LEVEL 3 / Practitioner · Communication
Listening Without a Toolbox
Hearing about a bad day without issuing three solutions and a spreadsheet.
Case file
On a Thursday in November, Lily came home and said that a client had called her Lisa for an entire hour, and that her manager, who has known her for six years, had started doing it too.
Omar listened for forty seconds. Then he said “Right,” a word Lily has learned to fear, and went to find a pen.
By the time the pasta was done he had three solutions: correct the client by email, raise it with the manager, or begin signing everything in capitals. By nine he had sent her a spreadsheet. She was sitting next to him at the time. The subject line was “Your day: next steps.”
It had three tabs. None of them was called “That sounds awful.”
LESSON 1 · FREE PREVIEW
Take the order first
A person describing a bad day may want one of several things. They may want advice. They may want a witness, or an ally, or simply somewhere to set the day down so they can stop carrying it. From the outside these look identical. All of them begin with “You will not believe what happened.”
If your habit is to fix, you hear every one of them as a request for repairs. This is generous of you, and it has a flaw. Your partner has had the problem since nine this morning. You have had it for forty seconds. An instant solution, however good, carries the suggestion that they spent eight hours not thinking of sending an email.
So take the order before you start cooking. “Do you want help or a listener?” is seven words long and saves most of an evening. Then believe the answer. “A listener” does not mean “a listener, followed by your top three recommendations once I have finished.”
If the answer is help, you may fetch the pen with a clear conscience. If the answer is a listener, the job is smaller than you fear. Sit down. Face them. Say “That sounds awful” when it does. The ideas will keep overnight, and several of them will look less brilliant by breakfast.
LESSON 2 · FREE PREVIEW
The question you could not have prepared
The Registrar rulesMost bad days come in wanting company and are sent home with a plan. Ask which was ordered.
LESSON 3 · FREE PREVIEW
That reminds me of me
LESSON 4 · FREE PREVIEW
Asking a quiet person four times
LESSON 5 · FREE PREVIEW
Put down the red pen
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