The Joy of Listening 2: Taking Turns

In my previous article, “The Joy of Listening,” I shared how talking to someone who is listening helps you think (and feel) better. When you take turns talking and listening, you increase the clarity and confidence of both people.

An everyday story – your talk falls flat

You have spent a long time planning and preparing a talk. You expect the audience to be fascinated. You give your talk your all. Then you ask the people if they have any questions. You get one or two trivial ones, but nothing like the number and quality you hoped for. You feel awful. “They found the content dull and couldn’t relate to how I presented it. I’d better rewrite my talk and rehearse some more.”

A different solution.

You probably didn’t get so few questions because you presented the talk poorly! We process new information by comparing and contrasting it to what we already know. (Dear Reader, you are doing this now.) The audience had no time or support to do this when you asked, “Do you have any questions?”

You will have far better questions and more of them if you ask people to pair up and spend five minutes talking and making turns to chat about “What did you learn? What is one question you would like to ask?” Taking turns like this gives them the time and space to process what they have heard and the confidence to ask a question.

Taking this further – the “Un-Talk.”

Putting people into pairs helps a presenter get more and better questions. An “Un-Talk” takes this a step further. You form pairs before your talk. You tell your audience, “I know you want to know more about “this topic” but I don’t know what about it you want to learn today. Please, will you spend five minutes talking with the person sitting next to you about why each you are here and come up with a question. My “talk” will be the answers to your questions.”

Two advantages of this approach are that what you say is relevant to the audience and that an un-talk is much less work than the conventional approach. There is more about this here.

Another common story – the chaotic meeting

You are running a meeting to decide on “a vital topic”. Everybody has strong feelings about it, so there is a lot of talking, shouting and interrupting and very little listening. You remind people about the objective of the meeting and “call them to order,” but the chaos continues. You think it’s your fault. You should have prepared better and run the meeting more tightly.

A different solution

You can’t solve a “feelings” problem by focusing more on the task. You have to deal with the feelings. People find it difficult to think straight or behave constructively when angry, sad, frustrated, scared, or embarrassed. When people express their feelings, and someone listens, they think more clearly.

When a meeting like yours happens, the simplest thing to do is to say, “Let’s have a short break. Walk around the room, find a partner and take turns talking about how you are feeling and what we can do to make progress in our discussion today.” Afterwards, the meeting will go much better.

Another story – intervening in a conflict

A group of senior police officers were planning a project. “Mary” and “Fred” were embroiled in a conflict which had turned into a battle. Their battle was entertaining, but it was slowing down progress. I asked Mary to put Fred’s argument and for Fred to check that she had understood it. He said she had got it right.

Then we swapped roles. When Fred put Mary’s argument, he discovered he hadn’t understood it completely. Eventually, with more clarification from Mary, he got it right. After this mutual clarification, they realised their positions were not so far apart, and they could bridge the gap.

Another story – pair work for personal and professional development

“The consultant as a human instrument” was the title of a session on an organisational development course. It reminds me that when I am coaching, counselling, consulting, writing, or facilitating, all I have is all of me. Personal and professional development isn’t nice to have; it’s absolutely necessary.

Pair work for personal and professional development is not only more affordable than buying one-way support, but it is also much more effective. When you take turns, you are both vulnerable. You understand by experience what it is like to be helped (it can be surprisingly uncomfortable to accept love). Mutual trust builds exponentially.

It’s a lonely and risky business being an internal or external consultant. Taking turns supporting and challenging each other builds a human connection and is fun.

I’ve taken turns with people using coconsulting and cocounselling to help me learn and grow for fifty years. I still learn new things every time. Personal development never ends!

Finally, there are many other uses of “taking turns” that I haven’t listed or even thought of. Please use these ideas freely and build on them.