Active listening: the core skill product managers need for effective communication

In this article we talk about listening, one of the key skills every product manager needs. Every product manager talks to many people each day, and each of those people has their own requests and concerns. As a product manager you must be able to listen to them actively so you can handle the product’s problems and challenges. If you already see why active listening matters, stay with us.

You cannot truly listen to someone and do something else at the same time.

- M. Scott Peck

The basics of active listening

The feeling that our words are not being heard is one of the most discouraging feelings there is. One reason communication fails is that listening (like reading, clear thinking, and concentrating) is a skill we rarely treat as something that needs knowledge and practice.

There is a difference between hearing and listening

As long as we hear someone’s voice and understand their words, we assume we are listening. Hearing alone is not enough. Among other things, we need to understand what is being said and why, weigh the intent carefully, and take nonverbal communication into account. As a product manager, every team member comes to you with a purpose. Instead of only hearing them, you need to listen.

Listening is one of the foundations of society. It is what lets us form meaningful relationships and connections. Even so, most of us have not thought about how we listen.

As Mortimer J. Adler writes in How to Speak, How to Listen:

We all know that the skill of reading requires instruction… The same is true of speaking and listening… Instruction is essential… In the same way, the skill of listening is either a native gift or must be acquired through training.

Mortimer J. Adler

Active listening is a technique for expanding our skill at listening.

It is used as a communication technique in many professional fields, but it is also valuable in everyday life. Anyone who has seen a good therapist even once will be familiar with how effective active listening is. The therapist listens one-to-one with a clear intent, clarifies anything ambiguous, usually interprets what is said, and asks the speaker to open up the topic. A family or couples therapist helps resolve conflict by making calm, low-tension communication easier through reflection, open body language, and helping the couple understand each other.

Many of the people who work with you as a product manager and talk to you during the day own different parts of the product, each with their own problems and challenges. Active listening reassures them that you have heard their concerns and fully understand them.

As Sheldon B. Kopp writes:

The therapist can interpret, counsel, provide the acceptance and emotional support that feeds personal growth, and above all, can listen. I do not mean that they can simply hear another person’s words; I mean they will listen actively and with purpose and respond with the tools of their profession—with the personal vulnerability of their own unsteady existence. It is this listening that makes it easier for the patient to tell their story, a telling that sets them free.

Sheldon B. Kopp

For clarity, we discuss active listening here in a conversation between two people. Active listening can also happen among several people or groups.

Listening is hard because you have to suppress your ego for a while. That period is the amount of time you need, before answering, to understand what is being said.

The main components of active listening

Understanding

To communicate, we first have to understand what the other person (or people) is actually saying. That is not as simple as it sounds.

In most cases understanding happens immediately and unconsciously. Still, several potential barriers can block understanding, such as:

• Language barriers

• Use of jargon or slang

• Differences in culture, age, social rank, and other differences between people

In Eyes Wide Open, Isaac Lidsky suggests we simplify perception by asking, “Can you explain it to me as if I were five years old?” This is the same technique we use to improve learning quickly. Removing jargon and explaining things in your own words makes complex topics much easier to understand.

Sometimes people on your team, especially technical members, explain issues in a complex, difficult way (with no intention of doing so), and it is your job to ask them to explain in the simplest possible form so you can find a fast, simple solution. As Einstein put it, 80 percent of the solution is understanding the problem correctly and precisely. So as a product manager you must listen actively in order to understand the team’s problems and concerns.

Remembering

To respond appropriately, we must understand and remember what the other person said. Not everyone retains the same details.

Some people remember very specific details, while others hold on to the overall idea. It is common among us to remember only the details that relate to our reply.

When we listen actively, instead of thinking about what we can say next, we focus on the other person’s words. Suppressing personal ego is hard. It is like thinking we already know what the other person wants to say, and fooling ourselves into believing we have already done the work: that we not only know what they will say but have already thought about it. We have not done the work.

There are several potential barriers to remembering, such as:

• Cognitive biases and selective listening (we will cover this in more detail later)

• Internal or external distraction (such as fatigue or a noisy environment)

• Memory problems (such as dementia)

Responding

Conversations are active, not passive. A conversation between people cannot form without a response.

Active conversation needs accurate responses, which become possible through understanding and remembering.

An active response should show that we understand what the other person said, paid attention to their words, and even noticed their nonverbal cues.

The act of interpretation can be taken as listening to the music beneath the words.

