When I was growing up, I used to think the talkative ones were the smart ones. These people seemed to have an unending well of knowledge and an unstoppable flow of linguistic gold.
The smart sounding kid at school who had everything to say about anything, and everyone seemed to agree. The guy in the pub holding court over a pint and making the entire world laugh.
If I could create a verbal train that stopped at no stations, I could make it too.
Wink: Talk, Talk, Talk.
“The less you know, the more you say”.
In all my time in business, I’ve seen that listening wins, 100% of the time. Even if talking gets the knock-out punch in the room, listening is the one that gets back up to win the fight.
Why is that?
When talkers often sound so clever?
Well, they’re not as clever as they sound.
In fact, they’re the opposite.
Let’s pick that apart.
Nudge: Happy Ears.
It was Aristotle who said, “The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know”.
And therein lies the secret.
Throughout my career, I’ve had the benefit of being trained in the art of questioning and listening. It’s the antithesis to what we sometimes naturally want to do.
As humans, our tendency is to get “happy ears”; we hear someone express an interest in what we’re saying, doing, thinking, proposing or presenting, and we’re off to the races with our solutions and ideas before we’ve even asked them if they want them in the first place.
We like to be liked, and as soon as someone sends a signal that we might be accepted into their world, we’re banging our “buy-us” drum, loud and clear.
Yet we haven’t taken a single moment to understand them, what they want, or why.
The secret to solving, selling, diagnosing and winning at anything in your career, is to simply ask good questions first, then shut up and listen. Period. The end.
Jolt: Curiosity Killed The Problem.
Here’s my confession. I have a list of questions that I use whenever I’m in a meeting. Whenever I’m hearing a proposal. Whenever I’m buying a car. Whenever I’m doing a performance review. Whenever I meet someone new. In short, whenever I’m doing anything where I need to know more to make a good decision. Which is pretty much whenever I’m doing anything at all.
I start each question with, “I’m curious?”. It’s not threatening, it fits with any question, it’s genuine and, most importantly, it really works.
Here we go.
“I’m curious…
…tell me more? I loved what you said.
…can we go back to when you mentioned X? That intrigued me.
…what keeps you up at night?
…why do you think that?
…have you ever tried a different approach? Tell me about it.
…what would you do differently next time? I’m giving you a magic wand.
…is there another way to do this?
…why is this so X? (expensive, complicated, important etc)
…who do you think is better at this than you?
…what would make me say no?
The key to any situation you face, especially situations that are new, is being curious first.
Then act.
It’s a simple step, so easy to forget.
And it’s career gold.
With Q&A,
Love, The Jolt.