How to Get People to Listen to You
Do you ever feel resentful that people aren’t listening well enough to you when you talk? Perhaps it’s your boss, a client, or your husband. Maybe you’ve said, “I told you that, but you didn’t listen!” Or you’ve thought, “Why are people on their phones in our meetings!?” It can be a difficult and frustrating process trying to figure out how to get people to listen to you.
It’s easy to become resentful. I know I have.
Just recently, I was presenting at a virtual meeting, and I could hear someone typing. How rude, I thought. But then I shifted my focus from resentment to responsibility. I shut up and asked each person in the meeting for reactions.
Background typing stopped.
Then I continued presenting…and the typing re-started.
So I asked for more input and stopped presenting…and so did the typing.
The experience caused me to wonder: Whose job is it to get someone to listen? The person talking or the person listening?
Clearly both have responsibility, but imagine if the communication deliverer assumed total responsibility for the receipt of ideas.
Taking 100% Responsibility
Consider this excerpt from a Dale Carnegie leadership course called 100% Responsibility:
Is there something in your life that is not going as well as it should? Perhaps it is a project at work. A close relationship. If you are like most people, you probably are willing to take some of the responsibility for things going awry, but you want others to take their fair share. After all, how many times have we heard the old saying: “This is a 50–50 relationship.”
Probably many times, but the fact of the matter is this: 50–50 relationships result in failure. Think about it…have you ever accomplished anything worthwhile that required only 50% of your energy?
That’s why we sometimes also hear: “This is a 100–100 relationship.” But 100–100 relationships are nothing more than sophisticated 50–50 relationships. They too result in failure, usually with one of the parties saying, “I gave my 100%; they just didn’t give theirs.”
The truth is that when we view our lives as though we are all 100% responsible for our own success, and everyone else is 0% responsible, we begin to see dramatic results. Wait a minute; what about the person who, to use a familiar metaphor, simply “drops the ball?” Can I be responsible for another person’s errors or incompetence?
Perhaps not, but think of the concept of 100% Responsibility as a pair of glasses, a way of looking at the world. Perhaps the quarterback is not responsible for the receiver dropping the ball, but if he decides he is 100% responsible for the success of the team, his actions change.
He stops blaming others. He discovers creative solutions. His options expand. He begins to take control of the situation rather than letting the situation control him. No, we cannot control everything that happens to us or around us, but most of us have much more control over the world around us than we have ever imagined. And it is only when we begin to take 100% Responsibility for the results we want to create that we begin to understand fully the power within us to create success for ourselves and others.
I love this advice. It’s what reminds me that, when it comes to learning how to get people to listen to you, engaging in your meetings, or paying attention to your ideas, you have to shift from blame to responsibility. You have to have the mindset of an owner, not a renter, someone who’s empowered, not a victim.
How to Shift from Resentment to Responsibility
Here are some ideas on how to get people to listen to you and how to take ownership of people’s engagement with your ideas:
- Stop talking and get their input. When you talk for longer than two minutes, people’s brains instinctively shut down to preserve energy. The responsibility is on you to stop talking every couple of minutes more than it is on them to stay focused longer.
- Speak clearly, audibly, and plainly. Do you clearly articulate your message in a voice that can be heard and understood? Do you limit filler words and phrases, jargon, and over-engineered sentences? Take responsibility for the way you sound.
- Make sure your tone doesn’t impede your message. If you sound anxious, aggravated, annoyed, or arrogant, it won’t land well. People will not feel psychologically safe, which will cause them to self-protect and shut down. Take responsibility for your tone.
- Confirm that you’ve been heard. Don’t assume that, just because your message is signed, sealed, and delivered, it’s been received. Get a “return receipt” from your delivery, just like you can from most post offices and email applications. Ask, “How does that sound to you?” or “Can you please summarize back to me how you heard that to confirm we’re on the same page?”
- Be engaging and interesting. Use stories and illustrations to make your point clear. Give people engaging handouts or takeaways. Do your talking in places that are conducive to listening. If you’re on a virtual meeting, take advantage of the full breadth of functionalities: chats, polls, breakouts, and video.
Recognize that people have limits to how much they can process. And we live in a distracted, noisy world. Yes, it’s true that people need to be strong listeners, but help them out, for crying out loud. Rather than being resentful that they are looking at their phone while you’re talking, take responsibility for the way you’re talking. That is how to get people to listen to you.
How will you take 100% responsibility for how others listen to you this week?
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