Two eyes, two ears, one mouth

That was the maxim I was taught on my first sales training course. "You have two eyes, two ears and one mouth - use 'em in proportion." It sounds like a Carnegie line, and it's a doozy.

My mother recounted an anecdote the other day about having to take my brother, at great expense, to an Ear Nose & Throat specialist when he was a little boy because she was so concerned about his hearing difficulties. The doctor physically examined him and then conducted a couple of basic tests - making quiet noises from behind him to see if he reacted. My mother described the final test to me:

"The doctor said he was going to talk quietly, starting by standing beside us and then move away and that Donal was to tell him when he couldn't hear him any more. He started talking in a very low voice and asked was he audible - the child indicated yes. Backing slowly across the room, the doctor continued talking in the low voice, occasionally asking Donal a question to establish audibility. He eventually ended up leaving the room and backing down the corridor, still asking your brother the occasional question in the midst of an ongoing stream of quiet talk.

Donal eventually said, "I can't hear you any more." and the doctor came back into the room. He sat down and jotted a few notes, put his pen down and looked very seriously at me. “Your son has a fairly serious, but very common problem, Mrs Manahan … he doesn’t listen.”

I find it fascinating that the universe is described (and to a large extent ruled) by the Bell Curve – yet no one ever thinks they are average! Not only are most people average at any given skill; 50% of people are de facto below average. It is a very rare, and very self-aware, person who will admit that they are anything other than a splendiferous listener.

Interview question: “Is listening an important part of your communication process? (assuming a ‘yes’ answer) Tell me about that – how does listening happen for you? How do you ‘listen between the lines?'" Bad listening is easier to describe than good listening. Things to look out for:

• No empathy / sensitivity
• Interrupting the speaker
• Finishing the speaker’s sentences
• Jumping to conclusions
• Missing details
• Visibly inattentive
• Asking no questions
• Closing off the speaker
• Arriving to the discussion with bias/prejudice

Just look at an average group of average guys swapping stories in a bar. How many of them are actually listening and how many of them are just waiting for their turn to speak?