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Writer's pictureGiles Orford

The Listening Game

I was struck by an article I read last week on how the British government, and more specifically Boris, had bungled so many aspects of the pandemic response in the UK. The article proposed that the cabinet had repeatedly suffered from ‘Groupthink’ - a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups when the desire for harmony, or more often, conformity, results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. My mind then immediately leapt to what was clearly and obviously the answer here; in order to think better together, Politicians, and society in general, just need to become better listeners.



A few years back, having expressed an interest in pursuing a career as a coach, the first question I was asked by our family friend, a revered coach and organisational consultant, was

“Do you think you’re a good listener?”
"Well’, I said, ‘I’m sure I can always improve, but yes, I’d like to think I am a good listener,...but perhaps you should ask my wife."

She didn’t ask my wife. She didn’t need to. The honest truth is, almost all of us are pretty lousy listeners, and for reasons that are entirely understandable, but primarily because really good listening is quite simply really hard. Yet, if humanity is to progress (and by progress, I suppose I mean some kind of uplift in mass happiness, or gross domestic happiness, however we go about measuring that), we certainly need to get better at thinking together, communicating and collaborating, and the foundation for both is better listening.


I’ll offer a bar against which we can perhaps begin to measure ourselves then. It comes from Nancy Kline’s ‘Time to Think’. She suggests that the best listeners (and coaches) are ‘present, still, engaged, connected through ease and profound respect for, and trust in, the client’s intelligence, interested in what the client will say and think next, never ever, ever interrupting.’ I know. It’s a high bar for coaches, who are meant to be good at this stuff, let alone society at large. The honest truth is, listening in this way is, at least initially, exhausting. It takes it out of you, and primarily because human evolution and the mind are squarely set against it. Nevertheless, once you’ve experienced truly being listened to in this way, you’ll know what I mean - it’s exhilarating, inspirational, and frankly a little spooky. So let’s soften that bar a little shall we, and not be so hard on ourselves. With that ideal offered and recognised as such, let’s just use it as a way of better understanding areas for improvement, rather than judging ourselves as continuously falling short of the mark. Surely, any improvement in how we listen, or even the desire to do so in the first place, is a step forward. Equally, if we fall short, and we nearly always will, it’s almost always with the best of intentions. Allow me to role play those intentions;


“Why aren’t you listening to me?”

“I am listening, but you’re struggling and I think I can help you!”

Or,

“I’ve got an idea which I’m sure you’re going to find really exciting!”

Or,

“I think you’re misguided, and your thinking is going to lead you the wrong way, and I can help you avoid that.”

As you can see, all with the best of intentions, but certainly not listening by Kline’s standard. Another response which I couldn’t offer as a sentence, because no one would ever actually say it out loud, talks to the reality that we all have anxieties that painfully consume our minds. Try as we might to listen to others, our mind is continuously filling every seeming void with questions around the Self. We don’t mean any disrespect. It’s just that, in order to stay safe, our minds have evolved to scan reality for danger, and unfortunately this process gets in the way of us being present in the moment. Damned evolution! Still, just because it doesn’t fit with humanity’s current reality, we’d do well to remember that it served us well in the past, what with the whole ‘lions, tigers and bears, (oh my)’.


There are of course many models available on how to listen; coaches and consultants alike do love a good model. Perhaps the best known for listening is the HURIER model; Hearing, Understanding, Remembering, Interpreting, Evaluating and Responding. But I’m not going to go there. Sorry if I got you excited, but I’m not so sure that any model is called for here, no matter how academic or logical your mind may be. I think we need something softer. Something simpler. I’m also keen to dispel the myth that the way forward is sheer will-power committed to increasing our apparently ever-reducing attention spans. I say myth because the data behind this idea - that over the past twenty years the average human attention span has reduced from 12 seconds, to 8 seconds, just below the 9 seconds attributed to goldfish - is both questionable, irrelevant and unkind to goldfish. Actually, the idea of measuring average attention span in this way is fundamentally flawed. Since attention is entirely task-dependent, the concept of average attention span is utterly meaningless. Equally, I’m quietly confident that, with the right task, Goldie can be pretty damn focussed when she needs to be! So better listening is not about getting your AAS up (I just made that acronym up, but you never know, it might catch on).

