The Art of Listening

In this episode, Brenton and Ron continue their series on effective communication by focusing on the fundamental skill of listening. They discuss the significant role listening plays in building strong relationships, making informed decisions, and leading effectively. This episode is full of great examples and straightforward advice that demonstrate why listening is our most important communication tool in both work and life.

Key Topics:

1. Benefits of Listening:
   • Understanding others better
   • Building trust and respect
   • Enhancing communication effectiveness
2. Techniques for Active Listening:
   • Asking open-ended questions
   • Providing feedback to show understanding
   • Using silence effectively
3. Practical Tips:
   • The stoplight mechanism: Red (stop and listen), Amber (consider response), Green (speak)
   • Preparing mentally before conversations
   • Managing distractions
4. Barriers to Effective Listening:
   • Distractions and biases
   • The tendency to plan responses instead of listening
5. Improving Leadership Through Listening:
   • How understanding your team’s perspectives can lead to better decision-making
   • Building stronger connections and fostering a positive workplace culture
   • 
     

Quotes to Remember:

• "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." – Dalai Lama
• "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." – Theodore Roosevelt

Resources Mentioned:

• Beyond Blue
• Black Dog Institute
• Lifeline
• R U OK? Day

Conclusion:

In this episode, Brenton and Ron emphasize that effective communication starts with good listening. They provide listeners with actionable advice on how to improve their listening skills to become better leaders and communicators. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a business leader, or anyone looking to improve their communication skills, this episode offers valuable insights into the art of listening.

Connect with Us:

• Follow the Business Builders Podcast to develop your leadership skills, build a successful business, and become an effective leader.
• Join the Business Builders Linkedin Page

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Business Builders Podcast. Until next time, keep building!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 5:00 Why listening is important in the AI era
• 10:00 Understanding Your Audience Through Active Listening
• 15:00 Providing Feedback and Showing You're Engaged
• 20:00 Managing Distractions to Focus on Listening
• 25:00 Overcoming Biases to Hear Other Perspectives
• 30:00 Improving as a Leader Through Better Listening
• 35:00 Asking Open Questions to Encourage Conversation
• 40:00 Review of Effective Active Listening Techniques

Transcript

Brenton Gowland: 0:01

Hey there Business Builders. Today we're talking about the art of listening and essential skill for good communication. We will look at its benefits, how to improve your listening skills, and share practical tips to become a better listener. This episode has some great examples and straightforward advice that shows why listening is your most important communication tool in both work and life. Welcome to the Business Builders podcast. We are your hosts. I am Brenton

Ron Tomlian: 0:29

and I'm Ron Tomlian. Gowland,

Brenton Gowland: 0:30

And Ron, we've started the effective communication series, which is really good. Last episode was a bit of an introduction. And this episode, we're going to get stuck into listening, and the benefits of listening, how to listen, tools for listening, some majorly important stuff. But before we do that, what's been going on for you lately,

Ron Tomlian: 0:50

Yes. It's been interesting that that one of the Ron? things I'm noticing in business people business leaders, is the rapid adoption of tools Using AI. Once people get introduced to some of the applications for things like chat, GBT, Daly, some of the others, Gemini and so on, it all almost becomes a revelation. And literally, I've seen it happen, where people suddenly realise that there's a whole new world of assistance, and they the things that they do with it almost instantaneously, people are, in some respects, becoming reliant on it more so then they had with software packages ever before.

Brenton Gowland: 1:33

That's interesting. I think I became reliant on it as an assistant really early on, when I say really early on, I'm talking about three slash more years ago. But yeah, I can see that completely. And I can see the way AI is getting into businesses and so forth. But it's interesting, I think we'll also find the limitations of AI as we go forward, as well. And that might be a strange comment to make. But I've seen it in some of the things we've been building like we were building a privacy policy for a finance company the other day that has to go online and the privacy laws, particularly in the European Union, and that group of countries, including the UK and EEA, the European Economic Area, I think it's cold, which includes a couple of other countries that aren't exclusively in a year, about 28 countries in all, wow, march 5 This year, Google apparently has stopped collecting data from them unless you have their express permission, which by law, and I think it's called the GDPR general data protection regulation in the in the EU, we were creating a privacy policy for Australia. And in the past, it's been pretty simple. The chat GPT would go so far, but it would not compile a document for me. And I ended up asking, Why have you not done this? And it's, it basically said to me, because of the complexity of the laws involved in the EU in California, in Australia, now we're doing a global policy here. I can give you advice, but you have to go see a lawyer and I was like, I haven't seen this before in chat. GPT. My point is, it'll be interesting to see how that develops. So very much like you said, AI is an assistant, but there's going to be limitation. We don't know his limitations. I think we're right at the early days. Because I think it's like us, right? So if I'm an Assistant, I can be a general assistant to people. As soon as I start giving legal advice, I make myself liable, don't I?

