February 6, 2023 • 26 mins
Let’s be frank. We can listen better. That can be difficult when we’re genetically coded to be distracted and the world is full of notifications. If we can listen better to current/future clients, colleagues, employees, and bosses – the benefits are business-changing. This episode explains why we get distracted, uncovers bad listening habits, and offers practical solutions. You’ll find out how to have shorter, more effective meetings. You’ll learn what your ‘Listening Villain’ is and how it’s impacting your workplace. You’ll learn about the ‘Five Levels of Listening.’ There’s so much to think about in this episode, you’ll be pausing or listening to it twice. Join author and global listening expert Oscar Trimboli as he explains the art of listening and the consequences of doing it badly, to Gillian Bowen.
From Oscar:
Why complete the Listening Quiz?
Consider this:
- Everyone can see in colour, yet we all listen in monochrome.
- You spend 55% of your day listening, yet only 2% of people know how to listen.
- The Cost of Not Listening is confusion, conflict, and chaos.
Oscar's book in the CA Library
How to become a Chartered Accountant
Auditing and Reporting Changes in 2023
Accountant’s Financing Letters
Remuneration and the fight for talent
The ATO’s New Working from Home Deduction Method
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gillian Bowen (00:07):
Hello, my name is Gillian Bowen, the Australian manager of
Public Affairs at Chartered Accountants ANZ or CA ANZ. This is
Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (00:20):
And if you want to grow your firm, the most
potent way to do it is create great word of
mouth because when people are listened to, they feel heard,
seen and valued. | When you're not listening to your employees.
They are the advocates for your firm when you're not
there.| It's critical that you notice what people aren't saying,
(00:45):
not just what they are saying. And that's how you
shorten the meetings and how you make them more effective.
Gillian Bowen (00:55):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs. Each fortnight,
I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA
ANZ and a range of people across our profession. So
make sure you're following the pod in your favourite podcast
and if you've got an idea for the show email
podcast@charteredaccountansanz.com . Today we have author and global listening expert
(01:22):
Oscar Trimboli in the hot seat. The topic
might be thinking, why do I need to know more
about how to do this? But have you thought about the
cost of not listening in your workplace, the cost of
your employees or colleagues not being so good at it,
or the barriers you might not know about when it
comes to listening effectively to your clients. Plus, Oscar has
(01:44):
promised you'll walk away with a gift. The gift of
how listening can bring about positive changes to your office.
Oscar Trimboli , welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (01:56):
G'day Gillian. Looking forward to listening to your questions today.
Gillian Bowen (02:00):
I want to let you know and the people listening
along that I've spent the past 15 years doing a
lot of listening. Until October last year I was a
Senior Journalist at Channel Ten. I'd like to think my
listening was pretty good and it had to be right
at news conferences and while interviewing people to ensure I
told accurate stories. But I was definitely aware when I
wasn't listening. There would be times when I was under
(02:22):
pressure from deadlines or distracted by work or life, as
we all are. And I would get back to the
office and I'd be listening back to the tape recording.
And I'd think of all these follow up questions I
should have asked to clarify crucial details. It was clear
I'd stopped listening, but I didn't know that I had.
I didn't know what I'd missed. And then I'd spend
critical writing time, calling the talent and their media teams
(02:43):
back to get the extra info I needed. Oscar - that
then makes me ask, why do people stop listening?
Oscar Trimboli (02:54):
Well, most people think listening is about focusing on the speaker,
and although that's interesting, it's the wrong place to start.
It's the most unproductive place to start of all. Our
24,000 workplace listener research group tells us one thing
listen to yourself first, you'll be available to listen to
(03:14):
everybody else. Most people are turning up to a conversation.
If you're in a firm taking a client brief for
the very first time. You've got so many browser tabs
open not only about the questions you want to ask,
how you can anticipate, but your thinking about your last meeting, your
next meeting. What did you have for lunch? What haven't
you had for lunch, is a time for caffeine. There
(03:34):
are so many barriers in the way of listening and
I'm sure we'll chat. But we've decoded that into four distinct
types of barriers around listening, emotionally listening for time, listening
to solve and listening when you're lost.
Gillian Bowen (03:51):
Hmm. God, that sounds complicated on something that should actually
be quite simple because we all have ears and we
listen every day, every minute of every day. I know
the cost of not listening when I interview someone for
the news, but we're talking to small and medium sized
businesses today. Sole practitioners, all those sorts of people in
that world. What's the cost of not listening in their workplaces?
Oscar Trimboli (04:14):
No different to you as you talked about going back
and forth, back and forth after the initial conversation. When
you're in a firm, you may be taking on a client
on for the first time. Maybe your client's buying a new business.
Maybe your client's expanding overseas. And when you don't listen
effectively during that conversation. These are the clients that are
(04:36):
marginally profitable. They're on your books, but they're not making
you the kind of profit that should sustain you. More importantly,
and not about you, but for them, for the client,
they don't have a great experience with all this back
and forth. Oh, look, I forgot to ask you this
during our conversation. Could you retrieve the record for this?
