You see and hear us talk a lot about reading people and situations. That’s because it has become incredibly important since the invasion of AI. Lots of skills are required to read people – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are the obvious ones. More subtle, but equally needed, are the sensitivities of intuition, empathy, context, pattern and culture.
I think the most neglected skill is listening. Do you listen well?
Before you answer that, pause and assess your ability to hear what someone is saying to you. Watch a potential criminal being filmed by a hidden camera. As good as any lie detector. And what it reveals applies both to the interviewee and interviewer. Those who study dolphins and whales know about listening. Humans can be quite poor at it. We get immersed in our attempt to out-smart the other person. It’s why meetings of several people are often such a point-scoring waste of time. Discipline of purpose is lost in the attempts to look brilliant.
To listen well, focus on the other person or people. What makes a successful message for them? I remember being wrongly fired from a very senior position. I was so concerned about my income that I got one year’s pay as compensation. I could have had two, possibly even three. The fact that the three people who fired me were themselves fired for doing so two days later did not make up for the tax-free ‘quiet-pay’ I could have obtained. Pride costs money.
If you ever get a chance to watch my late friend John Freeman interviewing Carl Jung don’t miss it (YouTube). Jung has an almost perfect way of handling the questions. Especially his reply to “Do you believe in God?” His answer is both authentic and liberal, a skill we shall all need before humanity finally declines the challenge of thought.
Their skill of listening is the first thing I try to discover about someone I am thinking of employing or promoting. No brilliance, no lightness of brain, no sharp repartee can ever equal the importance of being able to hear, and ask, what is causing concern, what are the looming opportunities and what are the strategies for dealing with them. Every excellent Creative Director I had in my advertising days was a brilliant listener. So is every technological genius in today’s rapacious world.
Good listening means full and safe attention. It seeks curiosity and a mental bonding, not a rush to judge or arrange the next course of action. Presence enables active skills that include patience and reflection. This is how a speaker feels genuinely heard and understood. As a listener your message will be quiet, perhaps largely silent. Your listening will be a language of its own, embracing, voluble yet largely unspoken.
The listener who masters this, masters learning.
Example is the best of all teachers.
Good morning
John Bittleston
How will you improve your listening? Please tell us at [email protected].
We’ll listen carefully.
25 August 2026
