Series info: Using active listening with your clients & stakeholders (part 1 of 4; there’s also a series on active listening for research)
Listening is a cornerstone skill that both design and therapy depend on. It’s the difference between clarity and confusion. The difference between getting a creative brief right and unnecessary rounds of revision.
A major similarity between therapy and design is that both professions work with clients who don’t have the technical vocabulary to describe things. I know there are questions that I can’t ask about visual composition, interactions, etc., and expect them to have a professional designer answer—and that’s fine! Our job is to translate what people say into a specific design diagnosis and come up with an intervention plan.
Another reason listening is so important: people HATE feeling misunderstood. There’s so much music and literature about feeling misunderstood that this must be something more universal. One of the most demoralizing experiences you can have is when you leave a conversation feeling like the other person wasn’t listening. And if that’s such a horrible feeling for me, personally, I don’t want other people to feel that way after talking with me.
Enter: Active listening.
What active listening is
Most of us have heard of active listening, but few people practice it. Few of the ones I talk to, anyway. We are not a culture of listeners anymore.
You could define active listening as:
- a mindset.
- a framework for conversations
- a set of techniques
- a negotiation tactic
When it works, it’s magic. For example:
First, the goal of many conversations with stakeholders. What I want out of a lot of conversations with stakeholders is to understand their position, and for them to know that I understood them. I want them to leave the conversation feeling like they’ve been treated fairly and like we’ve had a productive discussion—even if I disagreed with them.
When I use active listening at work, the conversations get so much less heated and stressful. When I don’t, everyone leaves feeling frustrated.
Thankfully, the basics of active listening are super simple.
The first 4 techniques
1. Eliciting, probing, clarifying
I want the other person to feel like I care about what they’re saying, so I ask open, supportive questions. If they don’t give enough information, I follow up asking for more in a non-challenging way.
If I assume what people mean, I design something inappropriate all the time. When clients and stakeholders make requests, they often don’t give me enough useful information to do anything. Or they don’t explain things in a way I can understand, like, “Make it viral”. And asking stakeholders in a non-challenging way what they mean is a lot more productive than “I don’t understand” or “That makes no sense”.
2. Being quiet
This was the hardest technique for me to pick up. First, I had to change my mindset. My goal for conversations now is not to fight to get my opinion in. Second, I had to realize that when I give the other person room to feel like they’ve said everything and been understood, the sooner I can share what I think (if it’s necessary).
Being quiet gives people the chance to explain their thoughts more. It’s useful because they may suddenly think of a new way to explain what they’re thinking or more examples of it. And giving other people the turn
3. Restating & checking perceptions
Stakeholders LOVE this (in combination with the other techniques, otherwise it feels patronizing). It’s a chance for me to use design vocabulary with stakeholder lingo so I can teach them our words and our mindset. It also lets them feel more articulate and expressive. Also, with this technique, I can find out if what I understood is what they meant.
4. Summarizing & synthesizing
Like I said before, my goal for the conversation is to understand, so summarizing the important parts is my way to see if we’re done. Otherwise, leaving a stakeholder meeting feeling like the conversation isn’t finished is demoralizing.
Summarizing is also a great way to segue into another topic of conversation because it gives a sense of completion.
Examples in use
I use active listening on with my stakeholders basically every day. When I mentioned this to one of them the other day, he even tried to use it (and got pretty close).
Discussing visual design
“Is it correct to say don’t want me to put the logo in the footer because you are concerned people won’t recognize the company if without it appearing up top?”
Discussing flow
“You asked me how would users know to click that area. Are you concerned that the interaction isn’t prominent enough?” (fudging terms, but close enough to clarify the intent)
Co-creating
“It sounds like you really like their use of shape and layout, but not the colors. Is that right? Well, so far, you’ve shown us a couple of examples like this. Would it be fair to say you like the editorial-ness of these styles?” (totally making up words)
Critique/review
“I like the other one better.” “What doesn’t work so well in this one?” “Well, [insert list of things]” (a little bit of prodding helps to understand their reactions. A bit more digging gets you to design principles. Too much digging gets you to ontology)
Your stories?
Have you used active listening at work? What went well? What didn’t work so well? What did you learn?
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