

IT VOLUNTEER: Yes. Only this software allows me to take the photos and text you have sent me and put it into a template that builds the Website. You give me the pieces and parts and I put them together and build the site. I give that information to somebody who knows a lot more than I do, and she makes our Website part of that Internet town. That’s all I know!

For many of you reading this exercise, you might think that this exchange was ridiculous; you have enough experience with technology that basic Website construction is second nature to you. But what if the subject were brain surgery or the construction of the Curiosity Rover on the planet Mars? If you are an expert trying to convey information to someone else, sometimes the most effective tools you have are keen listening and good questioning. Otherwise, no one will know what you’re talking about.

NOTE-TAKING

In a professional situation, note-taking is a key adjunct to good questioning. Do not dismiss this skill as unnecessary by saying, “I have a good memory, so I don’t need notes,” or “I’ve been taking notes since I was a kid. I already know how to do it.”

Taking usable notes begins with the four discovery areas: People, Places, Things, and Events in Time. The most disciplined way to do it is how I handle note-taking in a formal interrogation or debriefing. I have one or more sheets of lined notepaper with the headings P, Pl, T, and E-in-T. I make all of my “people” notes always and only on my “people” page. I make all my “place” notations always and only on the “place” page, and so on with the other two areas.

Because I don’t just follow the conversation and information where it leads me, unless there is an urgency to do so, I manage the areas of questioning and will make lead notes accordingly and address anything in the other three areas as I determine the priority. If I am questioning in “people” and a person tells me about a place where maybe the individual and another person met, that becomes a lead note for “place” and “event in time,” so I merely turn up the bottom of my “people” page, covering it over my note-taking area, and write on the back of the “people” page the name of the other person mentioned, along with the place, so that when I am logically done with people questions, I flip the bottom of that page to see the note I made on the back, which directs me to the place mentioned, and I then move to places and pick up questioning there.

This prevents my losing the lead in linear note-taking. That is, if I took notes chronologically from beginning to end, it would be very easy to lose leads in the text.

Even if you’re not in a questioning session per se (you might be in a meeting, for example), this approach to sorting key information is extremely useful. I’ve seen variations of this note-taking technique in a number of meetings regarding sales, strategic planning, a court case, and so on, so depending on the type of thinker you are, you may already be doing this. I once saw a young man in a meeting sort information on his notepad by drawing a few vertical lines. Each column was an area being discussed in the meeting, and each row was a bit that someone at the meeting had contributed about that subject area. It isn’t exactly a people/places/things/events grouping, but it did employ the same essential organizing principle, though he didn’t realize he was following this pattern. The salient point is to have a reliable method of note and lead notation; use what you are most comfortable and productive with. If you write small and you want to use a single sheet of paper, drawing a simple table with headers will give you the same kind of subject-focused organization.

With all of the tools we have available to us to record information, you may assume that my emphasis on note-taking makes me a dinosaur and this part of my guidance can be ignored. Not so fast. According to William Klemm, a professor or neuroscience at Texas A&M University, in a March 14, 2013 article for Psychology Today’s Memory Medic column:

Scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization”; that is, capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of the brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice.¹

Writing notes, therefore, theoretically recruits parts of your brain to make you a sharper questioner, better listener, and keener analyst of what you’re hearing.

Just so you can now confirm the dinosaur diagnosis, I’m also going to introduce you to the cognitive advantages of using a manual typewriter. When my young daughters expressed interest in learning how to use a typewriter, I found out that new manual typewriters are still available! When I considered what advantages, if any, using a typewriter rather than a computer might provide, I immediately thought of how it could impact their questioning acumen. Using the computer involves assumptions that you can input letters and the computer will offer corrections on spelling and sentence structure. Using a typewriter involves using your own intellect and skills to make the sentences correct. It engenders clarity of thought and puts aside any assumptions that the computer will “fix” what you do. In fact, I think the sales material for one of the manual typewriters says it best:

This is the manual typewriter that recalls the thoughtful, well-written correspondence of yesteryear. Devoid of technological crutches such as spell-check and deletion, each of its 44 keys requires a firm, purposeful stroke for a steady click-clacking cadence that encourages the patient, considered sentiment of a wordsmith who thinks before writing.²

I wouldn’t recommend the manual typewriter for note-taking, of course, but it appears to be a useful tool if you want to turn your notes into a novel.

