June 17, 2024 • 32 mins
Insights from 33,519 people about what gets in their way of listening and practical tips about what will imrpove your listening.
An update on the fourth generation www.listeningquiz.com including;
-
- aggregate listening profiles for more than 10 people
- cross-industry benchmarking
- administration features to track progress of completion
- volume discounts for organizations
- volume discounts for accredited consultants
Podcast Episodes Categorized by the Five Levels of Listening
Podcast Episodes Categorized By Korn Ferry Leadership Architect™ Competencies
Podcast Episode 046: Listen to your audience like SXSW
How to speak so my audience will listen Danish Dhamani
How to effectively listen to someone who is suicidal Kevin Briggs
One move ahead, how to listen like a chess grandmaster - Scott Sandland
the hidden value in your contact center and how to listen at scale with Authenticx’s Amy Brown
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
- What can you learn
from over 33,000 workplace listeners?
(tranquil ambient music)
(00:28):
Back in June, 2018, Ilogged into a survey tool.
I started to explore howto construct questions
that would help people understand
what gets in their waywhen it comes to listening.
These were the questions I asked,
what frustrates you the most
when someone isn't listening to you?
(00:49):
What do you struggle with the most
when it comes to listeningto somebody else?
And if you could improve
just one thing about your listening,
what would you like to make progress on?
Well, 200 people responded to the survey,
a little bit more than the 50that I'd actually anticipated,
and I soon learned that Iwas completely outta my depth
(01:11):
when it comes to constructingresearch, making a survey,
analyzing the data, creating insights,
and actionable next steps.
Just because I couldcollect the survey results,
it didn't mean I understoodhow to make an impact with it.
I decided to ask my network
if they knew anyone who could assist.
(01:33):
Eventually, I was introducedto four different people,
and two of those conversationswere really good examples
of how the other personwasn't listening to me.
One of those meetings wasprofessionally cut short
because they realized very quickly
they couldn't assist with my requirements,
they couldn't help, and they said so,
(01:54):
and they said so quicklyand within 15 minutes.
I'm very grateful for that.
The fourth discussion took place
on the 11th of Septemberwith Heidi Martin.
Heidi and I discussed iflistening barriers could be coded
and grouped into uniformcohorts of respondents.
(02:17):
The meeting lasted about 50 minutes,
and Heidi asked lots of probing questions,
and skillfully on her part,
she didn't promise anything other than
I need to take a fortnight to reflect
on what might be themost effective questions,
survey design,
and potential outputs toinform the listening quiz
(02:40):
and its accompanying report.
What struck me about theconversation with Heidi
was she wasn't lookingto discover anything,
she was exploring along with me,
and we were figuring out what we knew
and what we didn't know.
Heidi was a really goodexample of somebody
who was helping to explorenot just what I was saying,
(03:02):
she was also exploringwhat I wasn't saying.
She was a ninja in levelfour listening, the unsaid.
(intense ambient music)
Wind the clock forward about 12 months
and multiple iterations,revisions, and insights from Heidi,
she presented to me her insightsfrom over 500 respondents.
(03:26):
There were some homogenousgroups, uniform groups,
some groups that had a lot in common,
and these were the foundations
of what was to become thevillains of listening.
The villains emerge from word clouds.
These were software that highlighted
what the common phrases were
(03:47):
that people were using intheir free text responses.
These free text responsesor 500 were coded,
meaning I looked at them,Heidi looked at them.
We had a few other people,in fact, 12 other people.
Three lots of four,
all representing one of thedifferent villain groups
(04:08):
to look at the informationwithin their cohort
to see if that made sense.
Did that sound right?
Did it feel right?
The feedback was pretty consistent,
"You've kind of got it Oscar,"
this sounds like what I struggle with
when it comes to listening.
They were responding to 14 questions,
and as a result, we werestarting to get some
(04:32):
very consistent results
that we predicted beforepeople took the assessments.
I learned a valuable lessonabout playing to my strengths.
Strategy is one of my key strengths,
details and maths is not.
By bringing on experts who could provide
insights into their field,I got a much better result.
(04:55):
(intense ambient music)
The next step in thejourney was March, 2020,
and the listening quiz became available
for anyone to complete.
14 questions, one, free text response
and a tailored reporthighlighting their primary
and secondary listening barrier,as well as three practical
(05:16):
and pragmatic tips forthem based on their input.
It's now 2024 and 33,519 people
have now taken the quiz.
Between 2020 and 2024,
the Listening Quiz softwarehas been updated four times.
(intense ambient music)
(05:38):
Our 2024 release is by far themost comprehensive release,
including extrafunctionality and reporting.
The first one is you areable to aggregate reports
based on groups of 10 or more respondents
if you are part of an organization,
you may be in training,learning and development,
(05:59):
organizational development, leadership.
So if you'd like tounderstand how a group of 10
or more people listenas an aggregate profile,
we have ways to describethat at a team level,
a department level, maybea project team level,
even an organization level.
(06:21):
We're able to also docross industry comparison,
so you can compare yourselfto a peer in your industry,
that might be in yourindustry, in your geography,
or it may be overseas.
The third level of reporting is reporting
to allow the administratorsof the projects
(06:44):
to see the progressthat people are making.
Once they've been invitedto complete the quiz,
we'll be able to tell you then
how many people you've invited,
how many people have commenced the quiz,
and how many peoplehave completed the quiz.
And this is gonna be really helpful
if you're in human resources,people and culture,
(07:05):
learning and development.
Maybe you want to do anoffsite for an executive team.
Equally, if you're an external consultant,
a trainer, a facilitator,a leadership expert,
and you want to administer the quiz
on behalf of your clients,
we have the functionalityto do that as well.
