It’s listening not talking that gets you your own way

i am always looking for the skills and attributes that link successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs. I figure that if I can find the magic bullet that is the common factor of successful people I can improve my own performance and help my people to do the same.

Anything written by these people and the talks and interviews that they give emphasise a basic communication skill. This skill is not only not the gift of the gab but actually the opposite – it’s listening.

Active listening is a great art.  The fact is that the voice most people like listening to beyond all others is their own. This is a useful aid to ambitious entrepreneurs who can simply do the opposite and spend a considerable part of their business life listening.  If you are trying to get someone to agree to something they will actually tell you how to do it if you ask them to talk about their requirements and desires. In the end you are trying to link what you want to what they want – so listen, for goodness sake, and find out what it is.

I once overheard a businessperson confiding in a friend just before the three of us met to try to thrash out a deal. “I am going to keep my mouth shut,” he said, “for as much of this meeting as I can.”  Fat chance. I started the meeting off by asking two open questions that enabled him to talk about that most interesting of topics – himself.  (Open questions are those that cannot be answered in one word. 

They generally start with how, why, what, who, where and when.)  Prepare a few open questions for the next time you talk to a member of your staff or a negotiating businessperson and then settle back and listen.

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Listen actively.  Someone described a good listener whom we both knew like this, “He seems to give you his undivided attention.”  Use encouraging body language to get people to talk: lean in towards them, smile and nod where you can agree. Make the occasional interjection to show that you are listening actively.  Listen also for what is behind what is being said.  If a person you are dealing with, for example, says “I do not think it is necessary to take action on this,” they could mean that they cannot do what is necessary or that they do not know what action to take.  You will hear the difference if you polish up your listening skills.

Here’s how John Updike, the American novelist, put forward the same idea, “A healthy adult male bore consumes each year more than one and a half times his weight in other peoples’ patience.”