THE ROLE OF THESE SKILLS IN BUSINESS

Even if people honestly think they’ve given you all the information you’ve asked for, in revising a question, you may find out even more. It’s very similar to the way Maryann works in helping a coauthor create a book such as this one. She asked me variations of some of the same questions on Day 2 that she had on Day 1, and then returned to the topics and asked about them again later. She also asked me about stories that I knew I’d told her. This book reflects the completeness of the combined responses. I wasn’t holding anything back from her, but it’s very easy to forget a tiny detail that could enrich the presentation by making it more interesting or specific. Listening and note-taking played a key role in helping her shape follow-up questions for me.

If you do an Internet search for “listening and note-taking,” you will find a multitude of university Websites that address the importance of these skills to succeeding in a learning environment. For example, Princeton University tells its students, “You can maximize what you learn in and from lectures by following three easy steps: 1) adopt active listening skills; 2) take clear, effective notes; and 3) review your notes within 24 hours of taking them.”³ There is no “maybe” embedded in that statement; it’s a clear statement of probability.

Unfortunately, I don’t see the same appreciation for the combined skills of listening and note-taking on Websites oriented more toward professionals. We rely on technology to keep records during meetings and allow people in conferences to interact with others through e-mail and text while supposedly listening to a presentation. These are just two of the common practices in the world of work that undermine effectiveness. I could point to many workplace failures related to poor listening and zero note-taking, but two examples that potentially affect all of us are in the areas of customer service and emergency response.

Most customer-service people don’t seem to be trained to listen to a complete answer, and, in fact, they may not even wait to hear the question you called them with. Lack of note-taking—they don’t have to take notes because the calls are “recorded for quality assurance purposes”—compounds the problem related to lack of listening.

In his book, Service Failure: The Real Reasons Employees Struggle with Customer Service and What You Can Do About It, Jeff Toister tells a personal story of bad listening. But the salient part of his story for your skill-development as a questioner is why his experience is so common:

Even when we’re consciously focused on a particular task, our brain can sometimes override our concentration by jumping to conclusions. I once experienced a classic example of this phenomenon when I called a customer service number to get some help with a password for accessing my online account. I was halfway through my question when the customer service representative interrupted me and said, “That’s actually a separate password than the one I’m resetting for you. That one is just for billing.”

Great, except that wasn’t the question I was about to ask. “I know,” I said, “but I was going to ask if I can reset the billing password myself so that I—”

He interrupted again: “But you don’t need the billing password to access your online account.” Sigh. Still not the question I was trying to ask.

Why do so many knowledgeable customer service representatives find it difficult to listen to their customers without interrupting? This problem is related to how we naturally process information.

The human brain has a unique design feature that allows us to take a small amount of information and compare it to familiar patterns. This capability allows us to make quick sense of large amounts of data without getting bogged down in details. It’s an ability that comes in handy in many ways, such as determining if something is safe or dangerous, recognizing people we know, or even when reading. Here’s a simple example. Try reading the following sentence:

People can easily raed misspelled words as long as all the letters are there and the fisrt and lsat letters are in the correct position.⁴

Toister’s story and the explanation for its occurrence centers on our human ability to recognize patterns, which is a blessing and curse when it comes to being a good questioner, listener, and analyst. It is a blessing in that it helps us connect the dots in information we’ve been told, that guides further questioning. It’s a curse in that we may, by default, make sense of what we’ve been told when the information is full of holes or doesn’t make sense. Note-taking helps to sort the organization so gaps and inconsistencies become more obvious.

Having expectations about what comes next or what facts connect with each other are part of the problem with anyone who habitually relies on a script to relate to people on the other end of a telephone. Even 911 operators can be guilty of this script-based mode of interacting with callers, which results in their not listening well, not taking notes, and not asking questions that are directly pertinent to the current emergency. Chapter 8 addresses specifically how this results in a failure to serve the distressed caller.

Robert Baden-Powell, credited with founding the Scout Movements, once said, “If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk.” It’s valuable advice for life and work, and I would only add, “and keep good records of what you hear and see.”