(intense ambient music)
(07:26):
Next, we provide a summary,which is the percentage
of each listening barrierrepresented in the group.
And finally, we provideanonymized reporting
of each participant's mostsignificant listening struggle
in aggregate report whenthere are 10 people or more.
In this release as well,
(07:47):
we'll be able to provide volume discounts
for organizations basedon their operating model.
So there'll be differentdiscounts for an organization
if it's a commercial organizationversus an organization
that might be in thenon-for-profit sector.
Similarly, if you're anexternal consultant trainer,
(08:07):
facilitator, leadership expert,
we can assist with discountsthere for you as well.
If you are an organization
or an external consultantwho works with organizations
and you're curious todiscover a little bit more,
all this information isavailable at listeningquiz.com.
In summary, those five updates are,
number one, aggregate reportingfor 10 people or more.
(08:31):
Number two, cross industry comparison.
Number three, reporting functionality
for progress and completion.
And number four and number five,
a variety of volume discounts,
whether you're an external consultant
or inside an organization.
(intense ambient music)
This is what I've discoveredfrom 33,519 responses.
(08:56):
Yep, and I have read everysingle line on that spreadsheet,
in fact, twice.
Channeling my inner HughForest from South by Southwest
who spend six weeks readingall their survey feedback
from people who attendtheir conference, like Hugh,
although there's 100s ofpages of respondent data,
(09:17):
when you lay it all outfrom 33,519 participants,
distilling all of those into themes
is what I've spent most of my time doing.
And we've coded every response
to the villains of listening
and the five levels of listening as well.
And the most significantinsight from that question,
(09:40):
what do you struggle withwhen it comes to listening?
Is this, 99.52% of participants
describe what they struggle with
at level one, two, or three.
Said another way, half of 1% of people
(10:01):
are struggling to listen atlevel four and at level five,
listening for the unsaidand listening for meaning.
And I hypothesize thatpeople just aren't conscious
that that exists, thatthat's a possibility,
that's something worth reaching for.
The raw data is really simple,
level one, 64.5% of people
(10:24):
are stuck at listening to yourself.
31% of people are at leveltwo, where they're struggling
with what's presented in the content,
and about 4% of people are at level three,
listening for the context.
So with all that in mind,that's why the content we create
is specifically focusedon level one and two,
(10:48):
and a little bit of three.
Said another way,
two thirds of people say what'sgetting in the way is them.
It's not focusing on thespeaker where they will improve,
they're listening, butbecoming present to themselves.
This is the reason wededicated two chapters
(11:09):
rather than one in ourbook, "how to listen".
Focusing on level one before,during, and after the meeting
will have the biggest impact
on the way you communicatein your workplace.
Now listening before themeeting takes many forms,
and a lot of people kindof scratch their head,
(11:30):
confused when I say, "You canlisten before the meeting."
Well, if you're listening to yourself,
that's completely possible,
and I'll explain a way thatyou can listen to others
before the meeting as well.
When it comes to listeningbefore the meeting,
let's just focus on listening to yourself
and thinking about creating space, time
(11:52):
and creating the energy that you need
to be present during a meeting.
Now before the meeting,
when you are trying to listen to them,
you can ask the other person
what will make this a good conversation.
Or if it's a group meeting,
possibly you'd ask a variation and say,
"What will make this aproductive meeting for you?"
(12:14):
How much of your listening focus happens
before the meeting commences?
Well, as I went through those 33,519 rows,
that was another thing wecoded into our responses.
16% of the people who arestruggling at level one
are saying they're struggling
(12:35):
with something beforethe meeting commences,
whether it's remotemeetings, their workload,
their lack of time,
the fact they say theyhave too many meetings,
each of these issuescan be addressed by you
before the meeting commences.
This data made me very curious about
84% of people who identifiedin meeting barriers,
(13:00):
and they use terms likefocus, distraction, attention.
And these represent about 58%of the immediate barriers,
which could be anticipated
even before the meeting commences.
Can you anticipatedistractions during a meeting?
Before the meeting commences,you definitely can,
and you can anticipate howyou can react as a result.
(13:23):
Although you may have ameeting in your schedule,
and that might be in yourschedule from a week ago
or a day ago.
Right now, when you're having the meeting
or about to have the meeting,ask yourself this question,
is it still the right time?
Is this meeting the right format?
Is the location or thelength of the meeting
(13:44):
appropriate to where me and others are at
who are gonna attend this meeting?
You can change any dimensionof the meeting before it starts
to make sure your listeningbattery is charged
and ready for the conversation.
Maybe you need to reschedule the meeting,
maybe you need to move a videomeeting to an audio only,
or you could shorten the meeting length,
(14:07):
or you could just adjustthe meeting start time by
starting at five or 10minutes after the hour.
Could you move a meeting
that's a seated meetingto a walking meeting?
Look, there are so many options
that we outline in these reports
to help you move forwardwith your listening.
When you take the quiz and get the report,
(14:28):
we'll outline
some of these reallypractical tips to help you,
particularly for those whoare stuck at level one.
We want to get you up to leveltwo as quickly as possible.
There's lots of options in your control.
Some you may need to negotiate
or renegotiate with other participants.
Yet, I speculate it'sworth trying to adjust
(14:51):
before you commence a meeting
rather than creating anunproductive, draining,
or frustrating meeting foryou and for the others.
(intense ambient music)
One of the most impactfulthings I get feedback about
is creating a pre-meeting ritual.
This could be something thatwe discuss during a workshop.
(15:15):
It could be something
that we discuss during a training course,
and some of the examples thathave been really productive
for people is simplydrinking a glass of water,
playing music for 90 seconds,
noticing the pattern of your breathing,
choosing to stand up
and walk for 90 secondsbefore the meeting commences.
