How to make people listen to you (7 min)
First, make people feel heard
When was the last time that someone truly listened to you? It may have been a friend or family member, a coach or a therapist. Take a few seconds now to remember a moment when you felt deeply heard.
What was the impact on you? How did it change your feelings and attitude towards the other person?
From my experience and that of my coachees, when someone really listens to us, it makes us more likely to listen to them. It also strengthens the bond between us. Making someone feel heard is the most powerful way I know to make others listen to you. First make them heard, then they listen.
We are tribal animals. We thrive on connections. We yearn to be accepted as who we are, with what we think and what we feel. The strongest connections are built by showing the other person that we acknowledge their thoughts and feelings.
It sounds easy. It is not. Especially when the other person disagrees with us and we get emotional!
I got it wrong!
I was having a nice stroll in the park with my 8-year-old son. As January back-to-school was approaching, I told him he should do his homework when we’d be back home. The nice stroll turned into a verbal fight.
His first salvo came: “no no no”. At first, it annoyed me. Then I decided to try a coaching posture and asked an open question: “What makes you not want to do your homework?”. It made things worse. He was now in full defensive mode, looking at the ground and using his barrage of “no no no” continuously. I insisted. He - unsurprisingly - pushed on and started making the cat sound “meow” over and over again, as loud as he could. We were now in the street closer to home. He was walking as far away from me as possible. He did not want to hear me and I was slightly embarrassed. He looked angry at me. I was getting more and more frustrated. The more I was trying, the deeper my hole.
After a while, still walking home, I calmed down. As things stood, there was little chance for him to willfully do his homework. We were both angry at each other. I was wondering what good I could make from this situation and I remembered the power of making people feel heard.
In tense discussions, where the other person resents a situation (or someone or you), making this person feel heard is a magical key that will shift the energy in the conversation. It makes people want to listen to you in return. Although I am giving you the example of a father and son, the process that follows works almost universally, many of my coachees have used it successfully at work! You can see the example in a board meeting at the end of this article.
How to make people feel heard
A simple way to make people feel heard goes like this:
Ask: first, with an open ended question, you ask them what they think about the topic. (I did not need to ask this question to my son as he had already provided the answer. Had he not, I would have asked: “What do you think about doing your homework?”)
Listen: When the other person speaks, you listen intently, giving them your full attention. You let them speak and your only focus is on the next step.
Repeat: You repeat what they have told you with their own words and you check with them that you understood them. “You really don’t want to do your homework, is that right?”
Check accuracy: The “is that right?” adds a lot of value. If they respond yes, well done, you understand her and you can move to the next step. If they respond no, ask them to tell you again what they think about the topic until they confirm accuracy.
Check completion: Then, ask if there is anything else that they think about the topic. If the answer is yes, go through the previous steps again and repeat what they said, ensuring you understood it correctly.
Check emotions: Now you understand what they think about the topic. It is time to understand what they feel about it. This can be difficult to ask - if you prefer, you can instead tell them how you think they feel about the topic. You can exaggerate what you think they feel because they may not fully express it themselves. Even if they are expressing themselves fully, they will feel even more heard. They may correct you. And again get confirmation: “is that right?”. This step is edgy for many, I get it. The reason it is here is that emotions contain A LOT of information, making you much better equipped to deal with the conversation effectively.
That’s how this part in our discussion went between my son and I:
Me: “You must be mad at me, is that right?”
My son: “I am not mad, I am just annoyed.”
Me: “OK, so you are annoyed that I am asking you to do your homework, is that right?”
My son: “Yes, because I want to read [My son was reading Harry Potter tome 5!].”
Time to move to a creative win-win solution
Now I knew he felt heard. If you have gone through the process with a genuine openness and curiosity, you will empathise with the other person and they will feel it. It is at this point that you can start to look for a creative win-win solution - you can either:
Ask them what they want to do about the topic (“What do you think you/we should do about X?”). You can follow the same process as above: repeat, check for accuracy, for completion and finally for emotions.
Express your point of view or offer solutions that reflect what you heard from them. Now that they feel heard, they will be much more likely to listen to your ideas.
Me: “You’re going back to school in 5 days and you have a fair amount of homework to do. How do you want to go about and finish it?”
That’s when we agreed on a schedule that allowed him to read first and do his homework later. We were both happy with the outcomes.
Dealing with mutism and anger
If the other person refuses to share her thoughts, you can try the combination of the below:
Express what you think she thinks and then check for accuracy; hopefully this will get the dialogue going. (e.g. “I think you don’t want to do your homework because you want to play, is that right?”)
Share your own thoughts and feelings that you have not expressed about the topic yet. (“I don’t really care whether you do your homework now or not, I just don’t want you to do it in a rush before you go back to school.”
Share an observation about their behaviour: (“I see that you are walking far from me, it looks like you are mad at me.”)