Ronald A. Heifetz

To be an active listener, we must try to go beyond the words and form a rich picture of the other person’s emotions and intent. We should not, however, invent meaning or color their words with our own thoughts. The potential barriers that existed for understanding and remembering exist in a similar way for responding.

To be an active listener, we must try to go beyond the words and form a rich picture of the other person’s emotions and intent. Sometimes, as a product manager, you can even repeat back what you took from a teammate’s comments so you confirm you understood the topic correctly and the other person sees your attention and care.

Active listening and overcoming cognitive biases

Active listening requires knowing how cognitive biases and shortcuts affect our communication. These are especially common when people argue and disagree.

Consider the hypothetical argument below between a couple named Mary and John. Any resemblance to your marriage is purely coincidental.

Mary: You never help with housework, you came home drunk twice last week, you forgot to pick the kids up from school, you never buy me flowers, you…

John: I bought you flowers on Valentine’s Day!

In this example John falls into confirmation bias in order to reject Mary’s statements. By ignoring the other claims, he answers only what he can easily disagree with. John fools himself into thinking that because he can refute one statement, all of them are wrong.

John: I bought you flowers on Valentine’s Day!

Mary: In 5 years that was the first time you brought me flowers.

John now falls into availability bias. He remembers a recent, salient event and ignores the times before it.

Mary: In 5 years that was the first time you brought me flowers.

John: So what? None of my friends buy flowers for their wives, even on Valentine’s Day.

Social proof now enters the game. John looks to his friends for clues about how he should behave. Instead of considering how Mary feels, he reassures himself that his behavior is right because it is common.

Mary: Anyway, the flowers you brought me then were wilted, and it was obvious you got them from a gas station on the way home.

Here, because of her present anger, Mary sees a distorted view of events (dislike / hostility bias). An event that once made Mary happy is now only more evidence of her husband’s incompetence.

The examples above are only a few of the countless cognitive biases and shortcuts that get in the way of our communication.

Now let’s imagine how this argument would go if John had used active-listening techniques.

To do that it is essential to set aside emotions and personal ego and instead try to understand why Mary is upset.

Mary: You never help with housework, you came home drunk twice last week, you forgot to pick the kids up from school, you never buy me flowers, and I am tired of it.

John: So you feel I am a bad father, I ignore your needs, and I let my social life interfere with our relationship?

John now interprets what Mary said and confirms that he is listening. It is important to note that John does not fully agree with Mary. Instead of defending himself, he makes sure Mary knows he is listening.

By staying calm and showing open body language, he lets Mary vent her frustration without being interrupted. That gives Mary a safe, trusted environment to talk more about herself and show her real feelings.

John keeps eye contact and uses nonverbal cues (for example nodding in agreement, or shaking his head to show he is listening). Mary calms down a little and sees that her husband seems genuinely interested in what she wants to say.

Then John can speak:

John: What can I do so you feel better about our relationship?

This question is neutral and is not tied to a personal opinion. John has let Mary explore her feelings. By continuing this way, they can turn an argument into a valuable chance to know each other better.

Read more: Know the good product manager and the bad product manager

The outcome in this situation is likely much more positive than in the first case. Even reading the words, you have probably imagined both scenarios differently, complete with different tones of voice and different results.

Active listening as a way to overcome conversational narcissism

If you have ever talked with someone who is only interested in talking about themselves, you will recognize what conversational narcissism is and how it feels.

Charles Derber, a sociologist, first observed the phenomenon in which people let their obsessions show in how they converse. Instead of listening to what the other person wants to say and giving a matching reply, many people turn the conversation toward themselves.

In The Inarticulate Society: Eloquence and Culture in America, Tom Shachtman writes:

Conversational narcissism is pervasive and is rooted in our culture of individualism, a pattern that leads to self-absorption… by using “I” phrases, by boasting, by the tactic of asking a question only to show the questioner’s superior knowledge or to place their story above the other person’s, by constant redirects… The most used written word in the language is “the,” while the word used most often in speech is “I.”

Tom Shachtman

Derber explains this as a “shift-response” versus a “support-response.” In The Pursuit of Attention: Power and Ego in Everyday Life he writes:

The subtlety of the shift-response is that it is always based on a connection to the previous topic. That opens the door for the respondent to redirect the topic toward themselves… Shift-responses, when used for self-centered goals, are repeated until a clear change of topic occurs… The effectiveness here is that the shift-response is an attention-getting device and is somewhat hard to detect immediately. It is hard to tell whether the response was meant to share or to pursue self-centered initiative.