(15:36):
All of these are signaling toyour mind, your body, and you,
that this meeting requires you
to give and to pay attention
to maximize the time when you'recommunicating with others.
I'm very curious, do youhave a ritual, a practice,
or a technique you useto prepare for a meeting?
(16:01):
Do you have a way to rechargeyour listening batteries?
Send me an email,podcast@oscartrimboli.com
with the subject lines "Before".
That's subject line before.
And for the first five people
who send me their pre-meeting rituals,
I'll send you a copy of thebook, "Super Communicators",
"The Power of Conversation
(16:23):
and Hidden Language of Connection".
This book is a refreshing changefor books on communication
because it does a great jobof balancing the speaking
and the listening throughoutits chapters on communication.
I especially like the difference, Charles,
the author calls out
between switching questionsand supporting questions
(16:45):
when it comes to buildingrapport in first time meetings,
it's definitely a book I recommend.
What's the biggest insight
from listening to 33,519respondents in the survey
is that two thirds of youare struggling at level one,
and you wanna make progress.
And I hope some of these tips will help.
(17:07):
I've created some additional resources
based not only on the surveyfeedback from the respondents,
also based on feedback
from the Deep ListeningAmbassador community,
as well as listeners to this podcast,
I've created three additional resources
that I think can helpyou make a difference.
The first is I've set up a where to begin.
(17:30):
I got a lot of feedback about Oscar,
you know, with over 120episodes of the podcast,
I'm not sure where to start.
We've broken them up intothree, where to start,
the episodes of the podcast bythe five levels of listening,
and broken up by competency.
30 competencies based on theKorn Ferry leadership model.
(17:53):
(intense ambient music)
Let's start at the beginningwith where to start.
If you visit oscartrimboli.com/start,
we've curated all the episodes
and 15 other resourcesthat are gonna help you
to improve the way you listen the fastest.
(18:14):
So these 15 resources on the start page
include the "how tolisten" book , two guides,
a visual and video conferencing guide,
two courses, "The Fundamentals"
and the "Manager's Masterclass",
10 podcast episodes outliningthe five levels of listening,
the four barriers of listening,
and an overview of the research
(18:34):
and methodology we're talking about.
Finally, this resource, listeningquiz.com
is the final resource werecommend about where to start.
I'm very confident that theseresources are now sequenced
in a way that'll make thebiggest and fastest impact
for the way you communicate at work.
So if you wanna start now,
visit oscartrimboli.com/start.
(18:58):
(intense ambient music)
Once you've completedeverything on the start page,
you can move to how theepisodes are organized,
and they're organized by thefive levels of listening.
So if you visit oscartrimboli.com/levels,
you can find each of theepisodes have been marked
with one or more of thefive levels of listening.
(19:22):
(intense ambient music)
In our final update, we introducea competencies framework
where we overlay the 120 podcast episodes
over the Korn FerryLeadership Competency Model.
And we've mapped eachepisode of the podcast
to one or more of thecompetency frameworks
(19:42):
based at oscartrimboli.com/competencies.
And don't worry, you don'thave to write them down
if you scroll through your podcast app,
you'll see them in thelinks in the show notes,
and that's oscartrimboli.com/competencies.
When I spoke to leadershipconsultants, trainers, coaches,
facilitators, or organizational leaders,
(20:05):
whether they're peopleand culture leaders,
executive leaders,
whether they're learningand development consultants
or in-house trainers,they wanted to match it
to something that was fairlywell known in the market.
And the common feedback was
the Korn Ferry LeadershipArchitecture Competency Framework.
(20:26):
These competencies rangefrom ensure accountability,
communicates effectively drive results,
creates effective teams
all the way to tech savvyand 25 others in total.
The Korn Ferry LeadershipArchitecture Competency Framework
is the most robust andglobally orientated model.
(20:48):
Many of the clients I workwith, more importantly,
many of the clients thatleadership consultants
that I spoke to work with
have clients who use this framework.
They use this framework
to build their professionaldevelopment plan,
they use the framework
if they're figuring outif they should move roles
(21:09):
or seeking a promotioninternally within an organization
or being assessed to be ready
for the most senior rolesin their organizations,
or even if you want tochange organizations,
typical recruitment process
may require you to gothrough an assessment center
at an executive level,
and the Korn Ferry architectureis sitting behind that.
(21:33):
I wanted to share threereally simple examples of that
so you can navigate thecompetencies against
the podcast episodes we've created.
The three I've selectedcommunicates effectively,
manages complexity and tech savvy.
And for each of these,
I'm gonna start with thefull Korn Ferry description,
(21:56):
and then we'll overlay someof the podcast episodes
so you can join the dots.
When we think aboutcommunicates effectively,
Korn Ferry describes communicateseffectively as developing
and delivering multi-mode communications
that convey a clear understanding
of the unique needs ofdifferent audiences.
(22:20):
The questions they pose is,
is the communication you're using,
using a variety of one-to-onesmall, large group,
as well as diverse delivery styles?
Do you listen attentively?
Do you adjust to fit the audience?
Do you provide timelyand helpful information
(22:42):
to others across your own organization?
And do you encourage theopen expression of ideas
and opinions from others?
So as you can see,
it's a very extensiveand thorough evaluation
of what does communicate effectively mean.
Some of the episodes that are mapped
(23:02):
to effective communicationepisode 89, with Danish,
who explains the what and the how
of effective speaking in the workplace
where he discusses speakingspeed, the use of pause,
the use of emotion and executive presence.
