Active Listening a Case Study

Friday, February 1, 2013 @ 09:02 AM

Paul Denvir

The power of active listening was once demonstrated to me by a

colleague with whom I worked in a previous company. Mark had
been responsible for coordinating the training of a group of senior
managers from the European subsidiaries of a large US high-tech
company. The training had gone very well and the MD of the UK
company told Mark he was so convinced that he wanted to use us
to carry out work in the UK. The MD (as was his wont) made this
decision without consulting his three senior divisional sales
managers. They were told after the decision had been made and
were given a fait accompli.
I was appointed as the consultant for the UK group and the day
arrived when we had to carry out our first research into the UK client
company. I picked up Mark in the morning and as we drove to the
clients HQ he expressed his concern that the divisional sales
managers might be somewhat hostile toward us due to the
autocratic way in which the project had been decided.
As Mark had all of the connections and knowledge of the client
organisation, it was agreed that he would take the lead in the three
meetings we had scheduled (one with each of the sales managers).
I would take a fairly low-key role.
The first meeting was at 10 oclock. The atmosphere was almost icy.
My colleague sat opposite the sales manager who was jacketed and
in position behind his large desk. I sat slightly behind and to one
side of Mark. It would have been easy for Mark to hide behindthe
MDs decision and to take the line that it was a fait accompli for us
all therefore we had better just get on with it. He didnt. He made
every effort to really listen to what the first sales manager had to
say. He demonstrated this through active listening. He summarised
regularly to make sure that he had understood and to demonstrate
that he wanted to understand.
From time to time he reflected the feelings and concerns of the
sales manager demonstrating that he understood how the sales
manager felt about the various subjects we discussed. Expressions

such as So how you see it is and So your feelings are were a

regular feature of the meeting.
After about 30 minutes the atmosphere had changed significantly.
Mark and the sales manager were physically closer together. The
sales manager drew diagrams and small charts on his pad to
explain things which Mark was clearly interested in. Mark had to
move into such a position that he could see. The sales manager
was by this stage quite comfortable with this. The body language
which had started as rather formal and stilted became more
expansive and relaxed.
At the end of an hour and a half there had clearly been a meeting of
minds and one opponent was now open to our involvement if not
yet an advocate.
The second meeting was a re-run of the first. A defensive and totally
unconvinced person at the start was converted over the next 90
minutes.
We had lunch and Mark and I met with the third of the sales
managers. Though not quite as stiff as his other two colleagues, he
would have proved a tough nut for most people. The magic of
active listening worked again. In the late afternoon we were on our
way back down the motorway with the UK clients most influential
people supporting the training which their people were to receive
and believing that those who were going to carry it out really
understood what was needed and why.
After a few minutes in the car I turned to Mark and asked him a
question. He did not reply. The reason was simple. He was asleep.
He was mentally exhausted from the three meetings. For the best
part of five hours he had turned up his active listening skills to a
very high pitch. That requires motivation, effort and mental stamina.
A scarce skill
Almost everyone who understands what active listening is, wants to
become good at it. However, few people work on developing it to
any level of proficiency. We may be wrong but we believe that one
reason why really good active listening is such a scarce skill is that
it does require such a lot of mental energy. It is all too easy to nod
and say, Yeah, I understand.

The rarest and finest of skills all take work to master. It is only by
application and practice that we will improve. A theoretical
understanding of the skill is only the beginning.
Most importantly the benefits of active listening will only be fully
delivered if we approach the skill as one that is designed to help us
help others. If we see active listening as a technique to enable us to
manipulate and gain advantage we should not be surprised if
people spot the technique and see us as behaving in an unnatural
and false way. Instead of building empathy and trust, the application
of the skills as a pure technique will erode the very things we seek
to build.

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