This transcript has been lightly edited for readability. It may still contain transcription errors.
Intro#
James: Good morning and welcome to Graduate Theory. Today’s guest is a podcast host author and keynote speaker with over 30 years of experience in operations, marketing, and sales. He now works with organizations across the world, teaching them how to be better listeners bringing us impact beyond words.
Please welcome, the deep listener himself, Oscar Trimboli. Oscar, welcome to the show.
Oscar: James, looking forward to listening to your questions. And I’ll be curious to listen to the questions we can’t hear from the audience as well, because a lot of the time it’s, what’s not said that’s the difference between good conversations and great conversations.
James: Absolutely. And I’m so interested to dive into all this with you.
How did Oscar find listening?#
James: Listening is really one of those skills that I previously had no idea that it was a skill that, you could even have it really.
The first question I’ve got for your Oscar is about it’s about this world of listening. And I want to ask you, how did you actually end up in this world of listening?
Because like we’ve said, it’s something that, really, most people have never heard of improving their listening. So how did you end up in this world of.
Oscar: I think it’s three wise. I think about it. The first one is when I was 13, I had basically a werewolf jaw. I’ve had a very protruded jaw and most people who get braces get it for one or two years, I had braces for five years.
So I never really wanted to draw attention to myself. And how do you do that? When you’re talking to someone, just ask them questions and the attention goes back on them. So I think that was very early days. I wasn’t aware that I was listening well, but it was a defensive strategy for me. And when I was in high school as well, we were a school with 13 different nationalities and everybody from Asia or Eastern Europe. And we used to play this Italian card game, but I couldn’t speak any other language. So the Argentinians would form a team and speak in Spanish and Polish teams would form a team speak in Polish and Occasionally they’d be a player short, but because I didn’t speak any other language, I had to get really good at looking at body language.
I got really good at noticing what happened to people’s eyes and eyebrows when they got a particular set of cards and figured it out. But where it really tipped over is when I was in a budget setting meeting at Microsoft, between Singapore, Seattle, and Sydney. And at the 20 minute mark, my vice president looked me straight in the eye in the Sydney boardroom and said, Oscar, I need to see you immediately after this meeting.
I quite honestly switched off James. From that point on, all I could think about is how many weeks salary have I got left in the bank account? Because. When Tracy said that, I just thought I was getting fired. The meeting finished and Tracy asked me to close the door and I was sitting at one end of a very long boardroom table.
And she asked me to come and sit next to her. And I was walking up this long boardroom table. She said, you have no idea what you did at the 20 minute mark, do you? And the only thing going through my head is great. I’m getting fired and I have no idea what a. She sat me down. She looked me straight in the eye.
She said at the 20 minute mark, you changed the way the room listened to itself. If you could code the way you listen, you could change the world. And despite the fact twice, he said something so profound, the only thing answered my head, James is five. So I didn’t think anything about what she said. I literally zoned out because I was so relieved that I wasn’t fired.
And then a week and a half later, the finance director, Brian said, can you come to the budget setting, meeting for Australia and audit my list? And I said, Brian, you’ve been talking to Tracy, I got a $32 million uplift in my budget. I’ve got to figure out how to do that. I haven’t got time for this little listening.
Gaper can I just go out and figure out how to do it? And he said, let me make it simple for you. You are coming to the meeting, you will audit my listening. And here’s a tip. If you’re a graduate, make brains with the finance department, if you’re not good at. If you come from an arts or a different area, partnering with finance is one of the most influential things you can do in the workplace because they are the people who pay salaries.
But more importantly, they’re the people who approved business cases. So James, I had to sit down and watch Brian listen, and he did a okay. But I was really curious. I had nine people in the meeting, only three spokes, I thought, it’s not listening to everybody. And he asked really long questions. So here’s a tip for listeners out there.
If you ask a question, that’s got more than eight words, it’s a bias question. In fact, it’s not even a question. It’s a statement despite the fact. Having an inflection on your voice at the end. So from then on, I’ve been on a quest to create a hundred means. I’ve listened as in the world, before I leave the planet.
That’s how it stop.
