You're Not Listening summary

Listening is a vital skill for people in professions from therapy to military interrogation. The author herself is a journalist who needs to know how to extract the most fascinating insights from her interviewees. But even she was struck when she met Naomi Henderson.

Known simply as “Naomi” to those in her field, she’s a living legend of focus groups. Over her 50-year career, she’s worked on everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign; she was the one who told him to stop playing up his Southern accent. All in all, she has moderated some six thousand focus groups – more than fifty thousand people.

Some of the very best listeners are the most naturally curious people. One retired intelligence officer proves this perfectly: Gary Noesner, former lead hostage negotiator with the FBI.

Noesner has an eccentric habit when he stays in hotels. He goes to the bar, chooses someone, and gets them to talk. The aim is to find out everything he can about them – not because they’re under investigation, but simply because Noesner has an insatiable natural curiosity. One time, a salesman told him about his tightrope-walking hobby, and Noesner learned all about how a tightrope walker practices.

Who do you find it easiest to confide in: a stranger, or someone you’re close to? Surprisingly, a lot of people prefer to talk to strangers.

This is known as closeness-communication bias, and psychologist Judith Coché is an expert in trying to break it down. Her specialty is couples’ group therapy; she brings several couples together for long, regular sessions in which they can talk about their relationships in detail. When someone shares their problems, it’s not just their spouse who’s listening: it’s the whole group. And the conversation changes dramatically when you’re really being listened to.

In 2016, a neuroscience study at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles discovered something remarkable. It took a group of people with strong political views, and scanned their brains while challenging their beliefs. The brain scans that resulted were similar to what it would have looked like if they’d been running away from a bear.

Strange though it may seem, it’s just that difficult to listen to opposing views. Ahmad Hariri, a professor at Duke University, suggests that, because humans live in relative safety these days – bear chases are pretty rare – the biggest threats we generally face are social in nature. The amygdala – the part of the brain that kicks in when we’re under threat – can therefore go into overdrive even when faced with differences of opinion.

A good listener will probably find themselves saying less in a conversation than the person they’re listening to. But whatever the listener does say needs to be exactly right.

Sociologist Charles Derber of Boston College says that there are two basic types of conversational response: the support response and the shift response. Say someone tells you that her dog recently ran away for several days. If you answer by explaining how your own dog never gets out, that’s a shift response – you’ve shifted the emphasis onto you. A support response, though, might be to express sympathy and then ask a question – like where she eventually found her dog – that encourages the speaker to tell her story more fully.

A lot of people like to be the center of attention and control a conversation’s narrative. A comedy improvisation session – if it’s not a very good one – can be alarming proof of that, as people compete for the limelight and the funniest comeback. But in fact, for truly effective improv, listening skills are vital.

Improv is a great way to learn to maintain focus. At the famous Second City in Chicago, Artistic Director Matt Hovde runs a training program for beginners. One game they play is group storytelling. Hovde controls which group member narrates a made-up story, and also decides when the narrator changes. It forces the whole group to listen closely, so that, if they’re called upon, anyone can pick up the thread.

As if everything we’ve covered so far about how to listen wasn’t challenging enough, bear this in mind: you need to listen not just when others are talking, but also when you’re talking.

Every speaker has to read her audience. What are they actually interested in, and what leaves them cold? You might have a really fascinating story to tell, but it’ll be an uphill struggle if the person you’re talking to is thinking about something else, or simply has zero interest in the topic.