Listening Masterclass - how to listen to what emerges in between - Part III of III
Deep Listening - Impact beyond words - Oscar Trimboli
This episode concludes a three-part experimental series between Oscar Trimboli, Claire Pedrick, and Shani Crawford, focusing on the nuances
Key takeaways
- The midpoint process check is a critical tool to adjust conversation direction and ensure participants feel heard.
- Effective listening extends beyond hearing to include observing visual cues and sensing non-verbal signals.
Main topics
- Midpoint process checks
- Visual and sensory listening
Notable quotes
Feedback tells you about where you've been. The process check tells you about where you're going.
Conclusion
The episode serves as a masterclass in moving from transactional infor
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:22) G'day, it's Oscar, and this is the continuation of a three-part experiment between Claire Pedrick, Shani Crawford, and myself. This is part three of three. In episode 127, Claire and I discussed listening through many dimensions, and then in episode 128, you had the opportunity to listen to what others heard, saw, sensed. and made sense of during that first discussion in episode 127. What will you hear next? Next is a discussion between Shani, Claire and I and what emerges after hearing what the listeners sensed, heard and saw in our discussion. Speaker 1 (1:16) In previous episodes of Deep Listening, I've been the host where I've interviewed two other guests. It's happened a couple of times. Yet this conversation between three of us felt really, really different. In episode 127, I was in the role of the guest and Claire the host. In this discussion, I was the host and yet I sense that this role... wasn't as helpful as it could have been for you to listen. As a result, something changes. It highlights the importance of the midpoint process check. Behind the scenes, whether I'm having a conversation, a meeting, a workshop, the midpoint process check is critical for me, for them, and for us. It helps to notice what's been useful so far. What they heard, rather than what I said. and what they said they heard rather than what I thought they heard? What do we need to adjust in our remaining time? Both what we'll discuss and how we'll discuss it. And then how do we prioritize what we've decided to focus on for the balance of our time? Speaker 1 (2:37) Occasionally, if it's early in the relationship or the conversation feels like it's not progressing, I'll also do a two-thirds check-in. And I always make a check-in in the last 25 % of time as well. This helps me and them avoid the conversation. Have you got any feedback? Speaker 1 (3:00) This way of doing the process check, we can actually control something. We can look forward and it's productive. Feedback tells you about where you've been. The process check tells you about where you're going. Speaker 1 (3:14) What else will you discover during this conversation? Well, you'll discover how Claire gets a pencil to speak and the impact and musicality of first and second languages. What do they look like? What do they sound like? What's their tempo and what's their rhythm? Speaker 3 (3:35) Here comes the new recording. So we invited Shaini into the recording because it was Shaini Crawford who first introduced me and Oscar, or Oscar and I. And I got an email from Oscar when I came back from holiday saying, let's experiment. Let's have another conversation and see what happens. So here it is. And let's see what happens. Speaker 1 (4:01) I have no idea how we're going to do this. Speaker 3 (4:04) My style is see how we get on, just kick off and see how we go. I thought the data was fascinating. I think what's more fascinating about the data is the episodes that people keep talking about and the episodes that they forget. I shared it with these people on this Deepening Partnership course and another one by Catherine Mannix. how much they were more interested in how we talked than what we talked about. I thought that was fascinating. I Speaker 1 (4:40) think the process bit gets people super curious, the how versus the what. Speaker 1 (4:47) As we hear Claire say that, what's going through your mind? Speaker 2 (4:51) I listened to the podcast as a podcast, and then I watched it as a video, and that was very interesting. And I feel like the two of you are like Jedi masters in listening. And so it was like a Jedi face-off, like, who's going to talk first? Because that's the sort of amazing thing about the way that you both listen, is that you create so much space for the other person. So the two of you creating so much space for each other was for me fascinating to watch and Speaker 3 (5:25) to listen to. Speaker 2 (5:27) But more to watch. I didn't catch it as much listening as I did. There's bigger pauses, but watching as well, there was a lot to see there too. Speaker 1 (5:38) And having done the same thing, meaning