As well as episode 92,
where retired Sergeant KevinBriggs from San Francisco
(23:27):
explains how he helped to listen to people
when they were planning to jumpoff the Golden Gate Bridge.
Let's look at managing complexity.
Korn Ferry says, "Making senseof complex, high quantity
and sometimes contradictory information
to effectively solve problems."
(23:49):
They wonder, do youask the right questions
to accurately analyze the situation?
Do you collect the right kind of data
from multiple and diversesources to solve the problem?
Do you look at the rootcause on difficult problems
rather than just the symptoms?
Are you clear on evaluating risks
and benefits of multiple solutions?
(24:12):
In episode 46,
a chief programming officerof South by Southwest,
Hugh Forest epitomizes notjust managing complexity,
he explains how to leadthrough and towards complexity.
He's dealing with contentthat hasn't become mainstream.
He's looking at contentfor the next decade.
(24:35):
Look, Hugh does a great jobof balancing the present
and the future, presenters, audiences,
the Austin communitywhere the event is based,
the multiple stakeholdersand the global audience.
Here's some numbers he needs to juggle,
74,000 attendees fromover a 100 countries,
3000 media and press,
(24:57):
3000 speakers at the event,
over 1500 conference sessions.
And just one exampleof the economic impact
that Hugh and South bySouthwest has made in Austin
is during the lastevent they booked 52,000
hotel nights in 68 hotels.
(25:19):
That is managing complexity.
(intense ambient music)
In the planning process,kicking off for the next year,
there's so many stakeholdersthat you need to think about.
There's the audience, there'sspeakers, there's sponsors,
there's staff, there'sthe Austin community,
(25:40):
there's the broader communityacross the United States,
and South by Southwesthas a global impact.
Talk us through how you prepare
and what some of thetechniques you use to listen
to the audience for thecurrent year, for example.
[Hugh Forrest] We spenda, what I'd like to say
is an inordinate amount of time
reading through user feedbackfrom the previous year.
(26:02):
There are many goodreasons for doing that.
You learn about the event
from a completely different perspective
than you had as an organizer.
There are often things thatyou learn that were great,
that you had no knowledge of.
There are often things that youlearn that didn't go so well
that you had no knowledge of,
and that just reading this feedback
(26:24):
gives you a much better perspective
and much fuller perspective
and much more nuanced perspective
of what was good andwhat needs improvement.
I'll also say that thatprocess of reading feedback,
of digesting feedback, oftrying to understand feedback,
of listing what your users
and what your communityis saying can be mentally,
(26:47):
emotionally, spiritually exhausting.
It's often not easyreading sharp criticisms
of what you've done,particularly if you think
you've done something incredibly great.
But I think you try to have
a generally positive attitude here
and understand it's all partof the learning and process
(27:07):
and helps you get better.
And throughout the most harsh criticisms
and throughout the highest phrase,
and the whatever objective truth is,
is somewhere in the middle,
but again, helps you do thatby reading this feedback.
So we'll spend six weeks reading feedback,
trying to analyze that feedback,
try to put that into some general themes
(27:30):
and even more specific themes.
And then by about late May, early June,
we're beginning to plan for the next year,
and one of the big pieces
in terms of planning for the next year
is this South by Southwestpanel picker interface
that we've been using forapproximately a decade.
(27:52):
This is a interface whereanyone in the community,
which basically means anyonewith a web connection,
can enter a speaking proposal.
It allows us to listen towhat the community wants,
to get new ideas and newspeakers into the event.
But we'll get somewherein the neighborhood
of 5,000 total ideas, speaking proposals
(28:15):
for South by Southwest,
of which probably about a 1,000 of those
will be accepted to the event.
The other 4,000 are also,again, very, very useful
in terms of trying to discern
what our community wants to hear,
what our community wants to learn about,
that in our community
is much more focused onlearning the latest technologies
(28:37):
or the newest ideas about blockchain.
But again, this panel pickersystem is ultimately a way
for us to communicate with our audience,
for us to learn from our audience,
for us to listen to our audience.
And I think it's one of the many things
that has helped us continueto improve as an event.
(intense ambient music)
(28:59):
[Oscar Trimboli] Finally,let's look at tech savvy.
And tech savvy is described as
anticipating and adoptinginnovations in business building,
digital and other technologies.
You anticipate the impact
of emerging technologies and adjust.
You scan the environmentfor new technical skills,
knowledge and capabilities tobenefit you or the business.
(29:23):
You don't focus so much on the fads
and you're happy to learnand adopt new technologies.
I was surprised when Icategorized the episodes
because I thought I'd struggled
to find some relevant conversations.
Yet, there are fiveepisodes discussing online,
(29:44):
Zoom fatigue, AI, to name a few.
Two episodes on listeningand artificial intelligence,
one with Scott Sandland,where he's discussing
what age level of languagedoes AI currently speak,
and would you allow this teenager to go
(30:04):
and have business discussions?
And Amy Brown, who discusseshow artificial intelligence
and listening is helping the leader
she works with in healthcare
to extract and hear a lot of information
from contact centers
that they can build intoaction plans very quickly.
One of my surprising favoriteswas Dr. Alison Barker.
(30:27):
She used machine learningto discover the language
and dialect in laboratory rats
to help her speed up her learning,
as well as her ability to listen
to the language they were using
while she was undertaking experiments.
So you can see there's avery diverse perspective
(30:48):
on what it means to applytechnology in over a 100 episodes.
If you would like to
look at your professional development plan
and listen to a couple of podcasts
aligned to a competencyyou'd like to improve,
visit oscartrimboli.com/competencies
And there you'll see 30different competencies
(31:10):
mapped to each of the 120 plus episodes.
