Type 3 Listeners
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008One of the pleasures of professional services is the chance to meet and work with people and businesses of many kinds. I recently had the chance to work with a group of actors turned consultants and trainers. First, they were clients of mine and then I of theirs, so I got to see them from two perspectives. Whatever the angle, they were different . . . decidedly so.
They understood little of the technicalities of business, be it of banking or of bankruptcy. For all they knew a POS system had something to do with batteries, an NPV might get a ticket for driving in the wrong lane on the expressway, and SOX is a baseball team. They understood little of the economic logic or organizational design of corporations. This meant that they would miss some simple business facts that other professionals would grasp without being told.
You might wonder how consultants could make a go of it without this basic ability. They did it with an uncanny ability to size up another human being almost instantaneously. When a client talked, they might miss a business issue, but they heard every nuance of tone or pitch. They noticed every change in expression and posture. And through these lenses they captured what the speaker was all about as a person. In this, they were far ahead of the other professionals I work with, and, for that matter, ahead of me. It is a powerful skill.
I am accustomed to working with Type 1 Listeners, those who listen to a client’s technical needs, and helping them become Type 2 Listeners, those who seek to learn about the client’s business needs that dictate technical changes.
For example, I might work with civil engineers to go beyond finding ways to increase the employment count and parking on a mature site to seeing that the client needs to add personnel to rapidly increase market share and seize dominance for a new product. I also work with Type 2 Listeners, who listen to understand a client’s business needs, helping them to become Type 3 Listeners, those who seek to understand the client as a person.
It has always progressed in that order, Type 1 to Type 2 and Type 2 to Type 3. What am I to do with people who start out as Type 3 Listeners who must move in the opposite order? As I figure that out, I am learning a lot.
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Order your copy of Ford Harding’s new and revised edition of Rain Making, called ”…an essential guide for anyone responsible for business development in the professional services industry…” - Mark Mactas, Chairman and CEO Towers Perrin