James: Yeah, that’s a great story because yeah, I think that is so special and it’s really exciting what you’re doing. Bringing light to this, this skill that we can all really improve at. Yeah, that’s really cool.
How distractions impact listening#
James: One thing I want to ask too, is when you’re sitting down with Brian, to tell him about his listening, what are some things, and maybe not just Brian, maybe if the people that you still coach today, what are some things that.
That you look for too, when like to improve someone’s listening. How do you, what’s your process for going through
Oscar: That? Yeah, so there, there are five levels of listening and the first thing you want to do as a listener is not to focus on the. Listening starts by actually listening to yourself first.
So if you’ve got a whole bunch of noise going on in your head about the last meeting, the next meeting, what you need to eat for lunch, what you didn’t eat for breakfast? I haven’t had enough coffee. Gee, Oscar talk slow. I wish you hurry up and get to the point. There’s a whole bunch of noise going through you.
So there’s five levels of listening and the first level of listening is listening to yourself. So the things that we’ll ever won, we need to be aware of. With research over 1,410 people we’ve been tracking them for nearly four years now. And the number one barrier to people’s listening is electronic notifications, whether that’s from a mobile phone or your desktop computer, whether it’s a Mac or a PC, whether your phones Android.
All or an iPhone, whether you’ve got a tablet or not. The number one barrier that gets in people’s way when it comes to listening is notifications. So whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, whether they’re on an iPhone or an Android, you can just push the button that says stop notifications while I’m in a conversation.
Meaning. Now, this is easy to say, but it’s very difficult to do because quite honestly, a lot of people are addicted to the red dots that give you notifications to the buzz, to the beam, to the slack channel, the teams message, the email notification. And I’ve worked in the technology industry. I know the research behind the app industry was derived from the research in slot machines or poker machines in Las Vegas.
They hired a bunch of psychologists to figure out how to keep people mindlessly pressing the button and putting more money into the poker machines. And they adapted that research into putting red dots on devices and having notifications that blink to get your attendance. Now fires off dopamine in your system.
That’s the drugs. When you’re in love, all the world is beautiful, but it fires off the same thing. When a red dot comes up and you go, oh, gee, somebody wants to talk to me. But what it means is you’re not available for the conversation you’re in right now. Now, if you’re in a medical profession or emergency of respondent, please don’t switch your notification.
That’s your job. So everybody else, though, if you’re in some kind of workplace where you work with computers and you don’t have patients that you need to see, or you’re not at the end of a manufacturing line and ensuring people’s safety as ticking notifications on James, when I say switch your notifications off, a lot of people feel like a drug addict and I’ve just taken away their drugs.
Distractions and Notifications#
Oscar: What’s your relationship with notification?
James: Yeah, I think I like most people, it can get really tricky to switch your phone off and put it to the side. Cause even what I’ve sometimes even the last few days, what I’ve resorted to is I would turn my phone off completely. But before I go to sleep and then I’ve gone to another room in the house and then I charge it in there and then I’ll come and do my work.
And usually I won’t turn it on. And. Until lunchtime, just because I find that’s what I have to do to keep that phone away from me. Cause I find as soon as it goes on, it has become so hard to, once you first looked at it almost you’re locked in it now it’s hard to look at it once and then have it away for a few.
So absolutely great. It the phone and even all notifications, because I find it even when you are, let’s say you’re in a call for work, you’ve got your emails that are there. The teams chat is open. All these things are still want some level, those kinds of slot machine type things where someone sends an email bang, I’ve got to read it straight away, otherwise the, I was going to answer, so those things can really impact.
If you’re innovating with someone, having these things around. So I think, I
Oscar: Feel like here’s your challenge. Just go to settings on your computer. And switch those notifications off as well. You’ll find them. I’m curious. Do you find yourself a little bit more productive now that you’re not addicted to that phone and that reactiveness that comes about through, just responding quickly to what’s on the phone?
What’s your experience been last week? Yeah,
James: I definitely think that I’m like in the mornings. Definitely. I’m much more. I can, I find it’s easier to work, find out how to better concentration, because what I found before I started doing this was, I have the phone next to my bed and then, you wake up your phone’s right there.
