If you asked the question ” How important is it to be a great communicator to succeed in your job?” to a room full of product people, I am pretty sure that the majority of the audience would rate it towards the higher part of the scale.

Communication is always brought up as one of the main skills for product managers. There is a shared consensus that it is important for everyone in product to be able to communicate clearly, make their point across, and define the message depending on the audience. And there is no lack of literature on how you should do a presentation for executives, the best way to pitch an idea, or suggestions on tactics to gain buy-in.

Yet, I believe this only gives one side of the story.

All the above is focused on talking, making a point across, and convincing someone else of your thesis. All really valid and important skills, but not the only ones that we should cultivate for effective communication. The more time goes by, the more I realize that we need to talk, give concrete examples, and become role models on how to master the other part of communication. The one that focuses on listening.

If I reflect back on my personal and professional life, I now realize that I was mainly taught about how to excel at talking. The focus has always been on how to convince someone that my idea was worth investing in, at school I was praised when I proved a thesis, and the vast majority of my role models in a professional context are amazing at showing a vision, getting others onboard with their ideas, or providing frameworks. But lately, I have been feeling more and more that I was missing something.

I was missing someone teaching me how to effectively listen. How to concretely be better at taking in other ideas to build on mine, not excelling at making others change their minds to follow mine. How to use conversation to get a better understanding of the complexity of a problem, without falling into the trap of thinking that I had already considered all the possible ways, and ”they" are the ones not understanding the real rationale. And how to create that space for the person on the other side of the table to bring up those topics that are difficult to talk about.

And it was in my quest to become a better listener that I came across Kate Murphy’s book ”You are not listening”

What the book is about

The main message of the book is that listening is a fundament skill that will not only contribute to better conversations but will also make the listener a better person by opening up new views on the world to him or her. In a society that is moving faster and faster, where efficiency is king and easy quantifiable data are considered the holy grail of truth, where to be silent is seen as a missed opportunity to communicate one's view and personal branding, listeners will win. The listeners are the ones who will be able to see depth and complexity, daring to open up their minds to contrasting opinions.

In short, listeners will be the only ones equipped for making complex and sound decisions.

Murphy’s case is that what and who we listen to, shape how we think and react to the world. Therefore becoming a better listener will open up new possibilities for you as it will give you the opportunity of deepening your knowledge and view of the world. Here are some concrete tips she gives that everyone can apply to their personal and professional life:

Do not finish a sentence for someone, or fill in that missing word.
Be patient with that awkward silence, and do not assume that you know what the other person has to say. Completing the sentence means assuming you already know what is in the other person's mind. And that assumption alone will limit your ability to take in new perspectives. I am guilty of this, and since reading the book I am trying to be more intentional in not doing it.
Navigate the information that is given to you.
Many times people share ancillary information with you, try getting to what they really want to say. For example imagine a friend telling you that they have just lost their job, that they have had an exhausting day, and that now they also have to go and break the news to their family. Some common ways of carrying the conversation could be: trying to get more details on what happened during the day, thinking to make him/her feel better by listening to some rants about the company or even changing the subject. But if we really pay attention to the information we were given, we will understand that none of that matters. Most likely what your friend is concerned about is how to break the news to the family. So that is the topic you should focus on and ask about.
Forget the urge of making a point.
It is so ingrained in us that we want to make our voices heard when we start a conversation, that easily our starting point is to listen to the other person only to prove our own point. Murphy suggests we tackle another angle and carefully listen without an agenda instead. The point is to hear what the other person has to say, it is about them and what they can add to your viewpoint, not about you.
Start from a place of curiosity:
The best way of becoming a better listener is to change your mindset and enter any new conversation from a place of curiosity. What can you learn that you did not know? What is the angle they see and you don’t? Or if you find it difficult to listen to someone, why is that?

My main takeaways: how to apply the lessons to product development

All the above sounds amazing right? Who wouldn’t want to be better at getting a deeper understanding of the world, and truly flourish from others’ opinions? Especially as a product person, where collecting, understanding, and processing viewpoints is a fundamental part of the job.

This is why after reading Kate Murphy's book, I immediately started to reflect on how I could concretely translate her tips in my day-to-day life in product. I am a firm believer that the more one looks into the complexity of problems, the better the solution will be. Therefore in my eyes listening is really key for effective product development. So here are my tips on how you could start applying different techniques to become a better listener and take your product to the next level.

Redefine what facilitate means

Many times, as a product person facilitating a discussion I felt a discomfort in leading the conversation in a certain direction in order to make it move forward. And more than once I was told that this is how I should feel, as product’s role is to help people see the pictures as they see it. I so wish that I had the tools I have now back then, because I would have questioned much more this statement.

Facilitating is not about making your point across but making sure all the different angles are heard and taken into consideration. Product’s angle is equally important, but not the one that should be steered to by design. So I urge you to reconsider what “facilitating a discussion” means by applying these simple rules:

Before taking a decision, encourage equality in contribution to the conversation. If you are in the room, you should share your viewpoint. This has been proven to be one of the silver bullets to successful teams and decision-making.
Have a checklist of people whose opinion is good to listen to before deciding or prioritizing. If you think about someone who could get impacted or has normally a different viewpoint than yours, this is where you should start. It is hard, sometimes to open all the boxes and dig deeper. Quickly converging to a decision or a solution is much more practical. Yet the chances are quite high that you will be missing some piece of the puzzle if you don’t. And that is never the right path for a successful product.
Maybe the most important and less followed rule is: do not facilitate discussions you have a stake in. You’ll have the tendency of driving the conversation towards a certain outcome. Even if you are aware of it, the bias is too hard to beat. Ask some fellow PM, an agile coach from another team, or even someone external. The outcome will for sure be better in the long run.