Ron Tomlian: 3:35

That's right. That's exactly right. Any advice, really, you're liable. But particularly legal advice when you're not a lawyer, even if you are a lawyer.

Brenton Gowland: 3:44

So that's one avenue where I see chat GPT not having limitations, but having guide rails put in. And I think over the course of doing normal work, we'll see a lot more guide rails establishing how we use AI. So I just think it's really interesting and it might be worth us. Because you if you're new to the show, run coaches CEOs and has a number of groups where he bring CEOs together for roundtables where they coach each other, it'd be really great as part of a series on effective listening just to get updates with what you're hearing from other business leaders. And I get out and about a bit so I can bring some information. But I think for me that seeing that limitation with GPT and understanding how to work with that, which I can talk about in another episode. I think that's really useful.

Ron Tomlian: 4:31

I think what I'm seeing is that people are quite startled at it first, and how much it can do. But there's a lot of hype out there as well. Oh, yeah. And they start to realise that like using software programmes, like using any type of technology, you have to put some effort into learning how to use it. Once you do it can be very effective and very helpful, but it's not instant. In taneous, and it's not magic, it's a learned skill.

Brenton Gowland: 5:04

And I think people get the thrill of when they first start interacting, they'll ask at something and it'll give them an answer, they don't expect. And that's very good. And they will think, Oh, gee whiz, I'll be able to do this with everything. Now, it's not that simple. I've learned that, particularly Chet GPT has a particular personality and a particular way of doing things. Yes, you can programme it, the amount of times I've created GP teas that don't say this, don't use that. Don't do that. Like I said, I still think we're in the early days.

Ron Tomlian: 5:34

Oh, absolutly. And it's exciting.

Brenton Gowland: 5:37

It's very exciting.

Ron Tomlian: 5:38

It's fun to be part of this type of era, I suppose. Where we're starting to see technology that's never been, it's been there before, but never been used as extensively.

Brenton Gowland: 5:49

So in this era, new era where we can just access AI, how important is listening, Ron, is it still as important as it used to be?

Ron Tomlian: 5:57

It's, it goes to show you because the whole basis of the effectiveness of AI tools is on their capacity to listen to what we're saying, through it through interaction using a keyboard and so on, but actually not. So I was just gonna say, I haven't tried that yet. But yep, that should be coming. I wonder if it can handle my accent? We'll see. The point is that it needs to listen, before it can do anything effectively for you. And the truth of the matter is, that's also the case for us.

Brenton Gowland: 6:28

That's actually very true. Because if you don't give full context to what you want your AI to do, it will not give you the answer, you really want. It really, the onus is on us to educate it. But it does very clearly illustrate that point. Unless you've got the full picture, you're gonna get an unexpected result.

Ron Tomlian: 6:50

Oh, yes. And we talked about all we talked about now in AI, prompt engineering, it's the same with human being, we have to be prompted, we have to get the picture, as you say. And so I'd like to call this podcast listing. We're good communication states.

Brenton Gowland: 7:09

Oh, where it starts?

Ron Tomlian: 7:10

Yes, yeah,

Brenton Gowland: 7:12

this is where we start. Last episode was an intro. This today is where good communication starts.

Ron Tomlian: 7:18

And in my experience, good leaders get an appreciation of the whole playing field as best they can. And that means looking for information. Now, you can say, listening is about actually hearing, I would argue, and we had this discussion before, that listening is about being aware with all your senses, and sometimes even before you are communicating outward. And what I mean by that is, we talked about the example, if you're going to do a presentation or a keynote speech, you don't just put your speech together and walk into the hall of the chamber and block out, you would do some research beforehand, you wouldn't look at who am I talking to? One of the source precepts of communication when we're talking about marketing, communications, and so on is the first question you ask, Who am I speaking to? Correct? And if you haven't asked that question, you really don't know how you're going to be able to communicate to those people, or to that audience. It's the same in every situation, even if you're even if you know someone, you may not know the context of where they are at this particular point in time. So you need to start by listening, and I'm talking about active listening. And active listening might mean that you start with a question. So you will do the first speaking but you're asking a question, to gauge with a situation you're in.