(04:56):
Could you retrieve the record for that? It makes you
very difficult to refer. And if you want to grow
your firm, the most potent way to do it is
create great word of mouth. Because when people are listened to,
they feel heard, seen and valued. But if you're busy
in your own mind. You're unlikely to be able to
(05:20):
listen effectively because listening is a full body experience and
not just what you hear Gillian, it's also what you
see, it's also what you sense. And there's often a lot of
emotion when it comes to people dealing with accounting practices.
Gillian Bowen (05:34):
I wrote down some notes there. I wonder if people
listening along are doing the same. I wrote down, heard,
seen and valued. I felt that was really important and
a full body experience. I love that. I want to
get into that in a little bit, which I think
that we will. I did want to touch on before
we move on, we talked about the cost of me,
as an SMP not listening to my client or future client, but internally
(05:56):
as well within a business, what's the cost of a
boss not listening to their employees?
Oscar Trimboli (06:04):
Great staff leave before you want them to. You don't
get the most discretionary effort from the staff because you
don't know what motivates them. You could have staff who
are staying well beyond their use by date because what
the firm has to offer and what they want to contribute,
(06:24):
maybe it's not the same thing. You're missing out on
professional development opportunities for staff. And for me, what I
worry about is when you're not listening to your employees,
they are the advocates for your firm when you're not
there and when you're not listening to them, maybe they're
(06:44):
not creating a great experience for your clients.
Gillian Bowen (06:47):
Mmm, here may be people listening along, nodding. Let's dive
into the four villains of listening. Can you explain those?
Oscar Trimboli (06:58):
So the four villains of listening came out of a
research group for 1410 people that we interviewed, and we
asked three questions. What do you struggle with when it
comes to listening and what's one thing you want to
improve when it comes to your listening? And my favorite question,
when you're the speaker, what really frustrates you when a
listener is not listening to you? We combined all that
(07:21):
information into discovering what are these four villians of listening,
these four barriers that get in people's why they're called dramatic, interrupting,
lost and shrewd. They all have a very different orientation.
This is about how you listen. It's not about you.
And for me, the dramatic listening villain is one that
(07:43):
wants to connect emotionally. And they say, Oh, you know,
my last accountant, they were absolutely terrible. And they go
on and on and on. But the practitioner directly in
front of them will say, look, you think you've had
a bad accountant, let me tell you about a time
when and they move the spotlight on to them. Interrupting listener
(08:04):
values time. So they press the buzzer before the quiz
show host has fully announced the question. They answer the
wrong question that adds friction to the relationship. Reduces trust.
Gillian Bowen (08:16):
Doing it now. That's me. That's me. I do that.
Oscar Trimboli (08:19):
Interrupting is not bad. Unconscious interrupting is. The third villain
is lost. They're lost in their devices. They lost in
their connected watch, their cell phone, their mobile phone, their laptop,
their computer. Whatever it is, is more difficult, particularly if
you're doing virtual meetings now for you to get lost
in your technology. The other thing they lost in is
(08:41):
their own thoughts. Oh, you know what have I got to
do at home, Oh my goodness, I didn't close the
window or there's a storm coming. Did I leave the iron on. Yeah, for
those kinds of things. And the final one and we
know from our research disproportionately represented in the professional services industry, accountants, lawyers,
(09:03):
management consultants, research firms, advertising agencies, doctors, dentists, anybody who
takes a brief, the shrewd listening villain and you're prisoner
to your expertise. The expertise you're a prisoner to is
you're jumping ahead and solving the current problem they're describing.
And three problems ahead. The sub captioning going on in
(09:24):
your mind although you sound like you're listening to them
is oh, my God, this is such a basic problem.
I wish they'd hurry up so I can get to
the really juicy stuff that I've spent all my professional
development time talking about exotic family trust structures that are
going to be really relevant here. Now our research group say,
(09:44):
I know they're trying to fix me, I know they're
not listening. And the shrewd listening villain just needs to
notice what they say as well as how they say it.
So they're the four villains of listening and later on
we'll show you how to discover which villain you might be.
Gillian Bowen (10:01):
I love getting across the detail here. And then my
next question, how do we stop the villains from misbehaving?
Oscar Trimboli (10:11):
Well, these villains are very predictable. The people who take
the quiz often say to me after a presentation, Oscar, how
did you nail me? This is so me. If my
life partner, my husband, my wife, my significant other was
here right now, they'd say, That is exactly what I do. Now.
(10:32):
The research is about listening in the work place when you
take the quiz, that listeningquiz.com , we give you three
simple tips for each of those villains tailored to your
primary and secondary listening villain. So at work, I'm a
shrewd listening villain at home, I'm a lost listening villain.
(10:52):
Like when my brother in laws come over and bang
on about religion every Sunday, I'm completely lost. And the
religion that banging on about is a religion of photography.
Canon versus Nikon . I am not interested in the slightest,
but they can talk about it for a really long time.
Gillian Bowen (11:10):
Okay, so that's nice that there are tips and that
you in your research have developed ways to help people
tackle this. So how do we get better at listening?
Oscar Trimboli (11:24):
In our research group, 83% of people are stuck at level one:
listening to themselves. They're distracted. They stay out of focus.