Okay. I’ll spend 20 minutes looking through Instagram, then I’ll go on YouTube, watch the videos, or go on Facebook or, any number of social media. And then starting off my day I just found that I was almost just flat for the rest of the day. And then when I would be asked to do something that, maybe required some effort or like something that I didn’t want to do, I would just find it so hard to go and do it, that thing, even if it was something like, Someone wants me to go take the bins out or do so normal household job.
I would just feel I would struggle to have the motivation to do those things and I’d be like, oh, I don’t really want to take the dental. Like I just want to look at the phone. And, I found that in the mornings of, I started my day off like that it would carry through the entire day.
Whereas if I can delay that a little bit, then it helps to choose saying that. And it means more able to interact with the world. Enjoy those regular activities, more so than, having that constant constant domain, like you mentioned, just from all those apps constantly attacking your brain, always
Oscar: Use the technology.
Don’t let the technology use you.
James: No, I think that’s great. ‘cause. Yeah. It’s so easy for that stuff to take control. Cause yeah even like you were saying, the poker machines and stuff, and I’m sure there’s that Netflix Netflix show, I forgotten the name of it now, but yeah, that one, like when I watched that, I was just amazed because even the guys that, run these companies don’t let their children use the apps because they know that like the impact that it can have, like not only.
We did Doug and things like that, but it also your opinions and how like you can, cause that was really a big theme through that show, as well as how you can end up in echo and changes and, it can really impact. Yeah, your whole life to a large degree. Yeah, so I think, in particularly with listening, it’s so important to, be conscious and that’s something that was speaking about before the episode today.
Like being able to be conscious when you’re listening to someone and conscious as you go through your day. I think not having those patients around is so important. Is that something. Is that something you’re big on, being conscious when people are listening.
The 5 Levels of Listening#
James: And what about like some, we spoke about level one of of the five levels of listening being on yourself.
What about the other levels? Can you talk us through those?
Oscar: Sure. So let’s just talk about all of them together and then we’ll split them apart. So level one is listening to yourself. Level two is listening to the content. That’s what people say, what and what you sent. What’s the emotion coming through in their words, a level three is listening for the context.
This is about the backstory. This is about patterns. And this is about the difference between listening to symptoms versus listening to systems. Something you’re doing right now in your work right now is how do you listen systemically across data as an example, but when you don’t listen to systems, you have Royal commission.
Whether that’s in the industries in aged care, whether that’s in the treatment of children or in banking and financial services, level four is listening for Watson said, when you understand the neuroscience of all listening, I speak at 125 words per minute, but I can think at 900, that means the first thing that somebody says.
They’ve said 5% of what they mean. So if you can listen to the next 125 words in the next 125 boards, you can listen to what they haven’t said. And then finally, level five is listening for what the person means, not just what they say. So for a lot of people, what they’re trying to express. They’re struggling to get it out the first time because of that 1 25, 900 rule.
And so each of those levels of progressive, if you don’t have the foundation of listening to you, It’s very difficult to access the higher levels of listening based on our research, we know only half of 1% of the working population can listen at level five. So for many of us just doing the basics really well, switching off our phone.
Oh switching the notifications off drinking a glass of water before every conversation and drinking a glass of water every half an hour. And at that, that will send a signal to the body, says everything. Okay. Thinking about breathing properly at level one is really important. Once you’ve.
Mastered your own breathing. Just take a few deep breaths before you enter a conversation. And then if you get distracted during a conversation, here’s two really basic tips. If you get distracted brief set your distraction by going what’s the color of the person’s eyes. I’m speaking. What’s the color of the person’s size.
So with me, it’s actually quite difficult because one color of my eye is different from the other color Jane. So if you’re playing that game right now, you might notice a little difference there. The second tip is when you get distracted and you have noticed the person’s eye color, but you’re still distracted.
And the next part of the conversation, just take a really quick, deeper. In through your nose and out through your mouth, it doesn’t have to be like an Olympic weightlifter. The person won’t even notice you’re doing it. And then once you’ve mastered that noticed the speakers breathing as well. So they’re taking short breaths, so they’re taking long breaths and you not even noticing their breathing as well.
