Listening is learning

Are you clear on what people need from you, or are you guessing?

This is a light, practical tool to surface your current listening, so you can stop guessing and start building the listening muscle that allows you to focus on what matters. It could also be the perfect year end or start of the year activity to reflect.

You can do it in 10 minutes. Use it as a team, in pairs, or as a reflective exercise for yourself.

Step 1

Map where listening already does & doesn’t happen

Listening We Do	Listening We Don’t Do
What’s currently in place and what do I/we hear?	Where are there silences?

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Listening We Need More Of	Listening We Can Let Go Of
Where is there not enough listening?	What’s become noise?

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Step 2

Decide on one listening experiment to run over the next 2 weeks to improve your listening muscle with those you need to be closer to, here are a 3 light touch ideas:

just call: speak for 20 minutes with 3 different people - ideally a critic, a fan, and a “i’ve never heard of this/you” - and ask them what they think of what you’re doing
safari: spend the day experiencing your own product/service and observing others doing the same, without intervening - capture it on video or voice note as you go with your reflections
empty chair: place one in every meeting and ask the group to choose someone to be represented, who’s voice needs to be there that can’t be? Then ask the question “what would they say here?”

If this exercise surfaced things you want help acting on, I’m designing a deeper Relevance Check for those that want to fine-tune their listening.

As a social entrepreneur & business designer, I spent 10 years iterating Library of Things from an idea into an innovation mainstay that has only become more relevant with time. I’ve since helped other mission-first organisations do the exact same.

Together we’ve put in place countless ways to listen & for people to participate so that what they do is as relevant as possible to the people that matter to them.

Learn from my wins & avoid dead-ends.