They are confused with their role in the conversation. I
want to share three numbers. If you know these three numbers,
you'll understand why it's important to pause, to take three
deep breaths, to drink a glass of water, to maintain
(11:47):
eye contact. These three numbers, 125 400 900. 125 words
per minute on averages of a work place speaking speed. Yet
the average thinking speed is 900 words per minute. What
does that mean? It means the first thing that somebody
says is 14% roughly of what they mean of what
(12:10):
they're thinking. If you're having a conversation and just asking
another question or engaging with the very first thing they
say you're missing out on 86% of what people think
and what they mean, and if you want them to
be heard, seen and valued, you need to listen not
just to what they say, but more importantly, what they haven't -
(12:34):
that 86%. Now I want to talk about 400. 400
is 400 words per minute. Is your listening speed. You
can listen roughly four times faster than can speak. So
you are genetically coded to be distracted. You're listening for other
things going on. Just like peripheral vision. You have peripheral
(12:58):
hearing and you're paying attention to every other thing that's
going on. Three tips we know consistently help people with
the people we're tracking in our research study. It's it's
up to five years now. Tip number one, manage your
electronic notifications. Some people can't switch them off. They might
(13:19):
have a sick child or child care, for example. They
might have, like I do, a father who's had a
stroke and requires extra care. So some days I know
that my phone needs to be on, but I'll announce
that to the meeting beforehand. So if the phone does
ring and it's only programed for my dad to ring,
they'll understand why. Manage your electronic notifications. Tip number one.
(13:43):
Tip number two before you go into any conversation. Drink
a glass of water. And during that conversation, make sure
you drink a glass of water roughly every 30 minutes.
That will send a signal to a part of the
body around the lungs known as the parasympathetic nervous system.
This controls your fight or flight mode just tells you
(14:05):
to relax and be present in the moment. And finally,
3 deep breaths. So tips one, two and three manage your notifications.
Tip number two, drink a glass of water. Tip number three,
take three deep breaths. Now, who cares about these tips?
Anybody who wants to save 5% of their meeting times.
(14:27):
What our research group is reported back to us is
by implementing these three tips. Meetings are shorter by minimum 5%.
A 5% in a week is a lot of time.
And the meetings you have a more meaningful because you're
listening to what your client says, thinks and means. As
a result, you'll have less rework and then more profitable
(14:49):
clients for you.
Gillian Bowen (14:51):
Don't know if everyone heard that then, but I just
got a computer notification while you were wrapping up there.
I love it. I tried to do Tip one, which
was manage my electronic notifications and Google got me in
the end there. It was a Google alert. I'm going to
leave it in for context because at least it shows
we are in the real world. Some really good tips
there and some points on what it is that we're doing,
(15:13):
because I don't know if we do a lot of
self-reflection on how we behave and interact with people in
the workplace. And when we're in actual meetings with people,
whether that's people we work with or clients that we
may be then engaging our services with. My question then
is what's the difference between active listening and deep listening?
Oscar Trimboli (15:37):
Active listening is paying attention to what people say the
very first time, deep listening is noticing what they haven't said. Now,
remember that 125 900 rule. I speak at 125 words
for a minute, but I can think at 900. Now
a little asterisk. If you're in a complex, collaborative, creative,
confined workspace where you need to resolve some kind of conflict,
(16:01):
you could be thinking up to 1600 words per minute.
So imagine you and your client are in front of
the ATO going through a process on an issue of taxation.
They will be thinking at a much faster speed and
so will you. So it's critical that you notice what
people aren't saying, not just what they are saying. And
(16:24):
that's how you shorten the meetings and how you make
them more effective. So keep in mind that deep listening
is an orientation to notice. Hmm. I'm really curious what
they haven't said so far. Hmm.
Gillian Bowen (16:38):
That feels like a suitable transition to talk about what
you've dubbed the five levels of listening.
Oscar Trimboli (16:48):
So the five levels of listening are listening to yourself first. 86%
of people we know are kind of stuck here.
Gillian Bowen (16:57):
Can I interrupt you? What? What do you mean by that?
Listening to your inner voice or what is that or
what it is that I'm saying out loud to people?
Oscar Trimboli (17:06):
Most people say what gets in the way of their
listening is themselves. And when they're listening to themselves, they
have multiple voices going on they're jumping ahead to the future.
They're jumping back to the past. They're not in the present.
Imagine your mind is a bunch of browser tabs that
are open. And by the way, the maximum apparently is
(17:27):
299 that you can have open at any one time.
Gillian Bowen (17:31):
I do not want to get to that.
Oscar Trimboli (17:33):
And I'm not sure why, but each time you open
a browser tab, you use a part of memory. And
memory is finite. So too is memory called working memory
in your mind. It happens in the most modern part
of the brain. And when I spoke to Professor Stefan Van der Stigchel, easy
for you to say, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands,
(17:56):
who's written multiple books about attention. When we discussed listening
with him, he said, the only thing you should do
when it comes to speaking with another human is to listen.
You cannot multitask because listening is a complex task that
requires ample parts of working memory. Now, is multitasking possible? Absolutely.
(18:20):
You can listen to music and chop vegetables. You can
listen to music, and iron your clothes you can listen to
music and you can do the gardening. Don't get me wrong,
multitasking is possible. It is not profitable. It is not
referable if you do that in your workplace with a
(18:40):
client existing or new. So. Gillian at level one, we
want to be present. We want to be in the moment.
