The importance of "listening"

The following article is based on a chat session about the book The Cluetrain Manifesto, with one of the co-authors, David Weinberger, as a guest. You can see the edited transcript of that Feb. 10, 2000, chat at www.samizdat.com/chat125.htmlThe Cluetrain Manifesto is available from Amazon.com

This article was heard on the radio program "The Computer Report," which is broadcast live on WCAP in Lowell, Mass., and is syndicated on WBNW in Boston and WPLM in Plymouth, Mass.

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The main theme of The Cluetrain Manifesto is that markets are really conversations. Traditional companies that lock themselves out of the conversation, lock themselves out of business. People need to express themselves over the Internet in their own unique voice and style, and companies need to let them, to encourage their employees to engage in dialogue with customers and partners, without the usual censorship and corporate-speak. But while it's easy to describe the problem, there doesn't seem to be any simple way to solve it.

Talking about this book with Phil Grove, who I used to work with at Digital, Phil made an excellent point -- voice is important, but listening is also essential, and is often neglected. Especially in a corporate environment, it is very difficult to get people into the mode of listening. Everyone tends to be locked in their own little office or cubicle, with their own narrow goals. That's part of the typical corporate culture.

"Listening" sounds like some New Age touchy-feely seminar topic. But it's a very serious matter. You can't carry on online discussions with fellow employees, customers, or partners if you aren't attuned to "listening" in the broadest sense -- paying close attention to what other people are saying and showing the respect that comes with trying to understand and then responding on their terms, rather than just rattling out your pre-rehearsed PR-trained messages.

So why don't people listen? Weinberger see this not as a business decision, but rather as a psychological/sociological problem. He pointed out that learning to listen is "a lot like learning to join the party. There's a global party going on. And it's where the real work of commerce is going to happen. It's very hard for many companies to take the party seriously. Listening has something to do with respecting others and controlling your urge to 'own' the conversation. It requires giving up the reflex to manage every damn thing that exists... I don't think there are easy techniques to create a culture that values listening. E.g., you don't listen to people you don't respect. And often you don't listen in order to show that you don't respect them. Watch just about any business committee meeting..."

In our chat session, Bob Zwick agreed, "I battle that all the time. It's like my ears are turned on, but I'm not hearing. Just waiting for a good opportunity to jump in and get my say in control."

The typical manager in a major corporation has Internet access today, but uses it just get to static information and to distribute edicts by email. It takes a change of mindset to start to "listen" to what's happening in forums and newsgroups and over distribution lists -- even to really "listen" when people send you email.

Here we have all these great tools for high tech communication -- voice over IP, videophone, full-blown videoconferencing on the desk. But we haven't learned to listen in face-to-face meetings, and we haven't learned to listen to voices that are loud and clear in plain text. As usual, technology is running ahead of humanology. And the biggest benefits for business are likely to come not from adopting more technology, but rather paying attention to the basics of person-to-person communication.

Please send your comments and related suggestions to seltzer@samizdat.com

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