How to Listen

I’m not going to rewrite the list of skills that you can find in literally hundreds of other (and better) resources, but I do want to point out some tactics that I have found help me the most, and were hardest for me to work on.

Some listening strategies

Look your user in the eye

This seems simple, but it’s overlooked a lot. Look directly at them. Not past them. Not around them, at them.

Don’t use your laptop as a crutch

If you take notes on your laptop, be sure you let them know that’s what you are doing. Drop a casual “Sorry, I’m just jotting down some notes,” and be sure that you are only jotting down some notes. This is not the time to check email or the Teams channel. This is time to be present.

Rephrase

This one gets a little clinical, but it’s important. Maybe don’t be as generic as “What I hear you saying is…” but find something that sounds natural to you. I default to “Wait. It’s doing XYZ?! That’s crazy.” or “OK, so I want to make sure I have this right….” It lets you confirm you are on the same page as the user and clear up any vague points.

Be patient

We tend to put out a lot of fires. But, they are not actual fires. I would not be working in this industry if that was the case. You have some time to breathe.

So many times, a user comes up with a question or a problem and my brain immediately starts building a solution. I have talked with enough people in the design technology support industry to know that most of us do the same thing. And our instinct is to solve the problem right away (and show how smart we are).

Wait. Don’t speak.

Let the user say what they need to say. There are so many reasons this is important to do. First of all, it’s not a literal fire. It can wait the 20 seconds it takes to get the whole story. Also, you might miss something. It’s rare (wink) but we could be wrong with our immediate knee jerk reaction.

Find your own way

The key is to force yourself to be there with the user. Not somewhere else, not 20 steps ahead of them. You have the time, and it will build better rapport and better fixes.