Brenton Gowland: 8:51

That's really interesting, because the parallels are all through all of the communication sciences. So you're talking about marketing, you're talking about starting with a brief, the purpose of the brief is to understand what we're about to set out to achieve, then to deeply understand something, we need to know the history, we need to know the nuance, we need to know who's involved. That's the brief. And through so many different professional practices, they all start with a brief because unless we know the context of what we're about to do, the history where we're going to go, you make poor decisions. And so in understanding active listening and leadership, as you're talking about, if we want to be effective communicators, we got to start with forming that brief in our own minds. Like with the AI, we got to have the full picture. So yeah, it makes perfect sense what you're saying.

Ron Tomlian: 9:40

Well, I often talk to people about writing a proposal, and they will talk about using standard formats and so on was fine. But the truth of the matter is, you should never in my opinion, so this is written communication. Now we're talking about you should never put a proposal forward unless you've first spoken For the people who you're writing it for, to understand the context of what their proposal is for what you're trying to achieve.

Brenton Gowland: 10:07

That's in an ideal world, you know how that works.

Ron Tomlian: 10:09

I understand. But I would never put, if someone's put a proposal forward to me, I would never do that unless I've had a discussion with those people before. Because you want it to be relevant to them. And it's the true with any conversation, any communication, any presentation, is it needs to be relevant for people in order for them to listen to what you have to say. So it's the setting up the context, that's really important in any conversation in any communication.

Brenton Gowland: 10:44

And I might just caveat that because often, when you work with government not to throw them under a bus, they will not meet with you. But they're the onus is on them to create a brief as we discussed earlier, that's comprehensive enough for people to understand what they're doing. Now, we all know, if we've been around doing proposals for people, that doesn't really put you in the best position to be able to win a thing. But it clarifies what I was saying earlier, it's either you need to, you really need to form a really good brief part of that brief, is getting in talking to people and understanding people if you can. And yeah, 100%, like your analogy with the speaker, going and doing a Keynote or whatever, if you walk into that room and just go blah, as you were kind of saying, you can miss the whole audience. But if you start to research, who's in the room, understand them understand what motivates them, it gives you the ability to put anecdotes on stage, it's like artists who come to different places, and they'll get up on stage and do their big, wham bam show. But if they're smart, they'll drop in some local cultural anecdotes, and the audience will fall in love with them. It's not that hard. You just ask the person at the hotel, you talk to other people, what's How do you say this in this place.

Ron Tomlian: 12:00

So if we're talking about active listening, there's a couple of things that we need to at least identify. And that's number one. It's about all about attention and awareness. Yeah, being attentive to the situation, being aware. And so what we were talking about before, using as many senses as you can to gain an appreciation, as you were talking about when we were discussing this beforehand, you can often get a vibe through your senses, your feelings smell in the air, ie sometimes, like fear, you can get a vibe for what is going on in a room or in a situation in a meeting by being aware just by being open to more than just visual or auditory, or using all your senses.

Brenton Gowland: 12:48

So a speaking coach said to me once and yes, I have been to a speaking coach said to me, when you get on a stage, don't start speaking straightaway. Be silent. Go out there. Don't be afraid of silence. And look around the room, soak it in, allow yourself to feel what's going on in that room. Look at the audience, make eye contact, do this for 1020 seconds. And if you can stand there and just look around, just soak it in. And then you don't have to start with fireworks, but you can start speaking you will have gained if you get on the stage as a speaker, and don't speak for a little while, you will have got everyone's attention. Absolutely right. I thought that was really good. But take that to what you're saying. When you enter a environment where you're wanting to have an effective communication with someone or get a basis for taking some time to absorb what's going on without speaking just looking at the person maybe saying hello, but just absorbing what's going on? In those few seconds. Because we were talking about five senses, you can gather so much information, what their mood is.

Ron Tomlian: 13:53

yeah.

Brenton Gowland: 13:54

Are they receptive? What's going on? If you're meeting someone somewhere, you often start with me, do you want to drink or whatever, if you're meeting in an informal environment, or if you're meeting in a formal environment, you want a coffee or whatever. But you have that ability, that little bit of preamble time to kind of delve into the mood of the situation before you get into the meat of the discussion. It's just so important to gather that information to have an effective communication.