We want to make sure that we're not distracted. We
want to make sure we're available. And we want to
notice right now. Am I giving attention or am I
(19:01):
paying attention? There are two very different orientations, and it's
a really quick test for you. When I pay attention,
it feels like a form of taxation. I'm sure everyone
can relate to that is listening. It's something that's an obligation.
You have to do it. And I'm just going through
the motions and I'm doing it. It's okay to pay attention,
and most of us pay attention to flight announcements and
(19:24):
safety announcements. But if we hit mid-air turbulence and the
captain says we're going to go through the flight safety drill,
you are giving now your complete and undivided attention. You're
looking at the card, You're looking behind you. You're looking
in front of you. You're watching every word the cabin
crew is saying. Giving attention is an act of curiosity, generosity.
(19:46):
And it really creates a different present for the speaker.
So that's just level one. Let's look at level two, three,
four and five. At level two. You're listening to content.
It's what you see, what you hear and what you sense.
Listening is a three dimensional full body experience. You have
(20:10):
to be doing it with somebody else. Can't be something
you do alone. One of the interesting things people say
to me, Gillian, is, Oh, I really struggle when people
are emotional. I want to stop them. I don't want
to listen when they're emotional. Emotion is just another form of content.
And it's a signal to what matters the most to
that person. So if your client is struggling, maybe in
(20:33):
a state matter, maybe a divorce or a separation matter.
These emotional insights are really good ways for you to listen.
Rather than push away, lean in, ask more curious questions
about that. Level three, listening for the context. This is
often about deeply listening to the back story. Most people
(20:55):
will start their brief with you as a new client,
where they're at. It's going to be incredibly valuable and
profitable for you to go. Could you just take me
back to when you started this company? What was your motivation?
And all of a sudden, things that didn't make sense.
The jigsaw puzzle pieces are fitting into place. Level four.
(21:17):
This is how Yoda listens. He listens for what's un said.
It's a position of wisdom. It's a position of trust.
It's a position of authority. Here you're very comfortable to use. Silence.
(21:37):
As a form of question. Silent and listen. Share the
identical letters. In the West, we call it the awkward silence,
the pregnant pause, the deafening silence. Yet in the Eastern
in high context, cultures like our indigenous communities in Australia. The
Maori of New Zealand. Silence. It's a sign of wisdom.
(22:00):
It's a sign of authority. And it's also a way
to bring connection between everybody there. Level five. We know half
of 1% of people in our database represent level five.
Listening to what people mean or rather than what they say.
Gillian Bowen (22:20):
I love this. I'm writing notes left, right and centre.
I know we're almost out of time, and we've, we've
got a couple of.. I've got I've got a couple
of things that I want to ask you just before
we wrap up. But feel free if you're listening along
to pause the episode, reflect. Skip back 10, 20 seconds and
relisten to some of that of what Oscar was saying.
(22:41):
I've I've really enjoyed you talking me through how our
brain works and what we're doing to see what it
is that I could do better. And that makes me ask,
how would I put this into practice? Or how could
I put one thing from what we've talked about today
into practice in my workplace?
Oscar Trimboli (23:04):
The easiest thing to do is manage your electronic notifications,
whether you're on a mac or a PC, whether you're on
Android or whether you're on an iPad, whether you use
those different operating system, every single one of them has
one single button to switch off notifications. And if you
want to be clever, you can connect your calendar so it
(23:25):
automatically switches off those notifications when you're in a meeting.
Nothing will stifle a relationship more than somebody very, very,
very subtly looking at the connected watch with a notification.
Gillian Bowen (23:43):
Haha! That was me! I know for those listening along that
you can't see, but Oscar and I are on a
video chat together so he can see me. He can
see me. I got a watch, I got to watch notification. Apologies.
Oscar Trimboli (24:01):
No need to apologize. But in that moment of deeply
giving attention to me, which I could see by the
look in your eyes, and also in that moment, I
could see the look in your eyes as you went, Oh,
something's changed my attention. This is uniquely human. Listening is
not hard and draining. Most people relate to listening the
(24:24):
way they say therapists on Netflix or out of movies.
If you're doing the listening that, why are you doing
it all wrong? Listening in the workplace is not therapy.
Listening is light, listening is easy. Listening is just asking
one extra question or being comfortable to simply go. And
discovering that although they were taking a breath, it didn't
(24:47):
mean they'd finished their stream of thinking. The number one
tip we know makes the biggest difference for the deep
listening ambassador community, these people who've been tracking with us
is manage your electronic notifications. For bonus points, you can
go drink a glass of water. You can take three
deep breaths when you get distracted. And if you really
(25:08):
want to go a little bit further, visit the listeningquiz.com
Use the code
that code in you'll get the report complimentary thanks to
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and you'll get a
(25:31):
report outlining your primary and secondary listening villian and three
tips tailored to the combination of your primary and secondary
listening villain as well. We've got a wonderful book called
How to Listen, and if you want to go even deeper...
that's available at all, your favourite retailers.