Now, whether you wantedto use a guided start
listening at the levelsor explore by competency,
I'm certain that I'm bringing to you
the most comprehensive workplace
listening resources in the world.
(31:31):
And all of that has been created
because you've taken thetime to listen to me.
I'm Oscar Trimboli,
and along with the DeepListening Ambassador community,
we're on a quest to create
100 million deep listenersin the workplace.
Thanks for listening.
(tranquil ambient music)
- What can you learn
from over 33,000 workplace listeners?
(tranquil ambient music)
(00:28):
Back in June, 2018, Ilogged into a survey tool.
I started to explore howto construct questions
that would help people understand
what gets in their waywhen it comes to listening.
These were the questions I asked,
what frustrates you the most
when someone isn't listening to you?
(00:49):
What do you struggle with the most
when it comes to listeningto somebody else?
And if you could improve
just one thing about your listening,
what would you like to make progress on?
Well, 200 people responded to the survey,
a little bit more than the 50that I'd actually anticipated,
and I soon learned that Iwas completely outta my depth
(01:11):
when it comes to constructingresearch, making a survey,
analyzing the data, creating insights,
and actionable next steps.
Just because I couldcollect the survey results,
it didn't mean I understoodhow to make an impact with it.
I decided to ask my network
if they knew anyone who could assist.
(01:33):
Eventually, I was introducedto four different people,
and two of those conversationswere really good examples
of how the other personwasn't listening to me.
One of those meetings wasprofessionally cut short
because they realized very quickly
they couldn't assist with my requirements,
they couldn't help, and they said so,
(01:54):
and they said so quicklyand within 15 minutes.
I'm very grateful for that.
The fourth discussion took place
on the 11th of Septemberwith Heidi Martin.
Heidi and I discussed iflistening barriers could be coded
and grouped into uniformcohorts of respondents.
(02:17):
The meeting lasted about 50 minutes,
and Heidi asked lots of probing questions,
and skillfully on her part,
she didn't promise anything other than
I need to take a fortnight to reflect
on what might be themost effective questions,
survey design,
and potential outputs toinform the listening quiz
(02:40):
and its accompanying report.
What struck me about theconversation with Heidi
was she wasn't lookingto discover anything,
she was exploring along with me,
and we were figuring out what we knew
and what we didn't know.
Heidi was a really goodexample of somebody
who was helping to explorenot just what I was saying,
(03:02):
she was also exploringwhat I wasn't saying.
She was a ninja in levelfour listening, the unsaid.
(intense ambient music)
Wind the clock forward about 12 months
and multiple iterations,revisions, and insights from Heidi,
she presented to me her insightsfrom over 500 respondents.
(03:26):
There were some homogenousgroups, uniform groups,
some groups that had a lot in common,
and these were the foundations
of what was to become thevillains of listening.
The villains emerge from word clouds.
These were software that highlighted
what the common phrases were
(03:47):
that people were using intheir free text responses.
These free text responsesor 500 were coded,
meaning I looked at them,Heidi looked at them.
We had a few other people,in fact, 12 other people.
Three lots of four,
all representing one of thedifferent villain groups
(04:08):
to look at the informationwithin their cohort
to see if that made sense.
Did that sound right?
Did it feel right?
The feedback was pretty consistent,
"You've kind of got it Oscar,"
this sounds like what I struggle with
when it comes to listening.
They were responding to 14 questions,
and as a result, we werestarting to get some
(04:32):
very consistent results
that we predicted beforepeople took the assessments.
I learned a valuable lessonabout playing to my strengths.
Strategy is one of my key strengths,
details and maths is not.
By bringing on experts who could provide
insights into their field,I got a much better result.
(04:55):
(intense ambient music)
The next step in thejourney was March, 2020,
and the listening quiz became available
for anyone to complete.
14 questions, one, free text response
and a tailored reporthighlighting their primary
and secondary listening barrier,as well as three practical
(05:16):
and pragmatic tips forthem based on their input.
It's now 2024 and 33,519 people
have now taken the quiz.
Between 2020 and 2024,
the Listening Quiz softwarehas been updated four times.
(intense ambient music)
(05:38):
Our 2024 release is by far themost comprehensive release,
including extrafunctionality and reporting.
The first one is you areable to aggregate reports
based on groups of 10 or more respondents
if you are part of an organization,
you may be in training,learning and development,
(05:59):
organizational development, leadership.
So if you'd like tounderstand how a group of 10
or more people listenas an aggregate profile,
we have ways to describethat at a team level,
a department level, maybea project team level,
even an organization level.
(06:21):
We're able to also docross industry comparison,
so you can compare yourselfto a peer in your industry,
that might be in yourindustry, in your geography,
or it may be overseas.
The third level of reporting is reporting
to allow the administratorsof the projects
(06:44):
to see the progressthat people are making.
Once they've been invitedto complete the quiz,
we'll be able to tell you then
how many people you've invited,
how many people have commenced the quiz,
and how many peoplehave completed the quiz.
And this is gonna be really helpful
if you're in human resources,people and culture,
(07:05):
learning and development.
Maybe you want to do anoffsite for an executive team.
Equally, if you're an external consultant,
a trainer, a facilitator,a leadership expert,
and you want to administer the quiz
on behalf of your clients,
we have the functionalityto do that as well.
(intense ambient music)
(07:26):
Next, we provide a summary,which is the percentage
of each listening barrierrepresented in the group.
And finally, we provideanonymized reporting
of each participant's mostsignificant listening struggle
in aggregate report whenthere are 10 people or more.
In this release as well,
(07:47):
we'll be able to provide volume discounts
for organizations basedon their operating model.