Ron Tomlian: 14:18

Absolutely. And one of the skills that goes with that, beyond just listening and being you like using the modern vernacular, mindful of the surroundings. Do you like that terminology? So it's a great one. And we'll talk about a little bit more in terms of mindset is using questions? Yeah. So often people start conversations with statements, people start presentations with statements, questions are incredibly important and your capacity to ask questions to be and I think we've used this term before, to be genuinely curious about the other person or the audience and to ask questions Gather information as a basis for more effectively communicating with them. I think the other one is in the same light is providing feedback. You When You're asking questions, and you're getting people to start talking, it's making sure that they know that you're actually listening. But one of the one of the quotes that I love is from a guy called Jim Rohn, who was an entrepreneur in the United States, who said, one of the greatest gifts you can give to anyone is the gift of attention. But they have to know that you're attending to them, and providing a little bit of feedback, even we do it between ourselves a bit of, or Yes, or paraphrasing. So what I've heard you say is x, that they know that you've heard what they've had to say.

Brenton Gowland: 15:48

I'm going to share a personal story. And I might get in trouble for this later, but I'll share it with you earlier, is that I'm an extrovert, and my partner's an introvert. But when she speaks to me about something important, I'm usually chat chat. If you're listening to this show, you'll know that I'm always chitchat. But if she speaks about something that's important, I go silent, because I've taught myself over the years to do what we're talking about, and to just listen. But the one thing I missed in that whole scenario is what you've just said, is to make comments to show I'm listening. So I'll sit there and I'll think of the right thing. And I'm just listening and thinking about it. And we'll go on and then later on, she'll go, You know what, you didn't hear a word I said, Did you and I'm like, What are you talking about? I stopped talking, I listened to you, she said you didn't. Usually you've always got something to say about a topic. But you've said nothing about what I've said. And the truth of the matter is, is because what she said to me is important, and I'm processing it in my mind. And in me before I say anything, because I've learnt to do that. The what I missed was that she needed some input to show her that I was processing

Ron Tomlian: 16:58

Now. And it doesn't have to only be saying something like, or I hear what you're saying. It could be your body language. And again, this comes back to taking information in but giving information out in the fact that you are actively listening to that person, your stance of you're looking off into the distance, and you might be looking off. So that and I do this myself, I look off into this is because my hearing is not that good. And I want to turn my ear towards the other person. But what they're thinking, and what they're seeing is I'm not really listening. So looking at the person nodding in be a good way of doing it, leaning into them, or leaning into the conversation so that you appear to be listening to what they're saying. But I suppose punctuating late in the same way that people eventually have to stop. When they're speaking. There's an opportunity, not necessarily to say anything, but to just indicate you've heard what they've said,

Brenton Gowland: 18:02

Well, that's interesting. I am a creature that learns. Generally, when something happens that causes me to go, Oh, I better do something about that example, I was in a meeting once with this client. And it was a fairly important meeting, the CEO was there and all the marketing people. And I started taking notes on my phone. And the CEO kept looking at me, I said nothing. I just kept taking notes through the whole time. And I got told by one of their marketing managers at the end that the CEO thought I was so rude because I was texting. During our meeting. I wasn't, I was taking notes. And she said to me, you might want to turn on the light. We all knew all the marketing people knew what you were doing. He didn't because he was potentially a bit older. She said just say in the future to say look, does anyone mind? Oh, I'm just taking notes on my Absolutely. So religiously ever since that happened? Because I was mortified. I have said to people look might look like I'm texting, but I'm just taking notes. Is that okay with everyone? Yeah, absolutely. And in the same vein, like what I'm learning with my partner, is that I need to make comments. So that she knows I've connected with what she's been saying. So again, I'm creature of learning, I something happens, and I'll learn and I just keep learning. So through all these interactions, but I might before we, we really should move on to talking about barriers to effective listening. But what I'll say just to end of this section is that we're talking to leaders here, Business Builders podcast, right. So if you are a leader, you want to have as much information as you can to make effective decisions. And pretty much every good leader that I've come across does that what that means in a context of communication is asking questions, listening, absorbing, so that you can get as much information before either you make judgments or you make decisions. So that's what we're talking about. out here, understanding that active listening, which is what we're talking about sets the foundation for effective communication.

Ron Tomlian: 20:08

It's the basis for any type of relationship, good communication. And when you think about building trust and respect with other people, it comes down to them understanding that you care about what they think. Yeah, it was, I think it was Theodore Roosevelt who came up with the line, people don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. True. And the only way they'll know how much you care is by listening, in my opinion. Yeah. So let's move on to barriers to effective communication. I think the first one is how you come into that communication, energy mindset. And what I'm talking about there is, Am I ready to listen to someone else? Or do I have my mind so full of what I want to say, doesn't really matter what, who they are, what they think where they're coming from, I'm just gonna blurt it all up. So preparing yourself beforehand, to be open to what the other person has to say. And again, that comes back to mindset, mindfulness. And how do you get mindful? When you're going into a conversation? What do you do?

