One of the things I am continually amazed at, is how few people know how to listen.
By that I don’t mean they’re not hearing the conversation, they’re just taking it all on face value.
The older I get, the more I have realised professional conversations are like icebergs.
What’s actually being said is often under the surface … clues, hints, admissions.
As someone once told me, people speak in words that are often designed to protect themselves rather than reveal themselves – and yet, if you listen really carefully – you can sense what is trying to be said … what they want you to really ask.
Police interrogators get this more than anyone.
Their ability to listen – and read visual cues – is what helps them solve their cases … whether that’s people who don’t want to be committed of a crime or people who are finding it hard to admit a crime has happened.
Subtext is everywhere.
It’s part of the reason I loved living and working in China, because everything had meaning.
To be quite honest, the easiest way to separate the people who appreciated Chinese culture and those who pretended to was to test their ability to read the invisible conversation that was going on during the conversation.
That or if they continually mentioned Confucius.
The ability to listen – and visually focus – is an incredible skill.
It lets you ask better questions.
It lets you discuss subject matters others may be finding hard to open up about.
It lets you judge situations through the context of the other parties body language.
It’s something rarely talked about in planning when – in many ways – it is the embodiment of planning, however it is also very easy to get trapped into.
Where you think nothing said is the truth.
Because if you think that way you’re doubley doomed – not just because there’s no way you can understand what someone is trying to communicate if you don’t listen to what they’re saying, but because the temptation would be to invent the subtext you want it to be and then you’re going to be in an even worse position than if you just took everything on face value.
As author Margaret Millar once said, “Don’t be one of those people who get so obsessed with what is being said between the lines that you don’t read the lines”.