
 You're Not Listening - wglb
http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/08/28/youre_not_listening.html
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gruseom
Why do authors insult their listeners with "You're Doing It Wrong" titles like
"You're Not Listening"? How does he know this about me? How can he possibly
know this about every one of his readers?

I suppose they do it because it catches attention. A slap in the face catches
attention too. For me the two work similarly. (At least I think they do; I
can't remember being slapped in the face.)

Usually I just grin and bear it and feel like a schmuck for giving them their
damn pageview, but this case is interesting. It's not only rude, it's
incongruent in a post that ostensibly is about how to treat people decently.
Evidently the author's highly developed empathy doesn't extend to his readers.
Once you see that, the whole post appears coated in a thin slime of managerial
manipulativeness.

~~~
johnkchow
Definitely agree. I'm not sure if the OP is the author, but if he is and if
he's trying to draw attention, then the motive shifts from sharing insightful
lessons to personal "winning" (getting the most karma points, getting the most
page views, etc). This seems to be the recent trend, and I'd like to see less
emotionally charged titles for better reader engagement, even if it comes at a
cost of less overall views.

~~~
damncabbage
The OP is not the author (in case it helps).

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personlurking
While not on the topic of aggressive listening, I often find myself the
'target' of aggressive listeners (who listen a lot, ask a lot of questions and
get me talking a lot).

I often go to meetups for people who like to travel and it seems like the
majority of people don't create moments for them to be the receiver of a
question (meaning it's hard to ask them a question). Perhaps it is a nervous
thing where, instead of the possibility of there being 'uncomfortable
silences', they just keep asking (me) questions. I never know how to handle
this because after the conversation has gone on a bit, there's the feeling
that it's time to excuse oneself in order to talk to someone else/new. If I
use that 'closing' time to ask them questions then the conversation goes on
and on and it becomes harder to meet a variety of people. What it seems to
come down to is directing the conversation and creating openings where the end
of any of my sentences should probably be immediately followed by the asking
of a question. Basically, not allowing for the other person to ask their next
question.

~~~
amackera
Just say "but enough about me, let's talk about YOUR experience" or something.

Seriously. Be explicit. People love talking about themselves. They are
probably just being polite asking you all of those questions.

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stcredzero
_> The longer you’re a bad listener, the smaller your world gets and the
narrower your mind becomes, because you’re not exposing yourself to different
ideas and perspective._

Sturgeon's Law. 90% of everything is _shite_. Most music is dreck: popular,
alternative, classical, whatever. Most writing is dreck: genre, "literary,"
whatever. Most "listeners" -- aren't really.

 _> In what is one of the more advanced listening moves, my advice is: shut
up._

This is very key. Underlying this move is the simple notion: You. Don't. Know.
Everything. Sorry, but you don't. How many departments and companies have been
run into the ground or miles down the paths of mediocrity by _well meaning
people?_ Tons. Assume you don't know everything. Learn. If your mental models
aren't significantly changing, you aren't really learning.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/jx/we_change_our_minds_less_often_th...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/jx/we_change_our_minds_less_often_than_we_think/)

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Frencil
Another excellent post by Rands. Much of his guidance on conducting 1:1s with
developers I gleaned from his book Managing Humans. The note in this article
on asserting "I will not be the next one to speak" is a great piece of advice
though; something I'll have to start doing.

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pinaceae
I get the points, but being in that position - gosh, why do i bother?

I have 3 people reporting to me. Designing product. I have them cause this is
how you grow.

Each design review is painful. They present. I shoot 500 holes in their
designs by asking questions. Then I gently outline how design could solve the
actual problem. Essentially I could design myself and be 10 times quicker.
Create a pixel-perfect mockup? what the _fuck_ is taking you so long!?
paint.net, gimp, my god pick a tool and do it.

if you are a manager, i have the following advice: hire only candidates that
are smarter than you are. they will make up the greatest team ever. they will
challenge, teach you a trick or two. if a candidate does not _challenge_ you
in your authority, he or she is crap.

sounds easy, very hard to accomplish. but remember, one rock star has the
output of 5 average people. take your time to hire. your first two picks are
SHIT.

i'd like to have time to listen all day long. but there is shit to accomplish,
life is short. if you don't have good arguments, right now, we're moving on.
if you can't prove me wrong, I am right.

noticed how Linus acts? Steve Jobs? FUCK patience. FUCK feel good touchy feely
discussions.

my CEO scares the crap out of me, that's how smart he is. I'll follow him,
through fire, because he can prove me wrong, in 5 secs. not a lot of people
can. this is how i treat my team.

~~~
pradocchia
_if you can't prove me wrong, I am right._

Unless you _are_ wrong, that is.

Good listening mitigates against information censorship, and improves
coordination. Your reports might do better if they listened better, and they
might listen better if anyone else at the company set a proper example.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Always intrigued when people view discussion as a way to win rather than to
find truth. Don't get me wrong, I'm guilty sometimes too, but to unabashedly
embrace this weakness . . .

