WEBVTT

00:00:08.194 --> 00:00:12.272
(Portuguese) I want to tell you

00:00:12.272 --> 00:00:16.352
why I'm interested in listening.

00:00:16.352 --> 00:00:18.514
When I was 17 years old,

00:00:18.514 --> 00:00:21.844
I started to suffer
from a pain in my throat.

00:00:21.844 --> 00:00:25.768
Psychiatrists called it globus hystericus,

00:00:25.768 --> 00:00:27.828
completely psychosomatic.

00:00:27.828 --> 00:00:31.142
Eventually I developed depressions,

00:00:31.142 --> 00:00:34.992
and even considered suicide,
and I could not relax.

00:00:34.992 --> 00:00:37.754
At the age of 25 when I tried yoga,

00:00:37.754 --> 00:00:41.542
I felt as if somebody was putting
a nail into my throat here

00:00:41.542 --> 00:00:43.964
and it was coming out
from the other side.

00:00:43.964 --> 00:00:46.349
So I learned to cope with the pain

00:00:46.349 --> 00:00:50.440
by working many hours
and ignoring what was going on inside,

00:00:50.440 --> 00:00:53.081
so I couldn't feel anything
from here down.

00:00:53.081 --> 00:00:56.132
And in this way,
I was able to raise a family,

00:00:56.132 --> 00:00:58.221
succeed in my career,

00:00:58.221 --> 00:01:01.363
and things were as if they were OK,

00:01:01.363 --> 00:01:03.909
until by the age of 46.

00:01:03.909 --> 00:01:05.389
I was hit by a crisis

00:01:05.389 --> 00:01:07.765
that was sparked by a consultant

00:01:07.765 --> 00:01:10.765
using questions
from an appreciative inquiry.

00:01:10.765 --> 00:01:11.956
She asked:

00:01:12.986 --> 00:01:18.626
"When were the relationships
between men and women ideal?

00:01:18.626 --> 00:01:22.429
And could you please tell us a story

00:01:22.429 --> 00:01:26.979
about a moment at work
in which you felt full of life?"

00:01:28.019 --> 00:01:29.775
I was stunned.

00:01:29.775 --> 00:01:34.124
First, I realized how much
little joy I had in my life,

00:01:34.124 --> 00:01:39.565
and second, I realized that answering
this question is changing me,

00:01:39.565 --> 00:01:42.721
thanks to somebody listening to me.

00:01:45.611 --> 00:01:49.120
Then I allowed myself
to try a variety of things

00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:53.491
such as: massage therapy, psychodrama,

00:01:53.491 --> 00:01:57.036
storytelling classes, voice classes,

00:01:58.491 --> 00:02:00.542
Zen Buddhism workshops,

00:02:00.542 --> 00:02:03.491
and more recently
dialectical behavior therapy

00:02:03.491 --> 00:02:06.371
and things started to change for me.

00:02:06.371 --> 00:02:11.247
First I could feel the pain again
but I didn't run away from it.

00:02:11.247 --> 00:02:13.273
Eventually I even started to feel anxiety,

00:02:13.273 --> 00:02:16.892
which I didn't know 
what it was until that age.

00:02:16.892 --> 00:02:23.493
But later on, I won some moments
of tranquility, quietness,

00:02:23.493 --> 00:02:25.053
and moments of joy.

00:02:25.053 --> 00:02:28.849
And I started to ask myself,
"What made it possible?"

00:02:28.849 --> 00:02:32.044
And my answer was that I was so lucky

00:02:32.044 --> 00:02:36.699
as to raise myself a village of people
who would listen to me.

00:02:37.772 --> 00:02:42.748
So, then I decided to research listening.

00:02:42.748 --> 00:02:48.580
And today I would like to share
with you the results of this research.

00:02:49.600 --> 00:02:52.627
So, I first looked
in the professional literature

00:02:52.627 --> 00:02:55.722
in my field of management
and organizational behavior,

00:02:55.722 --> 00:02:59.644
and in one top journal,
out of 3,000 papers,

00:02:59.644 --> 00:03:02.762
I found zero discussing listening.