Brenton Gowland: 21:19

Me? Well, what I've learned over the years is that I have to control myself, because I've got not diagnosed but ADHD potentially. I'm very doesn't that he's very extroverted, shall we say? So for me, I actually have developed a conversation in my own mind and a checklist that I have. And it will literally be to, like you say, ask questions, and I will almost start a game in my mind. And I've talked about this yonks ago, which was the stoplight mechanism. So when I sit down, to have a conversation with someone, I will observe and go exactly what we said before what's going on in this environment, are they listening because it was people that I've worked with over the years that have helped me understand this, to look at the body language to look at what's going on to stop and just think and feel. And it's taken me a long time to get to that to get mindful, I will focus on the fact that I've got to gather information. And I might have certain questions in my head, the first one is to understand what's going on. The second one is to make a plan. And the third one is to create action points at the end, right? That's roughly it. So the first one is, I need to understand as much as I can in order to be able to make a plan with that person that they can agree with. Because you don't have a plan unless you get agreement. Right? I can tell you what my plan is. But it's not our plan. Exactly. Right. So I guess I focus on those three things. What's the brief? What's the situation? What's going on? What's the plan we're going to create? Because I always think I need to be able to come out of this meeting, or this interaction, or this discussion with this result. So I start the meeting thinking I gotta get to this result to get to that result, I need to understand enough to be able to make a plan and make some action points. Is that enough? But that, and that's kind of me just thinking on the spot.

Ron Tomlian: 23:17

Red light, yellow light, green light?

Brenton Gowland: 23:18

Oh, yeah. Did I the stoplight mechanism is, is how I put that into action, right. So I have those three points in my head. But predominantly, I'm thinking about what I want to achieve, right. So to get to what I want to achieve, I gotta keep my mouth shut, understand what's going on, and then have a meaningful interaction in order to be able to get the result that we both need. And to get that done, I use the stoplight mechanism, which is when they talk, I've got a picture of stoplight in my mind. And I don't have to do this much anymore, because it's become nature. But I did have to do this early on, I would literally picture a red light in my head while that other person was talking. When they stopped talking, I would move to Amber. When I was in Ember, I would ask myself a question. Do I need any clarifying information? If I needed clarifying information, I would ask a question or do I need to now steer the conversation in another direction? Therefore I would make or progress that conversation. Therefore I would need to make a statement or some sort of leading comment. So during the amber time, I would make a decision and I wouldn't talk straight away. I would wait a second or so to make this decision. But in that time, where you wait a second Oh, so it also gives the other person the ability to continue on if they've had a natural pause. So instead of me jumping in when they pause and cutting them off, because if you let the other person talk, and again, if anyone's listening to me, who knows me, it's taken me a long time to work this out. If you talk when the other person pauses you miss out potentially on some gold because they're just thinking themselves. So if you take that amberlite time to just consider what am I have a say next door, any clarifying information, whatever you give a couple of seconds. And if they start talking again, that's a better outcome than you asking another question, generally.

Ron Tomlian: 25:09

I saw this many years ago, absolutely fantastic engineer I used to work with who would be bombarded with salespeople who were trying to sell him a electrical equipment widget maker near now he was a he actually was determining what equipment would be used in a situation and what wouldn't. So I'd have salesmen coming in all the time talking to him about their new equipment, and his standard technique for everything was to say nothing. And so they would tell him how wonderful the equipment was, how fabulous the new widget was, and all the things that could do. And when they'd finished, he would say nothing. And invariably, because these people hadn't been taught to listen properly, or ask questions, what they would do is say, Oh, you might have heard that there are some problems with he will give the whole story out. And maybe some things that they didn't know your eyes say, simply by saying nothing or nodding his head, implying that he'd heard what they had to say. But not say anything. It was a fabulous technique.

Brenton Gowland: 26:14

Do you know what that's called? Letting the silence do its work.

Ron Tomlian: 26:17

I've heard that expression in the silence, do the heavy lifting.

Brenton Gowland: 26:21

That's right.

Ron Tomlian: 26:22

And it's so true. But until you see it, or experience it, I should say.

Brenton Gowland: 26:27

and just to context that it can be really awkward to be that person who's being silent because you're doing it. There's a natural inclination to want to talk. But you only have to practice it a few times to realise it's actually a tool.

Ron Tomlian: 26:40

And it's something that I was a perennial gap filler. If you've ever heard that expression?

Brenton Gowland: 26:44

Oh I know.

Ron Tomlian: 26:44

Yeah.