If you or the other person is not in the right emotional state (for instance too much anger) it is likely better to postpone the conversation. You can say: “I suggest we discuss this when both of us are in the right state to have a proper dialogue.”
Avoid these pitfalls
Give this process a try being prepared for the usual pitfalls, which all relate to our tendency to clinging to our own agenda.
We don’t follow this process because we fear the uncertainty of the outcome. We don’t know where the discussion will go. In my experience and that of others it always leads to better solutions and stronger relationships. A true win-win.
We don’t ask what the other person is thinking for fear of hearing contradictory views to ours. This is natural and is a total blocker to making people feel heard. You have to ask them.
We struggle to listen because we are thinking about how to respond. Let go of your need to respond. Your task here is only to repeat what they said.
We ask but we don’t repeat what they say, for fear of implying that we agree with them. Repeating their words is what makes people feel heard - it is a powerful step. It does not mean that you agree with them.
We quickly respond “I agree with you, but …”. The word “but” and all its beautiful synonyms erase what is said before it. Avoid at all costs this phrase and equivalent (“I see what you are seeing, however…”). Also you do not need to agree with people to make them feel heard. After repeating what they said, you should state what you think. Now that you have made them feel heard, they will be far more inclined to listen to you.
Case study - board meeting
Imagine this scene where you are the Chief Product Officer (CPO) of a tech scale-up. You are attending a board meeting, reviewing progress for the quarter that’s just finished.
The Chief Technology Officer is talking through his update. Some of his indicators are red. Feature X is delayed. According to him, the delays come from some scope creep and a shift in priorities.
While he is not pointing openly at you, you feel the CTO is blaming delays on you and your team. The Chief Revenue Officer is upset because her team has promised this new feature to clients. She is concerned about how the team and clients will react to the news… The CEO turns over to you and asks you what you think about the CTO’s comments.
Inside, you may be fuming or simply surprised by what you’ve heard. You think the delays are caused by adjustments made in the tech team at the beginning of the quarter. People needed time to adjust and to become fully productive again. Yet you believe the changes he’s made are good for the long-term productivity of the tech team.
How would you handle the situation? Typically, people’s reactions fall into two buckets, fight or flight:
Fight - Push back on the CTO’s comments and state what they know is the true reason for the delays. There would probably be a heated debate with each side making accusations regarding past mistakes; time would be wasted and trust between the CTO and the CPO would be eroded; the other board members would likely leave this discussion frustrated.
Flight - Stay muted about what they think are the reasons and take the blow for now. The CPO would resent the CTO for his remarks and would beat himself up for not having spoken up. The board members would leave the meeting with incomplete information and think the CPO and his team are the reasons for the delay.
In either case, a constructive conversation about what to do better in future would unlikely have taken place. What a wasted opportunity!
Now you know better! Instead, you get curious and use the Ask - Listen - Repeat - Check model and ONLY THEN you make your points.
Make the CTO and others listen to you
Let’s see how this could go:
You: “Can you elaborate on what makes you think delays are due to scope creep and priority shifts?” [ASK]
CTO: “A few additional requirements were added on feature X and we were informed that feature X was a priority only mid-way through the quarter.”
You: “So there were new requirements added to feature X and the priority was put on feature X only half way through the quarter - is that right?” [REPEAT and CHECK FOR ACCURACY]
CTO: “Exactly.” [You may feel odd repeating what the person is saying, they may indeed be surprised because they are not used to feeling heard like that. That’s more than ok!]
You: “Do you think there are any other reasons for the delay?” [CHECK FOR COMPLETION]
CTO (thinking): “I don’t think so.”
You: “If I were you, I’d be frustrated that I have to explain delays because of external factors. Is it how you feel about the situation?” [CHECK FOR EMOTIONS]
CTO: “Actually yes, that’s exactly right and I also feel sorry for the group for not delivering Feature X.”
You: “I am sorry that you feel frustrated and I am sorry for the delay too. You are right: we added requirements to feature X. We also removed a few. In the balance, I believe the scope is even. It would be good to check with your team. Regarding the priority shift, we decided this together in our last board meeting and I think it was the right decision. Also, I saw that you made some adjustments to the way the tech team is organised - which I am really happy with for the long run. I wonder if that could have affected the productivity of the team in the short-term, what do you think?”
When the CTO replies, you can continue using the model or bring the conversation forward: “What’s the learning for us here? Or “What can we do differently next time?“.
With this approach, you create a win-win-win situation:
Win 1: you confronted the issue head on and constructively
Win 2: you made the CTO feel heard and improved your relationship with him
Win 3: you helped the board members have more complete information and solve forward rather than backward.
By following this process, you give people your time and attention and you acknowledge their thoughts and feelings. You acknowledge them. It does not mean that you agree with them. It means that you have heard them fully. I posit that this is the greatest gift that you can make to someone.
It may also be the greatest gift you make to yourself. When people feel heard they are ready to listen to you.
Happy experimenting!