listen to it and then watch it. I mean, it was there live, but watching the recording on YouTube, there's nothing Speaker 2 (5:50) that Speaker 1 (5:50) Claire disguises in her face. You can see. It's signalling things, whether that's go and be curious about that or that's had a big impact. There's no secrets with Claire's face. I Speaker 3 (6:15) listened to it on the train on Friday and I was really proud of how much space we left after each. There was the pauses. I just thought the pauses were really interesting. Speaker 1 (6:38) What else surprised you about the audience reaction, Clay? Speaker 3 (6:45) I know we asked them to respond, but people kept on responding. And when I'm in supervision groups, people talk about it. It's the episode that keeps on giving. Speaker 1 (7:02) And I Speaker 3 (7:02) think partly that is that they met both of us. And I think there isn't that much around. There are books to read on listening, but listening to something about listening is a different thing. Speaker 3 (7:20) Or as you say, Shani, watching. Speaker 1 (7:23) I was just saying to Shani earlier on, Claire, that I threw the episode into an AI tool and asked to pull out the highlights. Speaker 1 (7:37) It pulled out five highlights. Two of them was being listening versus doing listening. And the other one was second language, whatever that means when we were talking about second language. So I think the other three that the AI picked out was co-creation, flexibility, and the actual origin story. So the backstory in the conversation. Speaker 1 (8:08) When I read the feedback from the audience, the one thing that's consistent in the feedback from the audience is the beyond be listening and second language was acknowledging the past. Speaker 1 (8:28) And it got me thinking, like, AI will listen in a particular way and this audience will listen in a particular way. And when we looked at the data that we had, so we had folks emailing us as well as sending us videos, this group was listening. Speaker 1 (8:50) At a much different level from other groups that will typically be at level one and level two, the feedback and the language and the syntax that people were using was more about context, backstory, noticing the state of the speaker, which is level two. But there was a maturity in this group that isn't present in generic audiences. Speaker 3 (9:17) they're more likely to be interested as you said oscar how we listen so the looking so i just caught myself as you were talking entirely taking my timing from what i saw and Speaker 1 (9:38) not Speaker 3 (9:39) from what as well as from what i heard but from what i saw and i think that's underplayed in lots of spaces about listening that the looking Speaker 3 (9:54) Whether that's a visual looking or on the phone and you can't see them looking, but a deeper looking, I think, is missing often. I had a hysterical thing last week. I was doing a train the trainer in an organization for coaches. And I said, we'll have a coaching conversation. I'll do it with somebody and then we'll talk about how we give feedback to people. I said to her, what do you want to think about? And she picked up her pen. Speaker 2 (10:25) And she Speaker 3 (10:25) went, this. And then probably for the next five minutes, she wasn't looking at me. So I wasn't saying anything because she was busy. And in the feedback, one of them said, I hated the silence. Speaker 3 (10:48) At which point this lady had a real opinion. The lady who'd been using the silence well had a very strong opinion. But the thing that was really interesting was at the end of the conversation, and if you're on audio, I'm just waving my pencil in the air. She's holding a pencil in her hand and waving it about. And I said, what does your pencil need to say? And Speaker 1 (11:17) off she went. Speaker 3 (11:18) And somebody said, why did you say that? And I thought that was really interesting because I saw her pencil going, I've still got something to say. But clearly that's a formed insight or a natural instinct. I don't know. It's very interesting. Speaker 1 (11:47) And I think it comes back to the point that was made by multiple people. listeners who came back and talked about how we were role modeling rather than teaching and that it was more impactful for them to see how, be how. And I think it was Julian that said, I realized I stopped needed to perform and just be present. Speaker 1 (12:27) And to me that was profound because it's not a way I would explain it. So this is the lovely thing about having the ability to be reflective and reflexive about what the audience said, which is not an opportunity we often get. And I'm curious, Claire, when I sent out this email saying, would you like to experiment? I'm Speaker 3 (12:55) going to say something else first, if I may. As you were talking then, I recognised that I wasn't, that I was only listening, that I wasn't thinking about anything else.