Gillian Bowen (25:52):
Hmm. Gosh, that is all we have time for. I
have learnt a lot. I'm sure those listening along have
learnt a lot. If you want to find out more
about Oscar. I will put a link to his website
in the show notes and a link to the quiz
that he was talking about. There are links too to the
other episodes in season three, or they are also on
the Chartered Accountants ANZ website. They're all there on one page
(26:15):
so you can listen on your computer or laptop while
you work and feel free to follow the pod in
your favourite pod app. The podcast also has an email,
so get in touch if you have any feedback. podcast@charteredaccountants.com
Here's to better listening. Thank you Oscar Trimboli for being our expert
on episode six of Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (26:36):
Thanks for listening.
Gillian Bowen (26:37):
Bye bye.
Hello, my name is Gillian Bowen, the Australian manager of
Public Affairs at Chartered Accountants ANZ or CA ANZ. This is
Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (00:20):
And if you want to grow your firm, the most
potent way to do it is create great word of
mouth because when people are listened to, they feel heard,
seen and valued. | When you're not listening to your employees.
They are the advocates for your firm when you're not
there.| It's critical that you notice what people aren't saying,
(00:45):
not just what they are saying. And that's how you
shorten the meetings and how you make them more effective.
Gillian Bowen (00:55):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs. Each fortnight,
I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA
ANZ and a range of people across our profession. So
make sure you're following the pod in your favourite podcast
and if you've got an idea for the show email
podcast@charteredaccountansanz.com . Today we have author and global listening expert
(01:22):
Oscar Trimboli in the hot seat. The topic
might be thinking, why do I need to know more
about how to do this? But have you thought about the
cost of not listening in your workplace, the cost of
your employees or colleagues not being so good at it,
or the barriers you might not know about when it
comes to listening effectively to your clients. Plus, Oscar has
(01:44):
promised you'll walk away with a gift. The gift of
how listening can bring about positive changes to your office.
Oscar Trimboli , welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (01:56):
G'day Gillian. Looking forward to listening to your questions today.
Gillian Bowen (02:00):
I want to let you know and the people listening
along that I've spent the past 15 years doing a
lot of listening. Until October last year I was a
Senior Journalist at Channel Ten. I'd like to think my
listening was pretty good and it had to be right
at news conferences and while interviewing people to ensure I
told accurate stories. But I was definitely aware when I
wasn't listening. There would be times when I was under
(02:22):
pressure from deadlines or distracted by work or life, as
we all are. And I would get back to the
office and I'd be listening back to the tape recording.
And I'd think of all these follow up questions I
should have asked to clarify crucial details. It was clear
I'd stopped listening, but I didn't know that I had.
I didn't know what I'd missed. And then I'd spend
critical writing time, calling the talent and their media teams
(02:43):
back to get the extra info I needed. Oscar - that
then makes me ask, why do people stop listening?
Oscar Trimboli (02:54):
Well, most people think listening is about focusing on the speaker,
and although that's interesting, it's the wrong place to start.
It's the most unproductive place to start of all. Our
24,000 workplace listener research group tells us one thing
listen to yourself first, you'll be available to listen to
(03:14):
everybody else. Most people are turning up to a conversation.
If you're in a firm taking a client brief for
the very first time. You've got so many browser tabs
open not only about the questions you want to ask,
how you can anticipate, but your thinking about your last meeting, your
next meeting. What did you have for lunch? What haven't
you had for lunch, is a time for caffeine. There
(03:34):
are so many barriers in the way of listening and
I'm sure we'll chat. But we've decoded that into four distinct
types of barriers around listening, emotionally listening for time, listening
to solve and listening when you're lost.
Gillian Bowen (03:51):
Hmm. God, that sounds complicated on something that should actually
be quite simple because we all have ears and we
listen every day, every minute of every day. I know
the cost of not listening when I interview someone for
the news, but we're talking to small and medium sized
businesses today. Sole practitioners, all those sorts of people in
that world. What's the cost of not listening in their workplaces?
Oscar Trimboli (04:14):
No different to you as you talked about going back
and forth, back and forth after the initial conversation. When
you're in a firm, you may be taking on a client
on for the first time. Maybe your client's buying a new business.
Maybe your client's expanding overseas. And when you don't listen
effectively during that conversation. These are the clients that are
(04:36):
marginally profitable. They're on your books, but they're not making
you the kind of profit that should sustain you. More importantly,
and not about you, but for them, for the client,
they don't have a great experience with all this back
and forth. Oh, look, I forgot to ask you this
during our conversation. Could you retrieve the record for this?
(04:56):
Could you retrieve the record for that? It makes you
very difficult to refer. And if you want to grow
your firm, the most potent way to do it is
create great word of mouth. Because when people are listened to,
they feel heard, seen and valued. But if you're busy
in your own mind. You're unlikely to be able to
(05:20):
listen effectively because listening is a full body experience and
not just what you hear Gillian, it's also what you
see, it's also what you sense. And there's often a lot of
emotion when it comes to people dealing with accounting practices.
Gillian Bowen (05:34):
I wrote down some notes there. I wonder if people
listening along are doing the same. I wrote down, heard,
seen and valued. I felt that was really important and
a full body experience. I love that. I want to
get into that in a little bit, which I think
that we will. I did want to touch on before
we move on, we talked about the cost of me,
as an SMP not listening to my client or future client, but internally
(05:56):
as well within a business, what's the cost of a
boss not listening to their employees?
