Master This Skill To Connect More Effectively With Your Team
This is what’s needed to create workplaces where people experience belonging and connection, especially now.
Did you know that you can change the world just by the way you listen?
I have been studying an approach to individual, group and societal transformation called Theory U, spearheaded by Otto Scharmer and researchers at MIT for several years. Theory U reveals systemic forces impacting the way people work and live together.
The point is to help people practice the art of leading from what’s possible as opposed to leading from what’s predictable.
Theory U isn’t all theory. It also focuses on concrete skills that cause transformation. One of those skills is for deep listening. Otto calls it The Four Levels of Listening. Here’s a closer look at each of them.
Level One Listening: Downloading
You’re not really present at Level One Listening. Your mind is elsewhere, and it shows. It’s what my then-10-year-old daughter would call “fake listening.” I would nod and say, “Uh-huh,” and “Okay,” but she knew I really wasn’t listening at all. I could not have repeated what she said. I was thinking about my to-do list and what I needed to make for dinner.
Level One Listening happens when you engage in a conversation where someone is talking but you already think you know what they’re going to say. You may even finish their sentence for them. You’re distracted and trying to shortcut things, and in the end? You leave the conversation with no new data points, nothing learned, nothing challenged.
Unfortunately, this is the way most of us listen most of the time.
And here’s the thing: The people you are speaking to can tell when you’re not there. They may even feel slightly ignored or disrespected.
Level Two Listening: Factual Listening
At this stage, you’re no longer just listening for the things you already know. Instead, you’re focused on learning what you don’t know. You’re focused and paying attention. If someone were…