So that’s the level one there, all the kind of practical tips when it comes to listening, then we can go through each of the levels. Which one would you be most curious about learning tracks? I think
James: One thing, one thing that’s interesting is going talk to me about what’s unsaid. And I think that is so interesting because it’s so easy to hear someone speak and then, just listen to what they’ve said and then continued conversation or, get some information from what they have said.
Listening to what is unsaid#
James: But I think that is really important to listen to what they didn’t say. Perhaps there was important information that, was left out, maybe that was on purpose. So listening to those things is so important. So yeah. What are some things that, some experiences maybe that you’ve had where listening for what’s on set has been something that’s, can you really use.
Oscar: Yeah. Actually, the story comes from a workshop I did in Melbourne in 2015, there was 12 liters in a room and it was. 20 minutes to one or thereabouts. And the reason I knew it was close to lunchtime because the CEO was tapping their finger on the table to get my attention and pointing to their watch and going, we are going to finish them.
We were doing this really simple exercises. What animal is this organization and everybody 11 out of 12, people had spoken and said, it was an Eagle, it was an Osprey, it was a C goal. It was a Seahawk. It was all this fast, moving fluid, but there was one person who hadn’t spoken Eileen and Eileen was right at the end of the table and probably a card carrying member of the introvert club.
And I lane hadn’t spoken. And so I just turned and gestured to her. I didn’t say anything, but I sense that Eileen didn’t get to speak much in this group. And as I turned to her, I could feel the laser beam of the CEO’s eyes. If it was a cartoon movie, it’d be exploding my head let’s he wanted to eat.
That’s all he was interested in. And I just stopped. I paused, I turned slightly towards her and I didn’t say anything. And she said, I thought we were a snack.
And you could feel the tension rising in the room now giants. When I say snake, what goes through your mind? What’s the characteristics of snakes.
James: Yeah. My mind goes to venomous by quite sneaky things like that. It’s not really a Pathi fun at all. It’s,
Oscar: So I just paused and waited for Eileen to finish.
What you don’t know about Eileen is that her historical family culture comes primarily from China and in China, the relationship with a snake is very. It’s actually a revered creature. But what she said was I think where a snake, because we’ve forgotten to shed our skin and we’re holding onto practices and we’re not listening to customers and we’re not evolving in the way we had in the past.
And the tension in the room changed completely. And there was this very big conversation about shedding skin around bad processes in the business shedding processes that weren’t helpful for customers. Now that only came about because someone in the room took the time to listen to what wasn’t said, which was, I lame talking about a snake.
Now the snake is about adaption and it’s about change. But in the west, we have this mindset that snakes are bad. In fact, in Christian story traditions, snake as part of the origin story. Christian religions, the temptation in the garden of Eden by a snake to eat the apple and forever humans have to work for the rest of their lives.
So they don’t have great relationships with snakes, but for all of you listening right now, it’s a really good example of listening filters or biases that you have. So if you’re wanting to learn more about what gets in the way of your listening, you can go to listening quiz.com. You can take a 20 question quiz.
Get a five page report. That’ll tell you what gets in your way. Now the conversation James did not finish till 20 past one. The food was in the room, but nobody was. And in too many workplaces, the opinions that are ignored are the people who don’t naturally want to speak up because the host or the meeting organizer doesn’t create enough space.
Now, if you’re in a one-on-one conversation is three really simple tips you can use to listen to what’s unsaid. You can listen for what they trying to say. What they’re really thinking. The first phrase is. Tell me more
then next prize is. And what else? So please don’t use these immediately after each other, in a conversation. Otherwise the person will probably get a little bit annoyed with you. So the first phrase, tell me more the second fries and what else? And some of my clients just abbreviate that to say. And the third phrase, quite possibly the most powerful when you use these phrases will happen for the speaker.
They’ll take a breath in and they’ll use and their spine will straighten up. And they’ll say words like, actually, now that I think about. I haven’t told you about this issue. I haven’t told you about this person. I haven’t told you about this department. I haven’t told you about this financial model or whatever the case may be.
So question number one, tell me more question number two. And what else? And question number three, quite possibly the most powerful question you can pose use this carefully, use it skillfully, use it with empty. Don’t use it to intimidate the other person. Here’s price number three.
