Top Five Ways Better Listening Can Be Your Superpower

And everyone can become a better listener!

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Welcome to anyone finding us through Greenwich Leadership Partner’s The Blueprint, where this article was featured in the Sunday, April 13th edition. For more info about me and Talking Out of School, check out our “About” page.

The mighty Finn! With those ears, you would be correct to assume he is an excellent listener!

Have I ever mentioned that I have an irrational but vehement dislike of people using the word “superpower” in management talk? I’m not sure if it’s a deep suspicion that school leaders are supposed to be slightly more than human in their forbearance, endurance, their eternal well of inspiration, etc? But irritate me it does!

But if there was ever a “superpower” that everyone can possess, it’s becoming a much better listener. I’ve had three life-stuff interactions over the past month or so - one was initially frustrating, one escalated very quickly and one was satisfying. And the difference was all in the listening and how it informed what followed.

One was around this frustrating vision situation I referred to briefly in last week’s post. The optometrist keeps assuming I need reading glasses when that is not the problem I’m describing - but however I seem to articulate the issue I’m experiencing, I keep getting redirected towards the cheaters. It’s so tiring and I began to doubt myself. I would be happy if the issue had such a simple answer! Finally, the optician who runs the glasses concession was able to help. He heard something in what I said that the optometrist did not, pulled on this thread and I am now waiting for several different options in new contacts to arrive.

The other was around the car repair I briefly referred to in last week’s post, where the person who answered the phone at the auto body interrupted me part way through my explanation of why I was calling because he was confident he knew who I was. And who he thought I was, well, this person had clearly been a pain in his butt. There was immediate dismissiveness, which then escalated because I was so mad to be cut off - and from the details he spewed out, he definitely had me confused with someone else - someone whose son had crashed her car. Not me! So I cut him off crisply, which just made him yell, “don’t yell at me!” Thirty minutes later his supervisor called to apologize and said, “I was told your call did not go well.” Thank you. Then I felt kind of bad for being crisp.

The third instance was with the vet, where I brought the mighty Finn in for something I thought might not be vet-level and might be something I was being a neurotic pet owner about. The vet and the vet tech were both incredibly great and asked many excellent questions to push past my lack of ability to precisely articulate what was going on in veterinary language. We got the situation resolved happily and efficiently for everyone but Finn, who, like any sensible dog, does not love going to the vet but at least he does not mind antibiotics when put in a Pill Pocket.

This has made me think a lot of being in a position where you have a problem and sometimes it’s a hard-to-articulate problem you have many feelings about and you wonder if the problem may, in fact, be you. You approach an expert for help and how the expert responds can either escalate or mitigate potential conflict. And it all starts with good listening.

ONE

Really listen