Derber

Conversational narcissists usually repeat shift-responses until the conversation is steered toward them. Back to our hypothetical couple. It might look like this:

John: I am really stressed about work right now.

Mary: Me too, you won’t believe what one of my colleagues did yesterday.

John: And when I have this much work it is hard for me to give the kids enough attention, and when I get home I just want to rest.

Mary: Seriously, what they did was ridiculous.

John: What did they do?

In this conversation Mary repeats the shift-response until John finally gets the point and takes the attention off himself.

The self-centered nature of this is clear in written conversation, but it can be hard to detect.

Support-responses are the opposite of shift-responses—they reinforce the speaker’s words and encourage them. If Mary had used support-responses, the conversation would look like this:

John: I am really stressed about work right now.

Mary: Why is it more stressful than usual right now?

John: Well, one of the people on my team has been on vacation for two weeks and I have to cover their responsibilities too.

Mary: Have you talked to your manager about this? You should not have to do someone else’s work on top of your own.

Notice how differently these two scenarios sounded in your mind.

In the first conversation, Mary was entirely narcissistic and only wanted to talk about herself. In the second, the couple were able to understand each other a little better and see a potential root cause of their conflict.

Conversational narcissism also happens through passive behavior.

Passive conversational narcissism involves ignoring support questions whenever we have the floor, and also using support questions only sparsely during the conversation. Listening happens, but it is passive. Little effort is made to encourage the other person to talk more about themselves, or to assume other forms of active listening. This creates doubt in the other person about their interest in their own topics or their right to attention… A second practice that is commonly used at a minimum is… delayed background acknowledgments. Although weaker than support questions, background acknowledgments such as “yes” or “uh-huh” are subtle cues speakers use to measure how interested the other person is in their topic.

Derber

As Derber explains, when it comes to active listening we should not underestimate the importance of our responses.

If we listen carefully but our responses do not show it, that listening no longer matters to the other person.

Sullivan and Thompson in The Plateau Effect explain the foolishness of conversational narcissism:

Most people listen with the intent to do something—usually to defend themselves, or to solve a problem. Almost everyone listens with the intent to have something ready to say as soon as the speaker is finished. Have you ever thought about how unwise that is? Shouldn’t there be a pause now and then so one of the speakers can think about what they really want to say, or better, about what has been said so far? You will repeatedly see a phenomenon, if you look for it: two speakers who appear to be having a conversation but are in fact only delivering two monologues, their speech interrupted by the other, each simply waiting for a moment to enter the stage they imagine.

Listeners usually cannot wait to leap to their own defense and, instead of hearing what is said, spend their time like a defense lawyer planning an argument that is not far off. You can imagine how ineffective this method is.

Sullivan and Thompson

Read more: Seven simple but smart skills for mastering the product manager role

How can we improve our active-listening skills?

Although there is no single way to learn active listening, we can make small changes.

Active listening, like any other skill, grows with practice, not by reading about it. By applying this idea to every conversation we have, we can gradually develop the skill of communicating properly. That can include:

• Educate yourself about common cognitive biases and shortcuts. Learn to identify them in yourself and others so you can see how they block communication.

• Avoid trying to answer immediately. Give the other person time to finish, then give a considered reply. First consider whether it is a shift-response or a support-response.

• Minimize conversational narcissism by staying aware of your use of pronouns. Constant reliance on “I” and “myself” shows that you need to turn the conversation toward yourself. Aim instead to use “you” a lot.

• Adler suggests that you take notes during key conversations. Although this may fluster the speaker, in some situations it is relevant. Adler writes: “The notes you take while listening record what you have done with your mind to take in what you heard.” These notes let you move to the second stage… what you have written… provides food for thought.

• In an argument, accept that people rarely want to change their view. Instead of getting angry or frustrated, look to develop a clear picture of the other person’s logic. Using the “Socratic questioning technique” can help extract this information. With active listening, it becomes possible to turn an argument into a calm conversation in which you can explain your own thoughts. Adler explains: “A speaker who is reasonably sensitive will ask you to accept their argument by accepting their assumptions for now. Accept that they recognize the consequences of their work, see how they open the way to their desired conclusion… they are not general principles or self-evident truths… your job is to stay alert so you can identify the initial hypotheses… this work provides the final grounds for what is being said.”

• Increase your motivation to listen. This is known as the emotional framework for active listening. The motivation can be the need to improve a relationship, following instructions without wasted cost, making someone feel better, or clarifying an exchange as much as possible.

Source: an article from Shane Parrish’s personal-development blog, Farnam Street