00:03:02.762 --> 00:03:04.248
In other top journal,

00:03:04.248 --> 00:03:08.009
out of 4,000 papers,
two discussed listening.

00:03:09.289 --> 00:03:11.482
And while it reflects something

00:03:11.482 --> 00:03:15.432
about the disinterest
of researchers in listening,

00:03:15.432 --> 00:03:21.305
I think it reflects the disinterest
of humans in listening.

00:03:21.305 --> 00:03:23.002
Watch with me this graph.

00:03:23.002 --> 00:03:27.388
This shows what people
are searching in Google

00:03:27.388 --> 00:03:31.138
from 2004 until 2015.

00:03:31.138 --> 00:03:35.299
The red is the amount
of searches for the word "talking",

00:03:35.299 --> 00:03:37.846
and the blue is for "listening".

00:03:37.846 --> 00:03:40.626
This is what people are interested in.

00:03:40.626 --> 00:03:44.828
And you speaking Portuguese
do not have to worry about

00:03:44.828 --> 00:03:49.499
(Português) "talking" in red
versus (Português) "listening" in blue.

00:03:51.119 --> 00:03:56.623
So I started to look at what theories
exist out there about listening


00:03:56.623 --> 00:03:59.653
and I'll show you three,

00:03:59.653 --> 00:04:01.478
starting with the idea

00:04:01.478 --> 00:04:07.908
that, actually, the listener dictates
the speaker's speech quality.

00:04:07.908 --> 00:04:12.445
If he's going to listen to you,
naturally you'll talk more,

00:04:12.445 --> 00:04:17.675
but you'll talk more coherently
and you'll tell more interesting stories.

00:04:18.845 --> 00:04:21.069
And if this is not enough,

00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:25.089
if you tell more and more
interesting stories

00:04:25.089 --> 00:04:30.992
you commit whatever
you have said to your memory,

00:04:30.992 --> 00:04:33.982
so you know more about yourself,

00:04:33.982 --> 00:04:38.827
such that if a child comes home
and tells the parents,

00:04:38.827 --> 00:04:41.421
"Oh! We did this and that in school,"

00:04:41.421 --> 00:04:45.845
and the parents say, "Not now. 
Have a shower and we'll have dinner,"

00:04:45.845 --> 00:04:47.566
the child will remember

00:04:47.566 --> 00:04:50.876
that whatever he or she did in school
was not that interesting.

00:04:50.876 --> 00:04:53.499
That will be commited to memories.

00:04:53.499 --> 00:04:59.722
Thus, the collection of our listeners
slowly, imperceptibly,

00:04:59.722 --> 00:05:02.722
changes our self-knowledge.

00:05:02.722 --> 00:05:05.893
If this is not enough,

00:05:05.893 --> 00:05:10.877
listening in a special way
could even change personality,

00:05:10.877 --> 00:05:15.483
a listening that is
nonjudgmental and emphatic.

00:05:17.013 --> 00:05:21.669
Let me explain to you how could it be
that listening would change personality.

00:05:21.669 --> 00:05:25.691
For that, I have to paraphrase
Pirandello from his book:

00:05:25.691 --> 00:05:31.356
"Uno, nessuno e centomila" or 
"One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand".

00:05:31.356 --> 00:05:33.709
From now I'm going to act,
so don't get scared.

00:05:33.709 --> 00:05:35.441
I see that you're laughing at me.


00:05:35.441 --> 00:05:37.981
That is fine, continue to laugh at me,

00:05:37.981 --> 00:05:39.517
but do me a favor.

00:05:39.517 --> 00:05:41.782
Do you remember the case that you had

00:05:41.782 --> 00:05:45.288
that in your home there was
a good friend sitting with you

00:05:45.288 --> 00:05:48.995
and, suddenly, a new friend 
was knocking on the door,

00:05:48.995 --> 00:05:50.983
and you, what did you do?