Brenton Gowland: 26:44

Just look at me.

Ron Tomlian: 26:45

Yeah. And what I've learned is there's nothing wrong with a gap nothing wrong with silence. So let it do the work.

Brenton Gowland: 26:52

And what you're saying is that this is all before we get to the green line. The green line is when we're allowed to talk and more officer your friend existed in the amber

Ron Tomlian: 27:01

Yeah. Yes, he stayed there. He stayed in the amber for a long time.

Brenton Gowland: 27:05

The amber light when you go to the when you're driving, that stays amber longer.

Ron Tomlian: 27:11

Not necessarily I try to stop before I get to the amber.

Brenton Gowland: 27:15

I do now. Let's just say enough tickets, we'll get you there.

Ron Tomlian: 27:19

The other thing that can hinder active listening is distractions. And this is about being in an environment where there's lots of things going on. The distractions could be you thinking about something else? The distractions could be the number of other people are having conversations when you're trying to have a one to one conversation with someone. It could be phones. That's the worst one nowadays, I think, yeah, could be sitting in. I remember, one time I was sitting in front of my computer talking to somebody and the emails kept popping up. And I just my eyes would date over there. And while my eyes were dating over there, this person slammed their fist on the desk, just about jumped back in my chair. They said Good. Now I've got your attention. And they were right. I was not providing a an adequate environment for properly listening to that person. Yeah, that's really interesting. biases are another thing. And that's something that's a little bit more difficult. And want to hear more about this one by bias is our understanding that when we're listening to something, and we could be actively listening, are we listening with an open mind? Or are we listening to confirm what we already think? And that that's, that's a difficult one to overcome that. But I think the best way to overcome it is to ask yourself, in your mind while you're listening, what am I doing here? What am I doing with this information? And it only has to be a split second, that you become aware that you might be doing something about that information. Confirmation bias is the one that.

Brenton Gowland: 28:54

Let's go back to that briefing document for a second. I think the biggest distraction of all is what's going on in our own mind, right? Because all these things you're talking about are external peripheral. You're checking your emails, because what's going on in your head, you're thinking about something other than the conversation, you're thinking about. What's next, what's happening. Oh, God, I got that proposal out. Is this gonna be a, you know? So I think that mindfulness thing is really important. And the reason I bring that up about biases is again, it comes becomes a tool. So I grew up religious, not from my family, but from other mechanisms. So when I used to talk to people who were of different opinion to me, I never heard what they were saying, because all I did is exactly what you're talking about. And I think religion gives us a foundation to talk about what you're talking about because there are people who are so singularly focused on what they believe is true that they don't hear anybody else and that was me. But what I realised through business over time and seeing, let's just say very brief The church people acting disgracefully. I came to start listening to other people. And it was because I understood that if I could put myself in their shoes and fully understand the scenario, and what they were experiencing, when you're a marketer, it's all about your target audience what they think it's not what it's about what you think I remember I was with a client once, and these stories will all pull together in a moment. You're listening and thinking practices going all over the place. I was talking with a client once about a job we put together and they said, Ah, let's just say like this, this really doesn't resonate with me this I think this is not as good as it could be. And we simply said one thing, but does it resonate with your target audience, and that person stopped and went, Oh, dear, good point. And of course, we tested it, and it did resonate. It didn't resonate with the owner of the business because they weren't the same target market. And which happens a lot. They weren't the same target market is who the products they made, were designed for. So it doesn't matter a hoot in hell, what that business owner thinks it matters what the target market thinks, Oh, absolutely. So bring that into the context of a conversation where you want to get an effective outcome. It doesn't matter what you think it matters, what the other person thinks, if you want to truly communicate with them. So if you can, or influence them, yeah, if you can, even though you've got biases, if you can act like a documentary maker, like a Louis servo. And go, You know what, I think what I think but I want to understand fully what this person thinks so I can effectively communicate with them. You don't have to have a debate with them about what's right and wrong. Just understand what they think and understand their perspective. Let's my little standing on a soapbox moment.

Ron Tomlian: 31:44

No, no, absolutely. In fact, one of the biggest distractions, I think, is thinking about what I'm going to say next. Oh, yes, it was Stephen Covey, who said, most people don't listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. And you're so busy thinking about what am I going to say next? They actually haven't heard what the other person said. And I am probably the guiltiest of that in the past. And I'm working hard to try and get over it. But it's, yeah, we're thinking, what? How am I going to make myself look good? How am I going to impress this other person? So I'm thinking about what I'm going to say and not listening to what they're saying.