No, don’t worry. My video. Didn’t freeze silent and listen. Have exactly the same letters. And in the west, again, we have this. Awkward relationship with silence. We call it the deafening silence. We call it the awkward silence. We call it the pregnant pause. And a lot of us want to fill the space when it comes to silence, but in our indigenous communities with our Maori cousins and our Polynesian neighbors silence is a sign of wisdom, respect and authority.
It’s a sign of. Elders and building tribes that matter end in high context cultures like China, Japan, and South Korea. And the poles is a sinus seniority in the room is. So tell me more and what else, and then just pause and you silence for a lot of people starting off early in their career. That’s difficult because I feel like they are paid for the speed of their answers.
And I would say to you. Just take a little bit longer. I think about the quality of your response. When somebody asks you a question rather than getting the fastest response in the room, introverts are amazing synthesizers of group conversations. So check-in or regular. With an introvert and ask them what themes are you noticing in the group and what themes are you sensing or absent?
And all of a sudden you’ll be able to expand what’s unsaid so that you don’t have to rework things because people didn’t fully understand what everybody asked. Initially.
I’m curious what you’re thinking right now, James.
James: Yeah, I’m just reflecting on what you said there about, the introverts in the room and even that example that you gave where you’ve got the one girl that, hasn’t really said anything or meeting.
And I think that’s, that’s something that’s really interesting where it’s just sometimes the people that don’t really say anything are the ones, in their head, it’s just their heads spinning. They’re really thinking about everything that’s going on. Often, although they don’t say much or, sometimes in meetings, they don’t say their opinions as loudly as maybe other people too often, they do have very good insights and they need to be, even like we were saying, listening to, what’s not said, let’s be aware of the room and these people that don’t save all, maybe they have valid opinions and they really should be shared.
Maybe they don’t have the confidence or or belief in themselves. And so being able to bring out those opinions is something that can be really
Oscar: Beneficial lapse. And I would say, be careful with labels for those of you listening. I think labels are really good on food jars and pharmaceutical products, but they’re not good on people.
I think in a room of actuaries and accountants, I would be considered an extrovert yet in a room full of actors. I would be considered an introvert. So I think labels. Useful until they’re not so focus on the behavior rather than saying that person is. And then behavior shows up sometimes with people who are more reflective and that’s okay.
That I think the skillful. So the person is to encourage those people to participate and to offer opinions earlier in a conversation where people get frustrated with the deep thinkers and the introverts is they listen to the whole of the meeting. And the five minutes before the end, they drop a hanger and aide saying, you do realize you haven’t spent any time talking about our customers.
And the whole room got something. Why wouldn’t they have said that earlier? So for many of us we just need to be conscious of in various situations, our behavior listening is situational. It’s relational. It’s contextual. You’ll listen differently to appear than your will to your mouth. You’ll listen differently at home compared to work.
You’ll listen differently to somebody you’ve known for a long period of time compared to somebody you’ve just met. And all of us, when it comes to our listening. One thing to think about is this there’s two ways you can do. Give attention, or you can pay attention now neither is right or wrong. But right now, some of you are giving attention to this conversation between James and I.
And some of you are paying attention because you’re on a bike in a gym or you’re on a treadmill, or you’re doing some gardening or you might be committing. And you’re paying attention. It’s background audio, but some of you are giving attention. Your sitting down, you’re listening to this. You may be taking notes or you may be overlaying this with the context that you’re working on.
So there’s different ways. We show up with our listening. Now you can’t be a deep listener all the time. We’ve all got listening. Batteries, James, no different tour phone. And for some of us by lunchtime, our listening batteries are drained. Some of us, by the time we finished workout, listening, batteries are drained.
Whenever you’re listening, batteries are drained. That really quick way to reset it. Listen to a song or some music for between two and three minutes and that’ll help your brain to relax, catch up and help you be able to listen to the next conversation. I’m curious, James, where do you think you struggle the most in your life?
James: That’s a really good question. I think my initial thoughts are, w what we’re even talking about before about the distractions and things like that. And perhaps it’s an, that distraction it’s your phone or your email or something like that. But even, for myself, like smaller than that works.