So there'll be differentdiscounts for an organization
if it's a commercial organizationversus an organization
that might be in thenon-for-profit sector.
Similarly, if you're anexternal consultant trainer,
(08:07):
facilitator, leadership expert,
we can assist with discountsthere for you as well.
If you are an organization
or an external consultantwho works with organizations
and you're curious todiscover a little bit more,
all this information isavailable at listeningquiz.com.
In summary, those five updates are,
number one, aggregate reportingfor 10 people or more.
(08:31):
Number two, cross industry comparison.
Number three, reporting functionality
for progress and completion.
And number four and number five,
a variety of volume discounts,
whether you're an external consultant
or inside an organization.
(intense ambient music)
This is what I've discoveredfrom 33,519 responses.
(08:56):
Yep, and I have read everysingle line on that spreadsheet,
in fact, twice.
Channeling my inner HughForest from South by Southwest
who spend six weeks readingall their survey feedback
from people who attendtheir conference, like Hugh,
although there's 100s ofpages of respondent data,
(09:17):
when you lay it all outfrom 33,519 participants,
distilling all of those into themes
is what I've spent most of my time doing.
And we've coded every response
to the villains of listening
and the five levels of listening as well.
And the most significantinsight from that question,
(09:40):
what do you struggle withwhen it comes to listening?
Is this, 99.52% of participants
describe what they struggle with
at level one, two, or three.
Said another way, half of 1% of people
(10:01):
are struggling to listen atlevel four and at level five,
listening for the unsaidand listening for meaning.
And I hypothesize thatpeople just aren't conscious
that that exists, thatthat's a possibility,
that's something worth reaching for.
The raw data is really simple,
level one, 64.5% of people
(10:24):
are stuck at listening to yourself.
31% of people are at leveltwo, where they're struggling
with what's presented in the content,
and about 4% of people are at level three,
listening for the context.
So with all that in mind,that's why the content we create
is specifically focusedon level one and two,
(10:48):
and a little bit of three.
Said another way,
two thirds of people say what'sgetting in the way is them.
It's not focusing on thespeaker where they will improve,
they're listening, butbecoming present to themselves.
This is the reason wededicated two chapters
(11:09):
rather than one in ourbook, "how to listen".
Focusing on level one before,during, and after the meeting
will have the biggest impact
on the way you communicatein your workplace.
Now listening before themeeting takes many forms,
and a lot of people kindof scratch their head,
(11:30):
confused when I say, "You canlisten before the meeting."
Well, if you're listening to yourself,
that's completely possible,
and I'll explain a way thatyou can listen to others
before the meeting as well.
When it comes to listeningbefore the meeting,
let's just focus on listening to yourself
and thinking about creating space, time
(11:52):
and creating the energy that you need
to be present during a meeting.
Now before the meeting,
when you are trying to listen to them,
you can ask the other person
what will make this a good conversation.
Or if it's a group meeting,
possibly you'd ask a variation and say,
"What will make this aproductive meeting for you?"
(12:14):
How much of your listening focus happens
before the meeting commences?
Well, as I went through those 33,519 rows,
that was another thing wecoded into our responses.
16% of the people who arestruggling at level one
are saying they're struggling
(12:35):
with something beforethe meeting commences,
whether it's remotemeetings, their workload,
their lack of time,
the fact they say theyhave too many meetings,
each of these issuescan be addressed by you
before the meeting commences.
This data made me very curious about
84% of people who identifiedin meeting barriers,
(13:00):
and they use terms likefocus, distraction, attention.
And these represent about 58%of the immediate barriers,
which could be anticipated
even before the meeting commences.
Can you anticipatedistractions during a meeting?
Before the meeting commences,you definitely can,
and you can anticipate howyou can react as a result.
(13:23):
Although you may have ameeting in your schedule,
and that might be in yourschedule from a week ago
or a day ago.
Right now, when you're having the meeting
or about to have the meeting,ask yourself this question,
is it still the right time?
Is this meeting the right format?
Is the location or thelength of the meeting
(13:44):
appropriate to where me and others are at
who are gonna attend this meeting?
You can change any dimensionof the meeting before it starts
to make sure your listeningbattery is charged
and ready for the conversation.
Maybe you need to reschedule the meeting,
maybe you need to move a videomeeting to an audio only,
or you could shorten the meeting length,
(14:07):
or you could just adjustthe meeting start time by
starting at five or 10minutes after the hour.
Could you move a meeting
that's a seated meetingto a walking meeting?
Look, there are so many options
that we outline in these reports
to help you move forwardwith your listening.
When you take the quiz and get the report,
(14:28):
we'll outline
some of these reallypractical tips to help you,
particularly for those whoare stuck at level one.
We want to get you up to leveltwo as quickly as possible.
There's lots of options in your control.
Some you may need to negotiate
or renegotiate with other participants.
Yet, I speculate it'sworth trying to adjust
(14:51):
before you commence a meeting
rather than creating anunproductive, draining,
or frustrating meeting foryou and for the others.
(intense ambient music)
One of the most impactfulthings I get feedback about
is creating a pre-meeting ritual.
This could be something thatwe discuss during a workshop.
(15:15):
It could be something
that we discuss during a training course,
and some of the examples thathave been really productive
for people is simplydrinking a glass of water,
playing music for 90 seconds,
noticing the pattern of your breathing,
choosing to stand up
and walk for 90 secondsbefore the meeting commences.
(15:36):
All of these are signaling toyour mind, your body, and you,
that this meeting requires you
to give and to pay attention
to maximize the time when you'recommunicating with others.
I'm very curious, do youhave a ritual, a practice,
or a technique you useto prepare for a meeting?
(16:01):
Do you have a way to rechargeyour listening batteries?