Brenton Gowland: 32:28

And we do it all the time. I've just been doing it during this podcast, you were talking earlier. And I planted one word in my head while you were speaking earlier, which was brief. And I left that word brief sitting there and pushed it into the corner going yet. That's what I'm going to talk about next. Do I hear anything you said after I got that word in my head?

Ron Tomlian: 32:46

You were thinking about briefs?

Brenton Gowland: 32:48

I really was.

Ron Tomlian: 32:49

I think the last.

Brenton Gowland: 32:50

You got any solutions for that one?

Ron Tomlian: 32:51

Yeah. Oh, it's mindfulness and listening, effective. Leave any amberleigh and listening in the same way is, you sometimes say to children, now what did I just say? So that they repeat it back? Think to yourself, I am listening with the intent of being able to paraphrase what that person says, Now not word for word, but paraphrase what that person said, so that they know I'm listening, but so that I know I'm listening to their eye, there is a tool. It's a fantastic tool. Just think about how you treat yourself like you treat children. What did I just say? Well, what did that person just say? And be able to answer that question at any given time. So using paraphrasing is a great skill.

Brenton Gowland: 33:38

I would also say back to the stoplight mechanism. And I said this earlier, it's live in the amber light, like your friend who just let silence do the work. I know that's difficult for some people.

Ron Tomlian: 33:47

Look, to be perfectly honest, sometimes I think he wasn't listening that much. He just knew that was a great technique. Yeah. Because I sometimes wonder whether given that the volume of people he had through his door, that he didn't just switch off and use that as a mechanism. But I can never say that for a fact.

Brenton Gowland: 34:07

I remember working with this business leader once who was a lot like a robot. But when you would speak to him, there'd be these long silences after you'd finished speaking and you could literally see him thinking, and I remember the time I was like God with this conversation, just hurry up. But I thought back years later, I thought boy, that guy really thought through everything he was going to say and he did he was ended up being very successful. But I was just really impressed with that whole ability to do that when I first started talking with him though, boy, it annoyed me.

Ron Tomlian: 34:37

Oh, yeah. And we're going to come across people who find maybe listening to be a little bit annoying. I've I resist the temptation to jump off the listing bandwagon and jump onto the I'm just gonna get this out there. Because it is it's it I think it's the most important skill.

Brenton Gowland: 34:57

So Ron, how Has focusing on listening skills and developing your listening skills affected your leadership?

Ron Tomlian: 35:04

Well, it means that I understand the people I'm talking to a lot better than I ever did before. It means that they understand that I genuinely care. Yeah, I might have before, but I wasn't demonstrating that. And it means that I'm more attuned to that person, or that audience. And so my outward communication, my potential to influence them is a lot higher, because I'm talking, I've understood their wavelength. I've tuned in, if you like, and that's what listening is. It's tuning into the other person. And you can't do that just by sitting there. I mean, my friend tried that as a technique. But you've got to ask questions.

Brenton Gowland: 35:48

It's helped me massively because I used to remember people used to talk about the fact that I didn't listen to people. And now it's completely the opposite. And I have the ability to hate saying this out loud. But I know myself, and we're pretty darn good leader. And I think listening has been the biggest challenge I've ever had.

Ron Tomlian: 36:07

As far as I'm concerned. It's a journey. Yeah. Because I don't think I'm the best listener in the world, by a longshot. And my wife would be the first to tell you that, but have you improved, but I've improved a lot. And even she would have to admit that maybe grudgingly.

Brenton Gowland: 36:23

I can't want to ask her, you should get her on the show.

Ron Tomlian: 36:25

I don't even want to think about that. But she'll just contradict everything I've just said. But it is a journey. And it's not something that you can immediately turn on. It has to become habitual. So it's going to be something that people have to keep practising.

Brenton Gowland: 36:42

So if you are listening, ask yourself the question, How have your listening skills affected your interactions with people? And do they need to improve? And while we're talking about that, well, we talked about a whole heap of practical tips. Do we just want to summarise what those were before we start getting towards the end of the podcast today?

Ron Tomlian: 37:00

Yeah, I think number one is get good at questioning, get good at asking questions. Because you're genuinely curious.

Brenton Gowland: 37:09

Give us a couple of examples when when you're talking to someone, what kind of questions can we ask? Tell

Ron Tomlian: 37:13

me more about that. And that's one that I love. Because there's always more to tell. And you're not getting you really get the full story in the first couple of sentences. And it demonstrates two things. One, you're genuinely curious. You want to delve deeper. And to sometimes it means that because I've got that question sitting there ready. I don't have to think about the next thing. I'm going to say.