00:05:50.983 --> 00:05:53.450
With an ugly excuse,

00:05:53.450 --> 00:05:57.800
you asked the old friend to go home,

00:05:57.800 --> 00:05:59.994
because you were afraid

00:05:59.994 --> 00:06:04.064
that the old and the new friend
will not get along.

00:06:04.624 --> 00:06:08.442
I see that you remember this case,
so do me one more little favor.

00:06:08.442 --> 00:06:12.474
What do you think would have happened
if, instead of throwing out from your home

00:06:12.474 --> 00:06:16.343
the good old friend, and let me add,
the stand good old friend,

00:06:16.343 --> 00:06:20.275
you had left home for half an hour

00:06:20.275 --> 00:06:26.668
and, within this half an hour, 
asked them to sit in your living room?

00:06:26.668 --> 00:06:30.146
Tell me what do you think
would have happened

00:06:30.146 --> 00:06:31.356
when you came back home?

00:06:31.356 --> 00:06:33.036
Don't you think it's possible


00:06:33.036 --> 00:06:36.804
that one of them would say,
"Wow, what an interesting person!",

00:06:36.804 --> 00:06:41.718
and the other one, "You don't believe it!
Thank you for this introduction!"

00:06:41.718 --> 00:06:46.280
So, you see, that is exactly
what would have happened.

00:06:46.280 --> 00:06:48.435
So, now, let me ask you one more question.

00:06:48.435 --> 00:06:53.472
Who the hell do you think 
you kicked out from your home?

00:06:53.472 --> 00:06:58.501
It is not the good old friend
because he or she

00:06:58.501 --> 00:07:01.711
"will not get along with the new one."

00:07:01.711 --> 00:07:04.551
We've just established 
they'd have gotten along just fine.

00:07:04.551 --> 00:07:05.548
Let me tell you.


00:07:05.548 --> 00:07:10.672
You kicked out from home the character
that you present to the old friend

00:07:10.672 --> 00:07:15.533
because this one has absolutely 
nothing to do with the character

00:07:15.533 --> 00:07:18.669
that you want now to present
to your new friend.

00:07:18.669 --> 00:07:22.746
And now that we discovered
that you have two creatures in your mind,

00:07:22.746 --> 00:07:24.897
who knows what is the truth?

00:07:24.897 --> 00:07:27.317
How many creatures do you have inside?

00:07:27.317 --> 00:07:33.368
Is it scores, hundreds or,
perhaps more accurately, thousands?

00:07:34.698 --> 00:07:38.274
So, I thank to Pirandello two things.

00:07:38.274 --> 00:07:41.124
First: (French) Congratulations!

00:07:41.124 --> 00:07:43.538
Seventy years before the psychologists,

00:07:43.538 --> 00:07:48.488
you described the self as a multitude
and not as a unity.

00:07:48.488 --> 00:07:53.958
We say "my self-esteem",
as if there is one self there.

00:07:53.958 --> 00:07:56.619
But the second thing, Mr. Pirandello,

00:07:56.619 --> 00:08:01.625
what wrong did the people
attending TEDx do to you?

00:08:01.625 --> 00:08:03.148
And now we'll go home and think,

00:08:03.148 --> 00:08:06.258
"I have this character
and this character, and I'll get crazy,

00:08:06.258 --> 00:08:08.868
like your book's hero."

00:08:09.698 --> 00:08:12.305
And here comes listening.

00:08:12.305 --> 00:08:16.704
My understanding
is that when you really listen,

00:08:16.704 --> 00:08:23.116
a person will start to hear
hidden characters inside him or her.

00:08:23.116 --> 00:08:28.023
But not only recognize
different parts of the self,

00:08:28.023 --> 00:08:31.277
but it allows to build
bridges between them.

00:08:31.277 --> 00:08:34.302
So the elements of the self
could live together.

00:08:34.302 --> 00:08:36.879
So let's see what is the evidence.

00:08:36.879 --> 00:08:41.952
Now to collect the evidence, you know,
some people collect stamps.

