Listening
How to shut up
Last updated
How to shut up
Last updated
If what one has to say is not better than silence, then one should keep silent. --Confucius
If your objective is to learn from other people, it stands to reason that you should be spending the overwhelming majority of your time listening. The math is pretty straightforward - the more speaking you do the less they’ll do of it. This may sound simple but it’s difficult to pull off in practice. Listen back to your interviews and you’ll quickly realize you're a lot chattier than you remember.
This is normal, most of us love to hear ourselves talk. We’re also socially trained to fill awkward silences. With that in mind, here are some tips for keeping quiet in interviews:
You can fight your instinct to interject yourself into your interviews by deliberately practicing the act of letting people complete their thoughts. When they are done speaking, count "one Mississippi, two Mississippi” in your head before following up. You might also benefit from incorporating reminders to “let them do the talking!” into your discussion guide and notes.
Occasionally, interviewees might ask you questions like: “Does that make sense?”, "I don't really know if I answered your questions?" or "Is that what you're looking for?" Don’t take the bait. You aren’t there to have a dialogue, you are there to listen. Reassure them that "they are doing great" and "there are no wrong answers." Keep probing with open-ended questions and more importantly, keep listening.
Well-timed, follow-up questions ("tell me more about that", "why is that?", "what makes you say that?") are a good way of gently steering the conversation while keeping the attention on your interviewee. Other good follow-up techniques include trailing off into silence ("because... ?") and complete-the-statement questions (“So when that happened you... ?“)
Silence is a powerful tool but it can also be used against you. Some interviewees will be less forthcoming than others and will only provide, brief, non-descriptive answers to open-ended questions. One way to address this is to mirror their responses. To do this, repeat back the critical one to three words of their answers like this:
Interviewer: Tell me about your experience using the app.
Respondent: It was fine.
Interviewer: Fine?
Respondent: Yeah, it went fine, it wasn't particularly great.
Interviewer: It wasn't particularly great?
Respodent: Yeah, I had trouble logging in because ...
Few people can resist elaborating on their answers when being mirrored by someone with a curious, expectant expression.
Doing a Listening Audit, by reviewing your recorded interviews and assessing your listening skills is a good way to track your progress as a listener.
If you truly want to hear what's on your audience's mind, silence is the most power tool in your arsenal. You may find that the priorities of your interviewees do not match those of your discussion guide. However, in our experience, the best way to get people to speak candidly about the subjects you are most interested in is to first actively listen to their top concerns.