Brenton Gowland: 37:39

That's good. That's actually very good in context of what we've been saying anything else?

Ron Tomlian: 37:43

I think it's a funny one. But getting a context for where the person is at at any given time. It's how are you today?

Brenton Gowland: 37:51

Oh, like we were talking about with Tim the other week?

Ron Tomlian: 37:53

Yeah. The whole Are you okay? I think the movement is fantastic. But asking someone, are you, okay, can be quite confronting to some people.

Brenton Gowland: 38:03

It's like Tim said, you get used to it. And you gave us the Teddy Roosevelt comment. People don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. Those kinds of questions will lead you there. But I think there's other questions as well. And you said, Tell me more about that. I think there's things like how do you feel about that? What do you want to see happen? Yeah, those kinds of questions are great.

Ron Tomlian: 38:23

I think the feeling one is a fantastic one, especially, I hate to be sexist, but especially to men.

Brenton Gowland: 38:30

Because they don't ask.

Ron Tomlian: 38:31

But they don't think about their feelings very often.

Brenton Gowland: 38:33

So someone asked me, I'd be like, What do you mean feelings? I don't have any of those

Ron Tomlian: 38:38

exactly what I'm talking about, but giving them an opportunity to reflect on what's going on for them at any given time.

Brenton Gowland: 38:44

So tell me more about that. How do you feel about that? I love the question. What would you like to see happen? Those kinds of questions in? Because that's, it's questions about opening up a subject, like you said, with the silence earlier, people tell you the whole story, you want to find out the good, the bad and the ugly. You could ask questions like, I don't know what the context is. How do you think that could improve? It's these kinds of questions. And we were talking earlier, there's books on the questions you can ask. No, absolutely. Okay. So that's one more questions. Was there any other practical tips?

Ron Tomlian: 39:16

I think preparing yourself to be curious, getting yourself into the right mindset for listening. Even if you're trying to influence someone else is the basis for what you're doing in communication. It's, I need to start this off by being curious and understanding them or understanding the context they're in in order to get my message across.

Brenton Gowland: 39:42

And like I said, for me, the way that happens is I've got a framework in my mind, I start out with what outcome do I want to get to? So therefore, I need to like a brief understand the situation in what where we're starting, and then understand where we want to go and then develop a plan.

Ron Tomlian: 39:59

And I think it can be even more practical than that, what easier than that, in terms of, I just do a couple of deep breaths. And while I'm doing them, inhale, hold, exhale. And while I'm doing that, I'm thinking about, Okay, I'm becoming more and more aware of my surroundings, including the other person, before I even get into the situation where I'm talking.

Brenton Gowland: 40:21

That's good. It's that silence bit at the start. But I like for me, I like to have a plan in my head for what I want to achieve in conversation. Otherwise, I feel it's wasted.

Ron Tomlian: 40:29

Yeah. And, and respecting, or getting yourself into a mindset of I'm taking up this person's time. Yep. I've got to respect that by getting as much information as I can to start with so that it's as relevant and useful for them as possible.

Brenton Gowland: 40:46

Yep. And so then we had the stoplight mechanism as well, which we've already talked about. So some sort of mechanism to remind you to put these things into practice.

Ron Tomlian: 40:55

Paraphrasing, and being ready to paraphrase what the other person has said, What did I just say? Say that to yourself? I think? I think that's fantastic.

Brenton Gowland: 41:04

I think, I liked the way you said it earlier, listening, with a view to repeat back. Yeah. Which is paraphrasing is what you said. So right, there's about five tools for you from this episode, which is fantastic. But the point of the whole episode is that if we can really set ourselves up to go into a conversation to communicate effectively, we're going to have much better outcomes. And it's all about active listening. That's where good communication starts, and good knowledge to ship really Yeah, it's not about the talking. It's about the listening. It's interesting, though, how what we talked about there was listening is also asking questions, because and showing remember how we talked about unless you give some sort of indication, throughout a conversation that you've absorbed what's being said, the other person might not have that feedback mechanism to understand that you're involved in the conversation.

Ron Tomlian: 41:56

And I'd like to finish with a little quote from the Dalai Lama,

Brenton Gowland: 41:59

Please do.

Ron Tomlian: 42:00

Yeah. When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, and then learn something new.

Brenton Gowland: 42:07

I like that.

Ron Tomlian: 42:08

Let's finish on that point. So it's goodbye for me.

Brenton Gowland: 42:11

And it's goodbye for me see you in a couple of weeks for our next episode in our effective Communication series.