I’ve digressed, haven’t I. Apologies. Back to a softer, simpler model. I think the answer resides primarily within one concept; that modern society is shifting towards more attention on the Self, rather than Other, and that’s somewhat problematic when it comes to listening. The reason we’re becoming increasingly self-oriented lies in the platforms we’re using to communicate. As much as we would like to think of social media as inherently social, and thus bi-directional, there’s a self-perpetuating and warped emphasis towards one side. If we boil communication down to inputs and outputs, social media is increasingly actively output-oriented (and passively input-oriented), and when we impress our own evolutionary cognitive biases over that platform, we end up with a pretty distorted, output-oriented, self-obsessed and destructive reflection of reality. Again, this is not a criticism, or a lambasting of social media (OK, it kind of is), but rather a simple observation. With the goal of improving humanity’s ability to listen, social media presents us with a problem, drawing us towards the self, and away from listening to others.

modern society is shifting towards more attention on the Self, rather than Other, and that’s somewhat problematic when it comes to listening.

So if the simple redirection is towards others, and away from the self, what can we do that doesn’t require improving our average attention span, or applying a complex, six letter acronym model that, in of itself, distracts the mind from actually listening?


At the heart of modern theories on the pursuit of happiness is the concept of flow from positive psychology luminary Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - a state of mind where you are ‘in the zone’ and time seems to dissolve. One of the ways we find ourselves in a state of flow (a state that he proposes is most conducive to sustained happiness) is to make what we’re doing, no matter how drol, into a game. When it comes to listening then, perhaps games are our best way forward, so, I’ve thought of a few.


(Still struggling to pronounce the name? Phonetically, try “Me high? Cheeks send me high!”)


  1. The ‘Pausing’ game. Objective; see how often you can, in response to someone saying something, simply pause (oh, the painful silence!), still maintaining eye contact, and holding that pause as long as you’re able before replying.

  2. The ‘Questions’ game. Objective; Instead of telling another individual all your thoughts and ideas, see how many responses you can offer that are questions. Can you get to a ratio of 5:1 or better?

  3. The ‘Oh how little I know’ game. Objective; a variation on the questions game, the emphasis here is on recognising how little we all know, especially when it comes to other peoples’ thoughts. How many questions can you ask that come from a position of humility, recognising how little you know, and how much you would like to know more.

  4. The ‘intrigued’ game. Objective; no matter how dry or inane a conversation may seem to you in the moment, can you uncover an aspect that you find intriguing? What questions can you ask that get you there? You’re not allowed to offer any self-oriented statements until you’ve found your first intriguing fact.

  5. The ‘Dare to leave it’ game. Objective; how many times can you catch yourself rising to a statement you feel passionate about, and then dare to leave it, simply stating, ‘that’s interesting - tell me more’. How long can you hold on as you inquire more deeply about why they think the way they think?

  6. The ‘I lost you there for a moment’ game. Objective; can you catch yourself or the other individual being distracted in the moment. Two points for catching yourself, one point for noticing them (and not chastising them in the moment - we all do it!)


I could think of more. Perhaps I will, but in the meantime, enjoy these. The encouraging truth is, you can’t possibly lose. Just by choosing to play one of them in the first place you’re already winning the listening game.


What to transform your team through better listening? Book a free 30-minute zoom session today. You talk & I'll listen.

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1 Comment


Gary Reynolds
Gary Reynolds
May 11, 2022

A thought-provoking article Giles that really speaks to the challenge that all human beings face, which is essentially one of bringing more compassion to conversation and investing in hearing and really understanding the thoughts and ideas of the other person, rather than focussing on what to say next or trying to convert the other to your own point of view.

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