The Smoking Gun

We tend to ask a lot of questions, but are we good listeners? As salespeople, managers and directors, we don’t listen enough, yet nature has blessed us with the perfect questioning ratio, two ears and one mouth – we should listen twice as much as we speak.

Although it is said we learn to listen on our mother’s knee and spend 45 per cent of our waking lives listening, very few of us have ever been taught to listen. We spend just nine per cent of our time writing, yet it’s the communication skill we spend the most time learning.

Learning to listen
A common complaint levied against salespeople is they don’t listen.

Listening does not mean shutting your mouth and opening your ears; that’s hearing.

If you listen to Gordon Ramsay in action, you constantly hear, “Yes chef” (among other things); recognition of what has been heard in the kitchen.

Good listeners participate actively in the information exchange. Active listening is a skill consisting of refl ecting back to the speaker a statement of what you think you heard.

Active listening goes that extra step, allowing the speaker to endorse or deny your understanding of the message, while also showing you’re interested in what’s being said.

Goals and targets
Whether you’re a coach, manager or salesperson, you need to listen more.

We are all given goals and targets and we are ‘told’ how and by when.

Sometimes how we are told interferes with the ability to listen; to understand what other peoples’ problems are in achieving the expected results.

Instead, we must learn to ask questions in an appropriate manner and really listen to the responses.

A cautionary tale
An example of questioning and listening lies in the following story.

A ship was sailing through thick fog when a crew member sighted a faint light ahead. The radioman signalled: “Please divert your course 15 degrees north to avoid collision.”

But the reply came back: “Impossible, recommend you divert course 15 degrees south to avoid collision.”

The radioman tried again, with a little more force: “This is a Navy ship, I say again, divert course.”

The reply? “No can do, you divert course.”

The Navy captain, now getting angry, took the radio: “This is the captain of a Navy aircraft carrier. Divert your course now!”

Then came the clincher: “This is a lighthouse; your call!”

The moral? If we don’t listen, we could sink our businesses.

As a politician once said, I know you understand what you heard me say, but I’m not sure you realise that what I said was not what I meant...

David Reavley is currently head of strategic partners at ihub Business Communications. He has worked in the mobile industry since the 1980s, including stints as sales director of Cellnet and senior vice president of Cable & Wireless Jamaica. He was voted Mobile News’ Industry Personality of the Year in 1995.