Pay attention to what doesn’t instinctively make sense to you

Instead of glossing over points in conversation, discussion, and comments that you normally react with ”this doesn’t make any sense. He/she has totally misunderstood” stop and go deep. There you have some possibilities of discovering another angle of the problem that you had not seen.
Whenever I hear that little voice in my head saying “What?! how could they not get it” I take the signal as a warning to think again and shift perspective: what can they be seeing that I am not?

This happened to me the other day when someone put a comment on a document.

first reaction: what are they thinking?
start typing an answer
think back, and instead asked “What do you have in mind when you say that?”
Result: I got another angle that I didn’t see
Lesson: never assume someone didn’t get it. Always assume they see something you are not.

Review how you ask questions

We all want to appear knowledgeable, especially at work. This might sound obvious, but it always carries a burden of assumptions that we often take with us when we ask questions. We have a tendency of formulating questions in a way that shows that we have the answer already, which makes the other person defensive by default.

Phrasing like "Have you thought of…” or "Did you consider…” shall be used with care as they put the other person on the defense and might carry the message that you already know what is best and what needs to be done to get to the “right answer”. I would almost ban them from your vocabulary unless you are coaching someone who really doesn’t know how to get to that answer and needs support with it.

If you interact with someone sharing a viewpoint, you might instead want to consider other ways of asking questions. Like ” What is the main evidence behind this” or ” Which risks/rewards do you see with proceeding?” Those are questions that can contribute to a conversation, with no assumptions or need to prove a point.

Beware of only one way of communicating

After the pandemic, we all got so efficient, and I am sure that many of us fall into the trap of defaulting to written words as the best way of communicating in the async and digital age. Yet, looking in retrospect and with some extra wisdom, I am more and more convinced that mainly communicating with written words can cause a lot of harm. And I got some extra hard evidence from Kate Murphy’s book.

38% of someone’s feeling and attitude is communicated by tone of voice. And only 7% by the actual words. The rest is non verbal communication.

So imagine using an only-words tool as the primary channel of your communication (hello Slack) and you will understand that at best you will be able to receive 7% of what that person is trying to say.

Add to that the physical distance, that makes the nonverbal signals extremely hard to pick up on, and I think you are looking at some of the causes of the challenges that many organizations are facing. Communication is at the base of effective product development, yet it feels that we are going more towards one-directional information, taking a step away from listening. But is it really worth pursuing efficiency at any cost, and what are the consequences of pushing written and nonverbal communication to its limits?

We will for sure miss nuances, on both sides of the communication. And in many cases, both the sender and the receiver will not be aware of it
Conflicts become easy to miss and even easier to avoid (close the computer and bye-bye). This means that having those really tough but healthy discussions will become more and more complicated, and our products will suffer
We will get a more skewed view of the problem, increasing the risk of creating a solution that only fits some needs.

I observe this phenomenon more and more, and I urge you also to think about it and take it with you in your communication plan. You cannot actively listen or talk using only one way of communication. If communicating was complex before, hybrid ways of working raised the bar. So your job is to have a plan and use all the possible communication means to capture opinions, angles, and complexity. And yes, to also make sure that you have those complicated yet necessary discussions.

Create the right environment for listening

There was a stat in Murphy’s book that was an eye-opener to me.

The average attention span dropped from 12 to 8 seconds. For reference a goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds.

You can get depressed about it, as I did at first, or you can start thinking about what you can work with it. Attention is not something that will happen by itself, you need to actively build it into all your activities in order to create the right environment for listening. Here are some concrete tips on how:

Require full attention, and be a role model about it.
if there is one rule I am really strict about is this one: there is no multitasking in meetings. If we are together it is to listen to each other, and not to look at a phone, or think about something else. I have a strict no phone, no distractions policy on all my meetings, as I want to give that time the attention it deserves. Otherwise, why am I there? And I always start by never bringing a phone with me, and many times not even a computer if that is not strictly necessary. This one is a no-brainer for me, but I am astonished by how many do not follow this rule.
Involve your audience
The best way of creating engagement, and creating the right environment for listening, is to not unidirectionally send a message, but involve your audience. There are different ways of doing it: you could start sharing information before and be clear that the participation in the meeting is active. This is what we do with async ideation for example. Or you can make sure that there are different parts of the meeting that are owned by different people. Remember: your role is to create the right environment for everyone participating to contribute and listen, not to steer them. And the more active role people take, the easier the task.
Do not fill the gaps and practice silence. Especially digitally.
To succeed with this one, you need to become friend with the ”dead air” and allow people to think. Resist the urge to say something, mentally count to 20, and do whatever but do not talk. More often than not, what will happen after a long silence is a breakthrough in the form of a really good conversation starter. Silence is what people use to figure out what, how much to tell you, or even manage their emotions. If you fill the gaps you prevent the speakers from telling what they have a hard time being vocal about. And many times this is what is interesting, especially during 1-1
Wait for the other person to be ready to listen
Listen requires mental space, so make sure that the other person(s) have that and are ready to listen to what you have to say.
You might for example consider not asking someone to squeeze in a 30-minute meeting in a packed day if you want their brain to be there, and you might also think about having the right emotional distance from what you want to share before you do it. If things are escalating, is it really important to share and want someone to listen fast, or is it better to communicate it with distance when you are not feeling quite so strongly?

One final note - if you feel overwhelmed about all you have to think about to become a good listener, do not worry! It is the same for me and for everyone. The most important thing is that we set an intention of wanting to listen, and we have some tools that can support us with it. Being aware is half of the journey, even if in practice you will be never able to apply it all the time. Happy listening 😊

How to becoming a better listener and making your product better