No, the distraction of what’s for dinner tonight, wireless when speaking, or things that aren’t necessarily caused by something outside being distracting me, but it’s rather than just like the focus can sometimes, when you’re speaking to someone, sometimes you can start to think.
Habits of Great Listeners#
James: Things like what’s nice downside today. What’s dinner. That person said that to me yesterday. What did they mean? Things like that, and that could really affect it too.
Oscar: Yeah. So just be aware of the difference between a good listener and a great. Is not that they are not distracted.
People often ask me at the beginning of workshops or webinars, how do I stop being distracted? And I go the good news and the bad news, you will never be destroyed, not be distracted. So we talked earlier on about the 1 25, 900, all the difference between my speaking speed and my thinking speed. The 1 25 400.
Is the difference between my speaking speed and your listening speed. So you can listen at 400 words. So every conversation you have with a human is too slow. So you will be distracted. The difference between a good listener and a great listener is not that they get distracted it’s that they notice they’re distracted quicker and come into the conversation as a bridging strategy.
A lot of the people I’ve worked with get a little uncomfortable with using this phrase, but when they have the courage to do it, amazing things open up. If you just say to the speaker, I don’t know, James, have you ever been in a situation where you’re distracted and they said something important and you go if I just listen a little longer, Bits of the jigsaw puzzle will fall into places that ever happened for you.
James: Yes, that’s definitely
Oscar: Listening on the podcast. James is nodding his head, furiously the situation. So rather than being out of integrity with the speaker, just pause and go look. I’m really sorry. I got distracted. Do you mind saying that. And what the do it create an amazing connection between the two of you?
Because you’ve signaled to them that what they say matters, but that you are human and you did get distracted. And the reason why they will never have a problem doing anything other than saying that again is because it’s happened to them. That’s happened to the cup with I’ve drifted off. Now you can’t do it three minutes in a row and say, sorry, I got distracted.
Goodness, say that again. Sorry. I got distracted. You know that God’s just this person doesn’t care about what I’m saying. So that’s simple phrase to look up and it’s surprise. I use surprisingly more often than people imagined, but it relaxes them because they go, oh, okay. He’s going to be honest with me in a conversation.
I can be maybe a little bit more honest with them as well. So that simple phrase, look, I’m really sorry. I got distracted or my apologies. I just got distracted by, the red car that drives past or the coffee machine or whatever it is and just say, do you mind repeating that again? I think it’s important.
Yeah.
James: I think that was really good because yeah, there’s been times definitely where, you’re sitting in a meeting and then the person running, it’s sorry, James, what do you think of this? And then they’re like, oh, I can put you in this, that, and I think that’s great. Let’s be honest and just say, okay, I lost you there.
Can you please repeat the question? Things like that. I totally agree. It’s better to be honest about it rather than, and you build that trust rather than just saying, something that comes, we’re trying to make yourself almost look like a bit silly when you’re trying to answer a question and you don’t even know what the question was.
You just say something that’s, you’ve completely missed what they ask. It’s much better yet. Like what you’re deciding yet. Genuine. Let’s just reset and go from there.
Oscar: Absolutely. Yeah. And it also gives a spike at permission when they’re listening to you to do the same, right?
James: No, absolutely. One thing I want to ask you about too is, we’ve spoken about the five levels of listening and all these different things that are involved when you’re sitting down with someone and coaching, let’s say you’re with them, or maybe they’re at like a.
Yeah, lovely to listener. Do you want to try and improve their listening and what are some things that you sit down with them and you really work on to get them up to like working towards that level five listening where we’re really listening for the meaning behind what they’re saying as well.
Coaching lessons for improving your listening#
James: What are some key lessons that you coach people to improve their listening?
Oscar: Yeah. Keep in mind. Most people, 86% of people are at level one or level. The aspiration for level five is like a kind of social runner who runs park runs wanting to do a marathon. And only half of 1% of the Earth’s population has ever run a marathon.
And that, that takes a high level of commitment having run six myself and feeling it, feeling long-term injuries as a result of it. I can understand where, when we’re at level two, One of the things I really want people to become conscious of is are they listening to reload their argument or are they listening to help the speaker make sense of what they’re thinking?