Send me an email,podcast@oscartrimboli.com
with the subject lines "Before".
That's subject line before.
And for the first five people
who send me their pre-meeting rituals,
I'll send you a copy of thebook, "Super Communicators",
"The Power of Conversation
(16:23):
and Hidden Language of Connection".
This book is a refreshing changefor books on communication
because it does a great jobof balancing the speaking
and the listening throughoutits chapters on communication.
I especially like the difference, Charles,
the author calls out
between switching questionsand supporting questions
(16:45):
when it comes to buildingrapport in first time meetings,
it's definitely a book I recommend.
What's the biggest insight
from listening to 33,519respondents in the survey
is that two thirds of youare struggling at level one,
and you wanna make progress.
And I hope some of these tips will help.
(17:07):
I've created some additional resources
based not only on the surveyfeedback from the respondents,
also based on feedback
from the Deep ListeningAmbassador community,
as well as listeners to this podcast,
I've created three additional resources
that I think can helpyou make a difference.
The first is I've set up a where to begin.
(17:30):
I got a lot of feedback about Oscar,
you know, with over 120episodes of the podcast,
I'm not sure where to start.
We've broken them up intothree, where to start,
the episodes of the podcast bythe five levels of listening,
and broken up by competency.
30 competencies based on theKorn Ferry leadership model.
(17:53):
(intense ambient music)
Let's start at the beginningwith where to start.
If you visit oscartrimboli.com/start,
we've curated all the episodes
and 15 other resourcesthat are gonna help you
to improve the way you listen the fastest.
(18:14):
So these 15 resources on the start page
include the "how tolisten" book , two guides,
a visual and video conferencing guide,
two courses, "The Fundamentals"
and the "Manager's Masterclass",
10 podcast episodes outliningthe five levels of listening,
the four barriers of listening,
and an overview of the research
(18:34):
and methodology we're talking about.
Finally, this resource, listeningquiz.com
is the final resource werecommend about where to start.
I'm very confident that theseresources are now sequenced
in a way that'll make thebiggest and fastest impact
for the way you communicate at work.
So if you wanna start now,
visit oscartrimboli.com/start.
(18:58):
(intense ambient music)
Once you've completedeverything on the start page,
you can move to how theepisodes are organized,
and they're organized by thefive levels of listening.
So if you visit oscartrimboli.com/levels,
you can find each of theepisodes have been marked
with one or more of thefive levels of listening.
(19:22):
(intense ambient music)
In our final update, we introducea competencies framework
where we overlay the 120 podcast episodes
over the Korn FerryLeadership Competency Model.
And we've mapped eachepisode of the podcast
to one or more of thecompetency frameworks
(19:42):
based at oscartrimboli.com/competencies.
And don't worry, you don'thave to write them down
if you scroll through your podcast app,
you'll see them in thelinks in the show notes,
and that's oscartrimboli.com/competencies.
When I spoke to leadershipconsultants, trainers, coaches,
facilitators, or organizational leaders,
(20:05):
whether they're peopleand culture leaders,
executive leaders,
whether they're learningand development consultants
or in-house trainers,they wanted to match it
to something that was fairlywell known in the market.
And the common feedback was
the Korn Ferry LeadershipArchitecture Competency Framework.
(20:26):
These competencies rangefrom ensure accountability,
communicates effectively drive results,
creates effective teams
all the way to tech savvyand 25 others in total.
The Korn Ferry LeadershipArchitecture Competency Framework
is the most robust andglobally orientated model.
(20:48):
Many of the clients I workwith, more importantly,
many of the clients thatleadership consultants
that I spoke to work with
have clients who use this framework.
They use this framework
to build their professionaldevelopment plan,
they use the framework
if they're figuring outif they should move roles
(21:09):
or seeking a promotioninternally within an organization
or being assessed to be ready
for the most senior rolesin their organizations,
or even if you want tochange organizations,
typical recruitment process
may require you to gothrough an assessment center
at an executive level,
and the Korn Ferry architectureis sitting behind that.
(21:33):
I wanted to share threereally simple examples of that
so you can navigate thecompetencies against
the podcast episodes we've created.
The three I've selectedcommunicates effectively,
manages complexity and tech savvy.
And for each of these,
I'm gonna start with thefull Korn Ferry description,
(21:56):
and then we'll overlay someof the podcast episodes
so you can join the dots.
When we think aboutcommunicates effectively,
Korn Ferry describes communicateseffectively as developing
and delivering multi-mode communications
that convey a clear understanding
of the unique needs ofdifferent audiences.
(22:20):
The questions they pose is,
is the communication you're using,
using a variety of one-to-onesmall, large group,
as well as diverse delivery styles?
Do you listen attentively?
Do you adjust to fit the audience?
Do you provide timelyand helpful information
(22:42):
to others across your own organization?
And do you encourage theopen expression of ideas
and opinions from others?
So as you can see,
it's a very extensiveand thorough evaluation
of what does communicate effectively mean.
Some of the episodes that are mapped
(23:02):
to effective communicationepisode 89, with Danish,
who explains the what and the how
of effective speaking in the workplace
where he discusses speakingspeed, the use of pause,
the use of emotion and executive presence.
As well as episode 92,
where retired Sergeant KevinBriggs from San Francisco
(23:27):
explains how he helped to listen to people
when they were planning to jumpoff the Golden Gate Bridge.
Let's look at managing complexity.
Korn Ferry says, "Making senseof complex, high quantity
and sometimes contradictory information
to effectively solve problems."
(23:49):
They wonder, do youask the right questions
to accurately analyze the situation?
Do you collect the right kind of data
from multiple and diversesources to solve the problem?