00:08:41.952 --> 00:08:44.707
I collect scientific papers on listening.

00:08:44.707 --> 00:08:47.591
And every paper that has numerical data,


00:08:47.591 --> 00:08:52.844
I take it and put it on a pile to see
the overall picture of what we know.

00:08:52.844 --> 00:08:55.265
And this process is called meta-analysis.

00:08:55.265 --> 00:08:57.625
I've done many of those on many topics,

00:08:57.625 --> 00:09:00.723
and let me first summarize
to you the results.

00:09:02.213 --> 00:09:03.653
This is the result.

00:09:03.653 --> 00:09:09.448
One person listening creates
two people with benefits:

00:09:09.448 --> 00:09:11.478
the listener and the speaker.

00:09:11.478 --> 00:09:13.390
Let's go into details.

00:09:13.390 --> 00:09:14.690
For example,

00:09:14.690 --> 00:09:20.552
experiments show that a poor listener
indeed creates poor speakers.

00:09:20.552 --> 00:09:24.122
My own team shows that a good listener

00:09:24.122 --> 00:09:31.215
indeed makes speakers who have
more complex attitudes and less extreme.

00:09:31.215 --> 00:09:37.741
And finally, research on training
suggests that listening could be taught.

00:09:37.741 --> 00:09:39.881
Let's see more data.


00:09:39.881 --> 00:09:42.149
There is also evidence

00:09:42.149 --> 00:09:46.855
that good listeners are also
good performers, for example:

00:09:46.855 --> 00:09:52.177
physicians who listen well 
tend to have less malpractice losses;

00:09:52.177 --> 00:09:57.891
detectives who listen well tend
to listen to new information

00:09:57.891 --> 00:10:01.252
unknown to the police, from the suspect;

00:10:01.252 --> 00:10:05.747
salespeople who listen well sell more;

00:10:06.891 --> 00:10:10.511
principals who listen to their teachers,

00:10:10.511 --> 00:10:15.471
their students have 
better grades in school;

00:10:15.471 --> 00:10:20.932
and finally, supervisors who listen,
their employees have less accidents.

00:10:20.932 --> 00:10:23.130
Let me show you even more.


00:10:23.130 --> 00:10:27.279
Let me explain
this graph of meta-analysis.

00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:33.169
On the first line you see that I found
in this collection 13 studies

00:10:33.169 --> 00:10:37.976
that are accumulating information 
of almost 8,000 people

00:10:37.976 --> 00:10:41.686
and it suggests that if you
listen to other people,

00:10:41.686 --> 00:10:45.229
especially if you are the boss,
they'll think you are a leader of people,

00:10:45.229 --> 00:10:49.876
that you know how to lead
the people aspects in leadership.

00:10:49.876 --> 00:10:51.804
You will feel more psychological safety,


00:10:51.804 --> 00:10:54.486
you'll say what is in your mind,

00:10:54.486 --> 00:10:56.376
you will trust the listener.

00:10:56.376 --> 00:10:59.584
If it's your boss, 
you have higher job satisfaction;

00:10:59.584 --> 00:11:02.808
if you're a physician,
your patient will be more satisfied;

00:11:02.808 --> 00:11:06.802
if you're a boss, your workers
will have more commitment;

00:11:06.802 --> 00:11:10.353
if you work in a hospital 
and listen to your patient,

00:11:10.353 --> 00:11:13.092
there will be less violence 
against the staff;

00:11:13.092 --> 00:11:17.784
if your manager listens to you,
you'll have less burn out,

00:11:17.784 --> 00:11:22.313
your performance is higher and 
maybe a little bit even less depression.

00:11:22.313 --> 00:11:23.698
And let me tell you

00:11:23.698 --> 00:11:26.708
that everything
to the right of the line here

00:11:26.708 --> 00:11:30.632
is considered a strong
association in my field.

00:11:30.632 --> 00:11:33.674
Let me explain what I mean
by strong association.