So for many of us, we think we need to understand everything the speaker is saying. And yet one of the things we can be really helpful with at level two is to start to notice some patterns in the way the speaker is explaining a problem. Now, all the research I’ve done, James is in the workplace. So the examples I’ll give accordingly are in the workplace as well.
So a really simple example of this is a client of mine. Was telling me about a situation. And they met up with a peer and they said to the pier, I’m really struggling with my boss. Now. They hadn’t finished what they were about to say. And the other person said, oh, you think you’ve got a bad boss? Let me tell you about the worst boss I ever had.
And they spent the next 20 minutes jumping on this other person about the boss. Now what that person in that moment wanted the listener to do was actually to listen and not to solve. We’re not to compare. So level two, one of the first things we want to do is help the speaker make a little bit of sense of the patterns that they’re talking about.
So when you’re listening at level two, I encourage you to notice, do people talk about mainly the past. Did I talk mainly about the present or the future? Do they speak about themselves or do they speak about the team or others? Are they mainly internally orientated or they mainly externally oriented?
Did I speak in stats or they speak in stories? Do they speak in detail? So they speak in big pictures. Now, the reason we want you at level two, to start to notice how the other person speak. Is that you can start to match the why that I speak. So I imagine I’m a very elaborate storyteller. My, I love the whiteboard and drawing on the whiteboard.
If you continue to talk to this person only with the sequential rational details, there’s gonna be a mismatch in the why you are speaking and listening to it. Yes. So you need to dial into their stories and tell them how, what you’re trying to say to them is irrelevant. So for many of us, we don’t even know the adjectives people use the pronouns for people use the nouns or the verbs that people use pitcher this.
Is a fries that somebody would love to tell a story is about to set you up with. So your job is not to cut. The story off mid sentence is to let them finish. Where somebody says to you? It really sounds like we’ve got an issue here. These people have a preference around auditory and usually about detail.
So when you’re listening here at level two, you want to notice how people are expressing themselves, not what they say that’s important, but also how. By saying it. And when you do they feel more comfortable because they can go relax into their normal styles. Now, particularly when you’re early on in your career, this is something that you go, oh this is difficult enough.
I’m trying to learn my profession. I’m trying to learn the organization. And now you’re telling me to learn, to listen to the way my manager is speaking. If you do, your likelihood to get promoted is much higher. The likelihood they’re going to trust you with more interesting and complex projects is much higher.
The likelihood you’re going to be working on projects that have more senior visibility is much higher. The difference. I rebuilt the graduate program at Microsoft, by the way. I didn’t mention that to you, James. And it got exported to 26, Microsoft subsidiaries around the world in my time there. So I’ve got a really big focus on next generation leaders and what separated people who moved from graduate to higher roles in Microsoft.
Wasn’t their technical skills. And was that communication effectiveness. So if you do want these, this is a super power you can build and you’ll accelerate your career more if you’re perceived as a better listener.
James: Yeah yeah, I think that’s really. Really true, really and, with regards to the communication stuff, I think, it’s all in good to work on your speaking and your writing and think that is really important that this listening is something that almost that you’ve made people haven’t even considered, improving listening as part of that really whole portfolio of communication skills and something that, you can really work on.
And I think those tips he gave me. Whether it’s, paying attention to your smoke wisely, you yeah. Paying attention to how they say things, not just what they say. All of these things that are really fundamental to know growing that whole better communication skillset. And I think that’s really interesting that, communication is really something that’s driving.
Your role in the organization rather than your actual technical skill is definitely out there. I in my own workplace, once you know your technical role that’s that’s good, but once you get out to leading the team, even, which is almost like the first, the next step, really, your communication then becomes really important.
Attributes of Successful Graduates#
James: And so I think. That’s really interesting to hear. And were there any other, any other things that you picked up from, designing that grad program and just generally saying people go from the grad programs through the organization, were there any like other common threads between people that really pushed on and, progressed really well versus those people that, perhaps don’t have these communication skills, ironed out as well.
Yeah. Can you speak to.
