Listening is more difficult than speaking. We know this, right? If you don’t, you do now. It is.
Meetings are commonplace in the wider world—within the confines of professional sport, less so. When I started, a meeting was more likely to determine the pub route for the evening and the least unlikely food options. Now it’s more likely to be about match-ups, pitch dimensions, who to target and who to avoid.
Rightly so.
So tip-toeing in the wider world, my meeting form oscillates between average and ordinary.
Wednesday was informal—an opportunity to glean some wisdom from an industry veteran. The app is going well, but there’s always more to do: new features against sales. To be aggressive or organic?
If you followed protocol there’d be an agenda. Then one of those chess timers to regulate minutes spent on agenda items. Maybe some media on hand to highlight a feature—video beats dribble all day, every day. A question queue squats in my busy head: don’t forget that, make sure you touch on that. It all seems so much harder than tracking a cricket ball.
In play, a mistake I make—and I’m sure many do—is ask the question, then immediately frame the next. While you’re doing that, the answer is being shared. You miss the start, the thread, the important stuff.
Listening is difficult. It needs work. A conscious effort to resist thinking about what you’re going to say next and focus instead on what you asked first.
Wednesday I was between average and ordinary. I did manage to make some notes after, though.
Next time you ask a question—meeting or not—focus on what comes back, not on what you’re going to ask next.
TGIF
Nick