Oscar Trimboli (06:04):
Great staff leave before you want them to. You don't
get the most discretionary effort from the staff because you
don't know what motivates them. You could have staff who
are staying well beyond their use by date because what
the firm has to offer and what they want to contribute,
(06:24):
maybe it's not the same thing. You're missing out on
professional development opportunities for staff. And for me, what I
worry about is when you're not listening to your employees,
they are the advocates for your firm when you're not
there and when you're not listening to them, maybe they're
(06:44):
not creating a great experience for your clients.
Gillian Bowen (06:47):
Mmm, here may be people listening along, nodding. Let's dive
into the four villains of listening. Can you explain those?
Oscar Trimboli (06:58):
So the four villains of listening came out of a
research group for 1410 people that we interviewed, and we
asked three questions. What do you struggle with when it
comes to listening and what's one thing you want to
improve when it comes to your listening? And my favorite question,
when you're the speaker, what really frustrates you when a
listener is not listening to you? We combined all that
(07:21):
information into discovering what are these four villians of listening,
these four barriers that get in people's why they're called dramatic, interrupting,
lost and shrewd. They all have a very different orientation.
This is about how you listen. It's not about you.
And for me, the dramatic listening villain is one that
(07:43):
wants to connect emotionally. And they say, Oh, you know,
my last accountant, they were absolutely terrible. And they go
on and on and on. But the practitioner directly in
front of them will say, look, you think you've had
a bad accountant, let me tell you about a time
when and they move the spotlight on to them. Interrupting listener
(08:04):
values time. So they press the buzzer before the quiz
show host has fully announced the question. They answer the
wrong question that adds friction to the relationship. Reduces trust.
Gillian Bowen (08:16):
Doing it now. That's me. That's me. I do that.
Oscar Trimboli (08:19):
Interrupting is not bad. Unconscious interrupting is. The third villain
is lost. They're lost in their devices. They lost in
their connected watch, their cell phone, their mobile phone, their laptop,
their computer. Whatever it is, is more difficult, particularly if
you're doing virtual meetings now for you to get lost
in your technology. The other thing they lost in is
(08:41):
their own thoughts. Oh, you know what have I got to
do at home, Oh my goodness, I didn't close the
window or there's a storm coming. Did I leave the iron on. Yeah, for
those kinds of things. And the final one and we
know from our research disproportionately represented in the professional services industry, accountants, lawyers,
(09:03):
management consultants, research firms, advertising agencies, doctors, dentists, anybody who
takes a brief, the shrewd listening villain and you're prisoner
to your expertise. The expertise you're a prisoner to is
you're jumping ahead and solving the current problem they're describing.
And three problems ahead. The sub captioning going on in
(09:24):
your mind although you sound like you're listening to them
is oh, my God, this is such a basic problem.
I wish they'd hurry up so I can get to
the really juicy stuff that I've spent all my professional
development time talking about exotic family trust structures that are
going to be really relevant here. Now our research group say,
(09:44):
I know they're trying to fix me, I know they're
not listening. And the shrewd listening villain just needs to
notice what they say as well as how they say it.
So they're the four villains of listening and later on
we'll show you how to discover which villain you might be.
Gillian Bowen (10:01):
I love getting across the detail here. And then my
next question, how do we stop the villains from misbehaving?
Oscar Trimboli (10:11):
Well, these villains are very predictable. The people who take
the quiz often say to me after a presentation, Oscar, how
did you nail me? This is so me. If my
life partner, my husband, my wife, my significant other was
here right now, they'd say, That is exactly what I do. Now.
(10:32):
The research is about listening in the work place when you
take the quiz, that listeningquiz.com , we give you three
simple tips for each of those villains tailored to your
primary and secondary listening villain. So at work, I'm a
shrewd listening villain at home, I'm a lost listening villain.
(10:52):
Like when my brother in laws come over and bang
on about religion every Sunday, I'm completely lost. And the
religion that banging on about is a religion of photography.
Canon versus Nikon . I am not interested in the slightest,
but they can talk about it for a really long time.
Gillian Bowen (11:10):
Okay, so that's nice that there are tips and that
you in your research have developed ways to help people
tackle this. So how do we get better at listening?
Oscar Trimboli (11:24):
In our research group, 83% of people are stuck at level one:
listening to themselves. They're distracted. They stay out of focus.
They are confused with their role in the conversation. I
want to share three numbers. If you know these three numbers,
you'll understand why it's important to pause, to take three
deep breaths, to drink a glass of water, to maintain
(11:47):
eye contact. These three numbers, 125 400 900. 125 words
per minute on averages of a work place speaking speed. Yet
the average thinking speed is 900 words per minute. What
does that mean? It means the first thing that somebody
says is 14% roughly of what they mean of what
(12:10):
they're thinking. If you're having a conversation and just asking
another question or engaging with the very first thing they
say you're missing out on 86% of what people think
and what they mean, and if you want them to
be heard, seen and valued, you need to listen not
just to what they say, but more importantly, what they haven't -
(12:34):
that 86%. Now I want to talk about 400. 400
is 400 words per minute. Is your listening speed. You
can listen roughly four times faster than can speak. So
you are genetically coded to be distracted. You're listening for other
things going on. Just like peripheral vision. You have peripheral
(12:58):
hearing and you're paying attention to every other thing that's
going on. Three tips we know consistently help people with
the people we're tracking in our research study. It's it's
up to five years now. Tip number one, manage your
electronic notifications. Some people can't switch them off. They might
(13:19):
have a sick child or child care, for example. They
might have, like I do, a father who's had a
stroke and requires extra care. So some days I know
that my phone needs to be on, but I'll announce
that to the meeting beforehand. So if the phone does
ring and it's only programed for my dad to ring,
they'll understand why. Manage your electronic notifications. Tip number one.