Oscar: Yeah. I feel like the grandfather of these graduates, because the lot moved to China, they’ve moved to the U S they’ve moved to Western Europe that moved to the UK that moved to Singapore that moved to south America. And it’s really amazing to see them. And there’s a couple of common threads in the people who took on more responsibility.
I’m not saying that’s the definition of career success. Just the definition of career success. So number one learn the business, not your department, that they were really good at that would volunteer for projects that were cross organization rather than projects that weren’t. Inside their department.
So they got to learn the customers much better for some of them that meant that they negotiated with their manager for one hour, a week to listen to the customer calls from a contact center. So if you’re in a really large organization that’s something that you would need to discuss with your manager, but it will give you a much broader perspective of the.
The second thing that distinguished the graduates, the moved on that they understood the economics of the organization they were part of and the outputs they’re trying to create. So particularly if you’re in government departments, it’s very output driven. What’s the policy? How does that connect to our citizens and what are the budgets and policies that support that?
And in commercial businesses, it’s understanding. The revenues, the costs and how those things come together. So the second thing is they were relatively commercially astute and the third thing was they were courageous. They were happy to reach out to the most senior people in the organization and say what advice would you give?
And a lot of them would book in half an hour coffees anywhere in the world with people, LinkedIn’s an amazing tool that these people use to connect with people who weren’t necessarily in their own organization, but had the skills. That they aspired to. So number one, network outside your department, understand what really matters to the whole organization.
Number two, understand the commercial or the output requirements of the organization. And three, be courageous, reach out to somebody. It’s rare that they’ll say. But what they might say is I’m not the best person to support you on that. Can I make an introduction to somebody else who can, and James, you’re a perfect example of that based on a referral, you gone from common friend and here we are having a conversation about listening.
James: Yeah. Having that task. That’s really interesting. And the referrals really great. And I think networking the outside of your organization. Something that, like at least myself, I know that now working within the organization is quite easy. Cause I can just go and look someone up and send them a message, quite quickly.
But it’s, outside of the organization, that organization lives in the same field or organizations that you’d like to work someday or something like that. It’s definitely possible to do things like that. And I think, this is an example of, reaching out to people that you don’t know directly, but you can you can network around very easily.
And I feel like, especially if you’re a graduate, someone that’s a bit younger, people are often really supportive in helping you. Like giving you advice and trying to help you get to the places you want to go. I’ve found genuinely yeah. Once received, like not many people are gonna say I’m not interested in helping you at all.
And I’m not going to let you know who else to speak to. I think that’s quite rare. I think most people are quite genuine and they do care about you quite a lot as he trying to.
Oscar’s Tips for Graduates#
James: Yeah. So I’ll ask you, I’ve got one last question for you today, and that is, we’ve spoken about graduates a little bit now, but if you were graduating again you’ve had such a fantastic career.
You’ve worked in so many organizations. If you were going to graduate again, let’s say this year, you’re going to start your career next year. What is one, one piece of advice that you would give your.
Oscar: I would give myself two pieces of advice. Number one, I would give back to my first year lecturers at university and go back to them and say, can I do a guest lecture based on my workplace experience and how I’ve applied, what I’ve learned from you as a thank you to my lecturers.
And the second thing I would do is I would take more time to listen to. Executive assistants and administrators in the organization, they are the glue that holds the organization together. They make everything run smoothly, and if you’re in their dad books, they can slow everything down for you as well.
So whether it’s a receptionist, whether it’s an executive assistant or any kind of administrator, these people are the glue that holds the organization together. I’d invest more time in getting to know.
Outro#
James: Yeah, that’s great advice. And this conversation has been absolutely fantastic. There’s so much value that’s there.
You’ve got it inside. Your head are together. Thanks so much for proceedings out of me today. It’s been really special and thanks so much for your time. If people are looking to connect with you at different places, where is the best place for them?
Oscar: Just visit listeningquiz.com.
That’s got all the information you need, whether you want to take the quiz and find out what your listening barriers are, or you want to connect with me via LinkedIn. All the details are there at listeningquiz.com.
James: Wonderful. Thanks so much for your time today, Oscar.
Oscar: Thanks for listening.