Finally, a word on organizational listening, which is a real issue. We don't listen very well as individuals as I hope I've been able to establish with you even less well do we listen, listen as organizations, there was a big piece of research called the organizational listening project in 2016. And I'm showing you here it's fundamental finding, which is that most organizations are rubbish. By listening. They don't listen to the customers to complaints to things from the outside, and they don't listen internally, either. I bet you've had the experience of being not listened to in an organization that you work for or that you have been a customer of speaking and listening, I suppose to be in balance.

I've tried to put that point across there's the circle of speaking and listening. How well you listen determines how well people listen to you and how they speak to you and organizations. are terrible at it. Not imbalanced like this, actually, it's much more like this according to the organizational listening project, which surveyed many organizations. And this was self assessed, let me say so this was the organization's claiming how much time they spent listening, which was 20% of their budget, and time and effort and resources. 20% versus 80% sending if you say communication to an organization, they think about outbound advertising, social media, whatever it may be, very little do they think about inbound listening, and so forth.

They might think about presenting. They don't think about listening. So it's a it's a real issue. It's not surprising because we're overloaded, as I've said, with the torrent of email that we're now getting, everybody's getting deluged with email. And that's not the only thing and there's so much inbound now, in the professions, this manifests itself in time poor behavior. This, sadly, is the average time in America that you or I get to give our opening statement before our doctor interrupts us.

18 Seconds is the average time at which adopter will jump in and say, Okay, I know what you're talking about. So, whatever it is 18 seconds not very long to listen is it? There's this impatience. Incidentally, this was gender sensitive female doctors interrupted less than male doctors did, and female patients were interrupted more than male patients. On the other hand, male patients asked on average the zero questions of their doctors, whereas female patients asked something like six on average questions of their doctors. So behavior is quite different in terms of listening and interrupting and impatience across the genders if that's anything to go by.

I do suggest that every organization needs to create a listening culture and this will be the subject of my Next book, I think the listening organization. It's not possible to do that individually, but you can help. Just as throwing a pebble into a pond creates ripples. Your listening will have an effect in the organization in which you find yourself. Of course, if you're the boss, you can inculcate a listening culture, you can develop it and you can put resources into it. It all comes simply from listening from mindful listening.

Here are the people that we need to listen to in any organization. And here are the ways in which we are going to do it, which is commitment from the top. Looking at the culture of the organization and asking, does our behavior fit the culture? I don't know about you, but I've worked in a number of organizations where culture is a plaque on the wall behavior is something else entirely. Do we have spaces where listing can take place? Are our spaces appropriate for listening or are they noisy and unpleasant spaces with terrible acoustics?

Do we train people in listening? Is there any accountability for listening? And do we appraise people and reward people for good listening? If you're doing 360 degree reviews you can have How good is this person at listening? as one of the questions. What we're listening for, of course, is opportunity.

Just like an animal listens for food. That's the good stuff, sales, good service, great opportunities. We're listening also, for danger, as an animal listens for danger. We're listening for threats and complaints and crisis and those things that bad listening organizations tend to run into because they're not listening so well. ideas and involvement to the gold. They're the things which can make millions for an organization.

Now, I do suggest you become a champion of listening. I do suggest that you explain it, encourage it and demonstrate it to people in order To get listening and speaking back in balance, because the benefits are enormous. I've said already This is how you learn lead, innovate, persuade, build relationships and build understanding. And good listening creates all the good stuff on the left hand side here, higher morale, greater loyalty, stuff and customer greater retention staff and customer productivity increases and better reputations. Organizations that listen poorly have to read stuff, more criticism, more crises, you can get help. I do suggest you check out the international listening Association as well as a lot of online resources tests, tools, courses, experts, and within modesty modestly say my books quite useful too.

Let's get speaking and listening back in balance.