(13:43):
Tip number two before you go into any conversation. Drink
a glass of water. And during that conversation, make sure
you drink a glass of water roughly every 30 minutes.
That will send a signal to a part of the
body around the lungs known as the parasympathetic nervous system.
This controls your fight or flight mode just tells you
(14:05):
to relax and be present in the moment. And finally,
3 deep breaths. So tips one, two and three manage your notifications.
Tip number two, drink a glass of water. Tip number three,
take three deep breaths. Now, who cares about these tips?
Anybody who wants to save 5% of their meeting times.
(14:27):
What our research group is reported back to us is
by implementing these three tips. Meetings are shorter by minimum 5%.
A 5% in a week is a lot of time.
And the meetings you have a more meaningful because you're
listening to what your client says, thinks and means. As
a result, you'll have less rework and then more profitable
(14:49):
clients for you.
Gillian Bowen (14:51):
Don't know if everyone heard that then, but I just
got a computer notification while you were wrapping up there.
I love it. I tried to do Tip one, which
was manage my electronic notifications and Google got me in
the end there. It was a Google alert. I'm going to
leave it in for context because at least it shows
we are in the real world. Some really good tips
there and some points on what it is that we're doing,
(15:13):
because I don't know if we do a lot of
self-reflection on how we behave and interact with people in
the workplace. And when we're in actual meetings with people,
whether that's people we work with or clients that we
may be then engaging our services with. My question then
is what's the difference between active listening and deep listening?
Oscar Trimboli (15:37):
Active listening is paying attention to what people say the
very first time, deep listening is noticing what they haven't said. Now,
remember that 125 900 rule. I speak at 125 words
for a minute, but I can think at 900. Now
a little asterisk. If you're in a complex, collaborative, creative,
confined workspace where you need to resolve some kind of conflict,
(16:01):
you could be thinking up to 1600 words per minute.
So imagine you and your client are in front of
the ATO going through a process on an issue of taxation.
They will be thinking at a much faster speed and
so will you. So it's critical that you notice what
people aren't saying, not just what they are saying. And
(16:24):
that's how you shorten the meetings and how you make
them more effective. So keep in mind that deep listening
is an orientation to notice. Hmm. I'm really curious what
they haven't said so far. Hmm.
Gillian Bowen (16:38):
That feels like a suitable transition to talk about what
you've dubbed the five levels of listening.
Oscar Trimboli (16:48):
So the five levels of listening are listening to yourself first. 86%
of people we know are kind of stuck here.
Gillian Bowen (16:57):
Can I interrupt you? What? What do you mean by that?
Listening to your inner voice or what is that or
what it is that I'm saying out loud to people?
Oscar Trimboli (17:06):
Most people say what gets in the way of their
listening is themselves. And when they're listening to themselves, they
have multiple voices going on they're jumping ahead to the future.
They're jumping back to the past. They're not in the present.
Imagine your mind is a bunch of browser tabs that
are open. And by the way, the maximum apparently is
(17:27):
299 that you can have open at any one time.
Gillian Bowen (17:31):
I do not want to get to that.
Oscar Trimboli (17:33):
And I'm not sure why, but each time you open
a browser tab, you use a part of memory. And
memory is finite. So too is memory called working memory
in your mind. It happens in the most modern part
of the brain. And when I spoke to Professor Stefan Van der Stigchel, easy
for you to say, from Utrecht University in the Netherlands,
(17:56):
who's written multiple books about attention. When we discussed listening
with him, he said, the only thing you should do
when it comes to speaking with another human is to listen.
You cannot multitask because listening is a complex task that
requires ample parts of working memory. Now, is multitasking possible? Absolutely.
(18:20):
You can listen to music and chop vegetables. You can
listen to music, and iron your clothes you can listen to
music and you can do the gardening. Don't get me wrong,
multitasking is possible. It is not profitable. It is not
referable if you do that in your workplace with a
(18:40):
client existing or new. So. Gillian at level one, we
want to be present. We want to be in the moment.
We want to make sure that we're not distracted. We
want to make sure we're available. And we want to
notice right now. Am I giving attention or am I
(19:01):
paying attention? There are two very different orientations, and it's
a really quick test for you. When I pay attention,
it feels like a form of taxation. I'm sure everyone
can relate to that is listening. It's something that's an obligation.
You have to do it. And I'm just going through
the motions and I'm doing it. It's okay to pay attention,
and most of us pay attention to flight announcements and
(19:24):
safety announcements. But if we hit mid-air turbulence and the
captain says we're going to go through the flight safety drill,
you are giving now your complete and undivided attention. You're
looking at the card, You're looking behind you. You're looking
in front of you. You're watching every word the cabin
crew is saying. Giving attention is an act of curiosity, generosity.
