Listening is Hard

Listening is hard. At least that's my experience and there's lots of research that correlates with my experience. I recently heard or read somewhere that we can only listen for 7 seconds without interrupting the speaker or having our thoughts drift off. I couldn't find where I read or heard this. Maybe some podcast? Maybe I forgot because I was already thinking about this blogpost before I finished listening to the article...

Anyway, I searched around a bit and found several posts that say we only listen 5-7 seconds and then start to think of something else or we start to think about interrupting. Another posts says it 18 or 23 seconds. Tom Peters says 18 seconds. And this post just doesn't know...

In any case listening is extremely important. Seth Godin wrote a nice post about this. Listening is "not a passive act" and needs "purpose". And Luis Suarez wrote about "active listening" and points to a lovely video about listening with Tom Peters. Listening is "a profession that needs to be learned".

Ok, but are there any ways to improve my listening skills? An old post by Dave Gray has a nice list to start with. After reading Euan Semple's post about why managers should blog (and why it's hard!), I thought: Blogging is also a great way to improve listening. Euan says:

You notice more. You become more aware of what is happening around you because you may choose to write about it one day.

And one of the ways to notice is to listen.

How do you actively listen? Are you good at listening? What makes a good listener according to you?

On being wrong: I err therefore I'm human

TED Talks are just great. I recently advised someone who didn't know the talks to watch one or two videos every time she was uninspired. They're a great source of inspiration to me.

Just watch this video On being wrong by Kathryn Schulz. This is such a hard and important topic. It's one of the things we learn not to do much as soon as we go to school. After finishing college and university we know for sure: failure is not an option.

But it is an option. We know so deeply as well. And if we're in the right context at school, at work and in our families we embrace failure. Trying and not succeeding is essential for learning, for building experience and knowledge. About life in general and about our passions especially.

Because we don't and can't know everything. That's one of reasons I like social media so much. Social media done right helps us share the things we know, find interesting, but also share our questions and doubts. By being open about our knowledge and questions we give others the opportunity to build on them, learn, help us, pick us up after being wrong and encourage us to go on.

Realizing your wrong is not the same a being wrong, says Schulz. And it's only human to err. She quotes Augustine: I err therefore I am. (This statement has to do with Augustines acknowledgement of man being sinful, by the way. Not a popular concept these days...)

Schulz challenges us to take life as it comes: it surprises us, astonishes us, it turns up differently than we expect. We should rediscover wonder (- it keeps me going!). We should listen more and say we were wrong more often. (Refer to Jan van Veen's good post about the importance of listening.)

So, let's encourage each other to fail more. It's a priviledge.

Social Media Monitoring at Gatorade

Really nice video showing how Gatorade uses and monitors social media.

I like this video. It basically says: Hey, we take our customers very,  very seriously. We are listening, we are learning, we are engaging with everyone who thinks it's important enough to say something about our brand and products.

What do you think about this video? What does it say to you?