I guess what I'm saying is I like my boss better than the hypothetical boss
outlined by the grandparent poster. He is also sharp as a tack and quickly
spots weaknesses in bad plans, but I would hardly describe his approach to
communicating those flaws as "scaring the crap out of me." Too often people in
software management (or really, any power relationship) think gentleness and
efficiency are antithetical.

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benaston
All this management bullshit might work if your reports were mindless and we
didn't live in the age of the Internet; unfortunately in IT, they probably
aren't and, well, we most certainly do.

Aping emotions, and playing psychological games (like playing dumb, and
pretending to be a friend for the purposes of eliciting information) is a
dangerous game in our industry because as soon as your reports detect you are
behaving in this way the relationship will go south, fast (and permanently.)

Playing mind games like these will cause you to exhibit behaviors more
typically associated with psychopathic individuals - and you will set yourself
up for having them played back against you.

~~~
stcredzero
I don't think he's advocating faking these things. I think he's advocating
actually being those things.

 _> Everything I just described can be faked. Anyone who has been pressured
into buying something they did not need has been on the receiving end of faked
listening skills, but there’s a reason why, when you leave the car dealership,
that you feel used. You slowly become aware that you were manipulated with a
false sense of familiarity and connection. You realize that while they showed
interest in you, they didn’t really listen. They have no clue who you are. It
was an empty conversation facilitated by manipulation cloaked as listening
skills._

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superkvn
Great stuff, and always a good reminder to shut up and let the other person
talk.

Lots of stuff here is based on visual queues and eye contact. Very hard for
those of us that work remotely and spend our days on the phone.

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Evbn
I hate the small talk opener. If you open with a fake question, which would I
put any stock in your real question?

My advice to managers: if you use a formula, and some of Rands' are good
formulas, tell your people what formula you use, so they understand what you
are doing. This worms if your formula is honest. Management is not
manipulation.

~~~
wpietri
Why does small talk have to be fake?

I used to hate small talk, but it really does put people at ease. To avoid
feeling fake, I pick things that really do interest me. E.g., when I'm asking
about somebody's family, or their hunt to buy a house, or their art project, I
really care about the answers.

Of course, it may feel fake to some people at first, but as long as you're
consistent about it, I think it works.

~~~
gruseom
It doesn't have to be fake, but in the article, it explicitly is. Personally,
I would not like to be treated this way. There are better ways than bullshit
to establish a "quiet safe place", and when someone (especially someone in
authority) refuses to get to their obvious agenda, I feel more anxious, not
less.

The way the OP talks about "innocuous preambles" reminds me of this guy:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9lK73KvDJ8#t=0m57s>

~~~
wpietri
Where is it explicitly fake? I went back and looked again and still don't see
it.

~~~
gruseom
Everything in the paragraph "Open with innocuous preamble" strikes me as false
and condescending. He uses the _language_ of respectfulness to advocate not
being forthright. I find that incongruent. In fact, the more I look at the
article, the more incongruent I find it. I say this as someone who cares a lot
about respect for others, and I have the general impression that you do, too.
So I'm surprised our perceptions are at such variance.

~~~
wpietri
Sorry. I agree with your desire for respect; I'm just not seeing the
falseness.

I read him as advocating patience and setting aside one's immediate personal
desires to satisfy the needs of the person you're talking with. That is not
perfectly forthright, but I don't think holding off saying the most difficult
thing for a few minutes of warm-up is in any way false.

I think the alternative, which is to ask your urgent thing and then come
around to asking how they are, can also work for some people. In particular, I
can make that work with people who don't like small talk and with whom I have
a solid relationship.

With most people, though, I definitely follow an escalation-of-intensity
pattern, which lets me establish some rapport before getting to the heavy
stuff. Key to me is being relatively chill about my own agenda. If I am too
agitated about it, then asking how they're doing would indeed be false. Then I
agree it's best to come out and say the big thing.

~~~
gruseom
What you've written here seems far more humane and resonant than the OP, which
seems gimmicky even as he decries gimmickry. My emotional receptors just don't
believe him.

I believe it's important for people to treat each other as equals first, roles
second. Any trace of personal identification with an authority role (or a
subordinate role, for that matter) acts like a grain of sand in a place where
a grain of sand shouldn't be. The trouble with management comes when a
person's sense of self inflates to fill the role, something they don't deserve
because no one does. This is marvelously illustrated by the experiment that
showed that people designated "leader" for no reason whatsoever are
significantly more likely to take an extra cookie for themselves. When one is
captured by this self-inflation bias, it doesn't make things better to apply
trust-building tricks to get people to "say shit"; that is condescension, and
it confuses matters.

I'd be interested in reading an article by you on this topic, if you ever
write one.

~~~
wpietri
Thanks! That's very kind. Perhaps this stuff is easier for me to write about
in that I took the summer off, so I'm not in charge of anyone right now.