Do you look at the rootcause on difficult problems
rather than just the symptoms?
Are you clear on evaluating risks
and benefits of multiple solutions?
(24:12):
In episode 46,
a chief programming officerof South by Southwest,
Hugh Forest epitomizes notjust managing complexity,
he explains how to leadthrough and towards complexity.
He's dealing with contentthat hasn't become mainstream.
He's looking at contentfor the next decade.
(24:35):
Look, Hugh does a great jobof balancing the present
and the future, presenters, audiences,
the Austin communitywhere the event is based,
the multiple stakeholdersand the global audience.
Here's some numbers he needs to juggle,
74,000 attendees fromover a 100 countries,
3000 media and press,
(24:57):
3000 speakers at the event,
over 1500 conference sessions.
And just one exampleof the economic impact
that Hugh and South bySouthwest has made in Austin
is during the lastevent they booked 52,000
hotel nights in 68 hotels.
(25:19):
That is managing complexity.
(intense ambient music)
In the planning process,kicking off for the next year,
there's so many stakeholdersthat you need to think about.
There's the audience, there'sspeakers, there's sponsors,
there's staff, there'sthe Austin community,
(25:40):
there's the broader communityacross the United States,
and South by Southwesthas a global impact.
Talk us through how you prepare
and what some of thetechniques you use to listen
to the audience for thecurrent year, for example.
[Hugh Forrest] We spenda, what I'd like to say
is an inordinate amount of time
reading through user feedbackfrom the previous year.
(26:02):
There are many goodreasons for doing that.
You learn about the event
from a completely different perspective
than you had as an organizer.
There are often things thatyou learn that were great,
that you had no knowledge of.
There are often things that youlearn that didn't go so well
that you had no knowledge of,
and that just reading this feedback
(26:24):
gives you a much better perspective
and much fuller perspective
and much more nuanced perspective
of what was good andwhat needs improvement.
I'll also say that thatprocess of reading feedback,
of digesting feedback, oftrying to understand feedback,
of listing what your users
and what your communityis saying can be mentally,
(26:47):
emotionally, spiritually exhausting.
It's often not easyreading sharp criticisms
of what you've done,particularly if you think
you've done something incredibly great.
But I think you try to have
a generally positive attitude here
and understand it's all partof the learning and process
(27:07):
and helps you get better.
And throughout the most harsh criticisms
and throughout the highest phrase,
and the whatever objective truth is,
is somewhere in the middle,
but again, helps you do thatby reading this feedback.
So we'll spend six weeks reading feedback,
trying to analyze that feedback,
try to put that into some general themes
(27:30):
and even more specific themes.
And then by about late May, early June,
we're beginning to plan for the next year,
and one of the big pieces
in terms of planning for the next year
is this South by Southwestpanel picker interface
that we've been using forapproximately a decade.
(27:52):
This is a interface whereanyone in the community,
which basically means anyonewith a web connection,
can enter a speaking proposal.
It allows us to listen towhat the community wants,
to get new ideas and newspeakers into the event.
But we'll get somewherein the neighborhood
of 5,000 total ideas, speaking proposals
(28:15):
for South by Southwest,
of which probably about a 1,000 of those
will be accepted to the event.
The other 4,000 are also,again, very, very useful
in terms of trying to discern
what our community wants to hear,
what our community wants to learn about,
that in our community
is much more focused onlearning the latest technologies
(28:37):
or the newest ideas about blockchain.
But again, this panel pickersystem is ultimately a way
for us to communicate with our audience,
for us to learn from our audience,
for us to listen to our audience.
And I think it's one of the many things
that has helped us continueto improve as an event.
(intense ambient music)
(28:59):
[Oscar Trimboli] Finally,let's look at tech savvy.
And tech savvy is described as
anticipating and adoptinginnovations in business building,
digital and other technologies.
You anticipate the impact
of emerging technologies and adjust.
You scan the environmentfor new technical skills,
knowledge and capabilities tobenefit you or the business.
(29:23):
You don't focus so much on the fads
and you're happy to learnand adopt new technologies.
I was surprised when Icategorized the episodes
because I thought I'd struggled
to find some relevant conversations.
Yet, there are fiveepisodes discussing online,
(29:44):
Zoom fatigue, AI, to name a few.
Two episodes on listeningand artificial intelligence,
one with Scott Sandland,where he's discussing
what age level of languagedoes AI currently speak,
and would you allow this teenager to go
(30:04):
and have business discussions?
And Amy Brown, who discusseshow artificial intelligence
and listening is helping the leader
she works with in healthcare
to extract and hear a lot of information
from contact centers
that they can build intoaction plans very quickly.
One of my surprising favoriteswas Dr. Alison Barker.
(30:27):
She used machine learningto discover the language
and dialect in laboratory rats
to help her speed up her learning,
as well as her ability to listen
to the language they were using
while she was undertaking experiments.
So you can see there's avery diverse perspective
(30:48):
on what it means to applytechnology in over a 100 episodes.
If you would like to
look at your professional development plan
and listen to a couple of podcasts
aligned to a competencyyou'd like to improve,
visit oscartrimboli.com/competencies
And there you'll see 30different competencies
(31:10):
mapped to each of the 120 plus episodes.
Now, whether you wantedto use a guided start
listening at the levelsor explore by competency,
I'm certain that I'm bringing to you
the most comprehensive workplace
listening resources in the world.
(31:31):
And all of that has been created
because you've taken thetime to listen to me.
I'm Oscar Trimboli,
and along with the DeepListening Ambassador community,
we're on a quest to create
100 million deep listenersin the workplace.
Thanks for listening.
(tranquil ambient music)
Popular Podcasts
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com