(19:46):
And it really creates a different present for the speaker.
So that's just level one. Let's look at level two, three,
four and five. At level two. You're listening to content.
It's what you see, what you hear and what you sense.
Listening is a three dimensional full body experience. You have
(20:10):
to be doing it with somebody else. Can't be something
you do alone. One of the interesting things people say
to me, Gillian, is, Oh, I really struggle when people
are emotional. I want to stop them. I don't want
to listen when they're emotional. Emotion is just another form of content.
And it's a signal to what matters the most to
that person. So if your client is struggling, maybe in
(20:33):
a state matter, maybe a divorce or a separation matter.
These emotional insights are really good ways for you to listen.
Rather than push away, lean in, ask more curious questions
about that. Level three, listening for the context. This is
often about deeply listening to the back story. Most people
(20:55):
will start their brief with you as a new client,
where they're at. It's going to be incredibly valuable and
profitable for you to go. Could you just take me
back to when you started this company? What was your motivation?
And all of a sudden, things that didn't make sense.
The jigsaw puzzle pieces are fitting into place. Level four.
(21:17):
This is how Yoda listens. He listens for what's un said.
It's a position of wisdom. It's a position of trust.
It's a position of authority. Here you're very comfortable to use. Silence.
(21:37):
As a form of question. Silent and listen. Share the
identical letters. In the West, we call it the awkward silence,
the pregnant pause, the deafening silence. Yet in the Eastern
in high context, cultures like our indigenous communities in Australia. The
Maori of New Zealand. Silence. It's a sign of wisdom.
(22:00):
It's a sign of authority. And it's also a way
to bring connection between everybody there. Level five. We know half
of 1% of people in our database represent level five.
Listening to what people mean or rather than what they say.
Gillian Bowen (22:20):
I love this. I'm writing notes left, right and centre.
I know we're almost out of time, and we've, we've
got a couple of.. I've got I've got a couple
of things that I want to ask you just before
we wrap up. But feel free if you're listening along
to pause the episode, reflect. Skip back 10, 20 seconds and
relisten to some of that of what Oscar was saying.
(22:41):
I've I've really enjoyed you talking me through how our
brain works and what we're doing to see what it
is that I could do better. And that makes me ask,
how would I put this into practice? Or how could
I put one thing from what we've talked about today
into practice in my workplace?
Oscar Trimboli (23:04):
The easiest thing to do is manage your electronic notifications,
whether you're on a mac or a PC, whether you're on
Android or whether you're on an iPad, whether you use
those different operating system, every single one of them has
one single button to switch off notifications. And if you
want to be clever, you can connect your calendar so it
(23:25):
automatically switches off those notifications when you're in a meeting.
Nothing will stifle a relationship more than somebody very, very,
very subtly looking at the connected watch with a notification.
Gillian Bowen (23:43):
Haha! That was me! I know for those listening along that
you can't see, but Oscar and I are on a
video chat together so he can see me. He can
see me. I got a watch, I got to watch notification. Apologies.
Oscar Trimboli (24:01):
No need to apologize. But in that moment of deeply
giving attention to me, which I could see by the
look in your eyes, and also in that moment, I
could see the look in your eyes as you went, Oh,
something's changed my attention. This is uniquely human. Listening is
not hard and draining. Most people relate to listening the
(24:24):
way they say therapists on Netflix or out of movies.
If you're doing the listening that, why are you doing
it all wrong? Listening in the workplace is not therapy.
Listening is light, listening is easy. Listening is just asking
one extra question or being comfortable to simply go. And
discovering that although they were taking a breath, it didn't
(24:47):
mean they'd finished their stream of thinking. The number one
tip we know makes the biggest difference for the deep
listening ambassador community, these people who've been tracking with us
is manage your electronic notifications. For bonus points, you can
go drink a glass of water. You can take three
deep breaths when you get distracted. And if you really
(25:08):
want to go a little bit further, visit the listeningquiz.com
Use the code
that code in you'll get the report complimentary thanks to
Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and you'll get a
(25:31):
report outlining your primary and secondary listening villian and three
tips tailored to the combination of your primary and secondary
listening villain as well. We've got a wonderful book called
How to Listen, and if you want to go even deeper...
that's available at all, your favourite retailers.
Gillian Bowen (25:52):
Hmm. Gosh, that is all we have time for. I
have learnt a lot. I'm sure those listening along have
learnt a lot. If you want to find out more
about Oscar. I will put a link to his website
in the show notes and a link to the quiz
that he was talking about. There are links too to the
other episodes in season three, or they are also on
the Chartered Accountants ANZ website. They're all there on one page
(26:15):
so you can listen on your computer or laptop while
you work and feel free to follow the pod in
your favourite pod app. The podcast also has an email,
so get in touch if you have any feedback. podcast@charteredaccountants.com
Here's to better listening. Thank you Oscar Trimboli for being our expert
on episode six of Small Firm, Big Impact.
Oscar Trimboli (26:36):
Thanks for listening.
Gillian Bowen (26:37):
Bye bye.
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