Episode 40: Deep Listening with Oscar Trimboli

Deep listening affects every area of your life, including creating stronger relationships at work and at home. Our guest, Oscar Trimboli, is a former technology exec who has dedicated his life to helping over 10M people become deep listeners.

Growing up an immigrant, Oscar had to learn how to listen to different languages by paying attention to body language and other ways to understand what people were saying. In his corporate gigs, Oscar became known for asking “Have we asked a customer?” Had the company actually listened?

Oscar is trying to get 100M deep listeners around the world, helping people to learn to listen to what’s not said out loud. Deep listeners can even help a speaker make sense, because they listen to the meaning in how the speaker is speaking.

What’s the nirvana of deep listening? Reducing the chaos of confusion. Hearing what people and customers are saying. Wasting less time from not paying attention or not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing. It’s about impact beyond words and fixing relationships

We need to listen to those who don’t speak up-- sometimes they arre the ones who can best cultivate ideas. In bringing ideas to the table, it often helps to have people from different backgrounds and expertise bring their ideas to the table.

Leaders need a mindset for listening to what is said and unsaid in conversations. If you are hosting a meeting, you needsto make sure everyone has a voice, so that good ideas are not lost. Why have someone at a meeting if they aren’t going to be able to contribute? Ask people what they are noticing or what they are thinking vs asking for a direct answer.

Talking about recruiting... Oscar always hired quickly because he had his job requirerments sorted out, he had an understanding of customers, and he attracted people to the team. He would ask people who were interested in working for him to talk with customers and tell him something he didn’t know. He was interested in the ones who did, and who showed thoughtful customer conversations and thoughtful follow-through after. He looked for productivity and ability to give feedback when there is an opportunity to tell truth to power.

Oscar says that we’re in an imagination economy where we need to learn, unlearn and relearn -- all of which require listening and abandoning old assumptions.

In Oscar’s book, he talks about 4 villains of listening. They are the dramatic listener (loves your story becomes it becomes a theater where they can be an actor), the interrupting listener (they jump in from a place of purposeful problem solving, but don’t listen completely), the lost listener (they drift in and out of the conversation and are distracted), and the shrewd listener (hearing you and trying to be the smartest person in the room). Be aware of what yourpersonal listening villain is. And to be a good listener, switch your phone off (no buzzes or beeps) and make sure distractions are minimized.

You can’t task switch at the front of the brain where processing is done. The minute you task switch at the front of your memory, there is a cost to productivity.
85% of people think they’re above average listeners….

Physical tips: Drinking water helps us be more productive- a hydrated brain is better at listening. The deeper the breath, the deeper the listening.

Productivity paradox: Oscar talks about pragmatic presence, which means talking about the chaos around that’s off screen. Once again, this is about making the implicit explicit.

If you listen to absolutes, you miss the real meaning.

You are amazing. Let your clients see more of you. Your biggest goal is to be more of you.

We also talked about silence, a pause allows the speaker’s thoughts to catch up. That silence helps us synchronize and realize what needs to come next.

Oscar's best advice to people who want to be better listeners: pause, take a drink of water and hear what people are saying and practice being a deep listener.

Oscar Trimboli on Twitter: @oscartrimboli
Oscar's site: oscartrimboli.com

Oscar's latest book: Deep Listening: Impact Beyond Words