This morning on NPR, I heard a "This I Believe" essay from Dr. Alicia Conill about the importance of listening. She reported on a study that says the average length of time a doctor waits before interrupting a patient is 18 seconds. That doesn't give patients much time to tell their stories, nor is it much time for doctors to hear and understand what is going on with their patients.
This got me thinking about how much time we, as PR practitioners, spend listening to our publics. What is our "PR bedside manner"?
We spend a lot of time in the classroom practicing our writing and speaking skills. But we don't spend nearly as much time practicing our listening skills.
My experience has been that PR/communication offices typically do their jobs with minimal interaction with their ultimate publics. So not much listening -- or talking -- takes place. A lot of assumptions are made about what people need and want based on gut feelings and intuition. Those are important, but we must learn to listen and interpret what is said and not said.
I was born and raised in Minnesota, where we are taught since infancy to get along and not be disagreeable. You usually have to ask "real" Minnesotans a question at least three times, three different ways, before you can get an answer. You have to learn how to listen and ask questions to decipher what's on their minds.
For example, my sister, LaVonne, and her husband, Stan, came for a visit a few years ago. We stopped at the grocery store deli to pick up meat for lunch. Ham (which I don't eat but, obviously, many people love) was on sale. So I asked Stan if he wanted me to buy some ham. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "Doesn't matter to me." So I tried again. "Well, would you prefer smoked ham or honey-baked ham?" Again, he shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Doesn't matter to me." So I tried one more time: "Well, I don't eat ham, so which type of ham should I get?" You know his response.
I turned to the clerk and said, "I'll have a pound of honey-baked ham," at which point Stan said, "Why don't we get smoked ham, instead." So I did.
As a Minnesotan, I knew enough to "listen" to Stan's verbal and nonverbal communication to finally "hear" what he was trying to tell me.
Today we have many vehicles for listening -- face-to-face, meetings, mass media, social media -- so how good of a job are we doing? Are we really listening to our publics and providing them the information they need?
My Final Blog
15 years ago
I think companies and organizations that participate in a variety of social media are listening and providing for their publics in a great way. If you give your publics blogs, comment pages, surveys, traditional press releases, etc. you are catering to a variety of publics and their various needs. However if you are limiting the way that you listen and provide information you are not dong a very good job. With all of the advances in social media and with the average person being much more involved in technology than previously it is important to use a variety of techniques, including traditional ones as well.
ReplyDelete-Nicole Jackson
I think that anyone conforming to the ways of social media is doing a good job. Unfortunately there are companies and people who run them, who are weary of social media. My boss is one of them. She refuses to let me create a blog, because she fears the negative backlash. What she refuses to realize is we're being thrashed and just don't know it. We're doing exactly what I talked about on my team blog, in ignoring what is being said on the internet. Blogging would open another channel of communication, for the people who don't want or have time for face to face interaction. The company I work for is not doing a good job of listening!
ReplyDeleteI also feel that when we use social media it is the best tool for listening. I think when using social media tools such as blogs; we are putting ourselves out there to hear what others are saying. It is then our job to actually incorporate what are publics are saying and apply them to our work. A lot of people have the habit of waiting to talk instead of listening, understanding and then responding. That is clearly the wrong thing to do. I think that we are doing a pretty good job but there is always room for improvement. All PR practitioners and really all fields should just try and improve their listening skills because in the end it’s only going to hurt their business.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm not really sure of how good of a job we're doing. That would be a nice survey for a job. Thanks Dr. D.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think it depends on how the person communicates as to how well they listen. Take me for instance, I can be a good listener in person if I concentrate on listening, but usually I'm thinking about something else while listening getting my thoughts together before hearing the other person out. I think a lot of companies are doing that, but the social media era I think changes that because everyone gets to speak and read what everyone's thoughts are. You have time to read, comprehend and then act.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think that listening is a very specialized skill. By specialized I mean that a very small number of people actually know how to really listen. There is this idea that, when people speak to one another, the time spent "listening" is actually time spent waiting to speak. I think that this is more common than not and unfortunately in a profession where listening is vital to the two-way communication we seek, listening is often an after-thought.
ReplyDeleteI think in the advent to modern technology, there are more avenues used to "listen" to each other, but in the end, it all just becomes noise. Honestly, with all of these opportunities to communicate and listen, it becomes an exercise in futility. It’s not a matter of listening, so much as it's a matter of filtering (but I am a natural pessimist, so I would think that). The upside is that as professional communicators, there is the opportunity to "re-learn" how to listen. Instead of just relying on intuition, we should go forth and pay attention to what people are really saying; and by using all of the tools and technology at our fingertips, communication can become more efficient.
Porsche
I found this post quite interesting and humorous...I have a big mouth and am notorious for always speaking my mind...my mom has brought to my attention several times in the past that I need to stop talking so much and listen more often, just in general. Well, I didn't really get what she was saying till I took PR Methods with Dr. Grable last semester. One day in class, Dr. Grable gave the class a hand out entitled "The 10 commandments for good listening"...and then gave a little speech on it . That day she opened my eyes to what my mom had been trying to tell me all these years. And since then, I think I have learned to get my message across better to my friends/family and I definately actually listen to what people are saying to me (rather than just hearing them).
ReplyDeletePertaining to PR practicitioners listening to their audience(s), I think the communications industry has made a LEAP of improvement with social media...specifically blogs. EVERYONE has a blog! If they don't have a personal blog, they comment on other people's/company's blogs. If they don't do the blog thing, they do the watered down version of blogging and put what they are thinking in their facebook/myspace/twitter status. It's crazy how much feedback PR people are now capable of getting...now the question is, are they paying attention to it and LISTENING? lol I can't say for sure...but I think a good amount of PR/Journalists listen to the feedback from their audience. I know I personally watch CNN EVERYDAY, and EVERY DAY either Anderson Cooper, Larry King or some random anchorman/woman is reading a comment or question from CNN's live blog on NATIONAL TV and tries to attempt to answer the question or provide the info that they want to know. Company's like CNN are doing GREAT jobs of listening....And I hope as a PR Practitioner, I can accomplish the same thing.
Listening is extremely important especially in PR. We as PR consultants should learn how to be very good listeners especially when dealing with clients. Besides being good listeners we should comprehend what we have listened to well. Many mistakes made in the past by almost everyone in the world could have been avoided if the person would have just listened well first and then acted. It would be impossible to work for a client/company and not listen to what CEOs want as well as their publics. If you don’t listen to the people how can you know what they want? Being a good listener can also help you be a great speaker, just look at Barack Obama.
ReplyDeleteWell Dr. D, i think you bring up a very interesting point. I started to say, well now PR people use the web and blogs to better engage and listen to their publics, but I'm not sure how many people a blogger can really speak for. But as a whole, maybe the internet is making it easier for pr people to listen to the publics and also gives the publics more choice on what to care to follow, so its kind of a type of speech.
ReplyDeleteMandla Deskins