00:11:33.674 --> 00:11:37.057
Let's take the case
of job satisfaction as an example.

00:11:37.057 --> 00:11:41.188
If I want to predict, to focus 
on your job satisfaction

00:11:41.188 --> 00:11:44.460
and I know how much you're
being paid relative to other people,

00:11:44.460 --> 00:11:47.850
I can slightly predict
your job satisfaction.

00:11:47.850 --> 00:11:51.498
But if I know whether 
your boss listens to you or not,

00:11:51.498 --> 00:11:57.325
I have a predictor that's 13.5 [times]
stronger and more accurate than your pay.

00:11:58.885 --> 00:12:01.724
Next, in my research, in past years,

00:12:01.724 --> 00:12:05.706
I was studying the destructive
effect of feedback on performance.

00:12:05.706 --> 00:12:12.599
I found out that, out of 607 experiments,
in close to 40% of them,

00:12:12.599 --> 00:12:17.667
after feedback, whether positive 
or negative, performance goes down.

00:12:18.437 --> 00:12:20.331
In 38% in listening, in contrast,

00:12:20.331 --> 00:12:24.511
I didn't find any evidence
that listening can cause damage,

00:12:24.511 --> 00:12:28.620
perhaps 5% of them showed
it doesn't produce anything effective.

00:12:28.620 --> 00:12:31.474
My most conservative estimate

00:12:31.474 --> 00:12:38.340
is that giving feedback is 7.5 times
more dangerous than just listening.

00:12:39.241 --> 00:12:42.656
Talking could cause you trouble.

00:12:42.656 --> 00:12:47.839
So, if listening is so useful,

00:12:47.839 --> 00:12:52.429
why is it that most of us
have difficulty in listening

00:12:52.429 --> 00:12:54.079
most of the time?

00:12:54.079 --> 00:12:58.463
I want to introduce to you
the enemies of listening.

00:12:58.463 --> 00:13:05.111
These are boredom, dominance, 
fear of intimacy, trauma and cost.

00:13:05.111 --> 00:13:09.042
Let's talk about each of them, alone.

00:13:10.128 --> 00:13:14.237
My approach is: let's collaborate
with the enemies of listening

00:13:14.237 --> 00:13:16.114
rather than fight them.

00:13:16.114 --> 00:13:17.703
The first enemy is boredom.


00:13:17.703 --> 00:13:20.057
Some people may talk your ear off,

00:13:20.057 --> 00:13:22.327
and you say, "I can't listen
to this anymore."

00:13:22.327 --> 00:13:24.964
You want to leave the room
or want them to leave.

00:13:24.964 --> 00:13:27.264
What can you do?

00:13:27.264 --> 00:13:30.631
You can ask them to tell stories.

00:13:30.631 --> 00:13:32.531
Instead of asking, "What's your name?",

00:13:32.531 --> 00:13:36.114
"Could you tell me something 
interesting about your name?"

00:13:36.114 --> 00:13:38.702
You can ask these people, and in general,

00:13:38.702 --> 00:13:41.285
after they say whatever they say,

00:13:41.285 --> 00:13:44.695
"and what else", and wait.

00:13:45.845 --> 00:13:49.151
Sometimes the boring person 
will start to tell you the truth

00:13:49.151 --> 00:13:50.798
or what's really important.


00:13:50.798 --> 00:13:53.278
And it's not going to be boring anymore.

00:13:53.278 --> 00:13:57.083
Next, all of us
want to gain social status.

00:13:57.083 --> 00:14:00.555
It's perhaps an evolutionary
force that we cannot fight.

00:14:00.555 --> 00:14:03.027
But we can do it in two different ways:

00:14:03.027 --> 00:14:04.619
we can dominate other people

00:14:04.619 --> 00:14:07.619
by intimidating them
and instilling fear in them

00:14:07.619 --> 00:14:11.890
or we can have some skill that people 
want to imitate to get from us

00:14:11.890 --> 00:14:14.120
and we build prestige.

00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:16.511
And we found that if you listen,

00:14:16.511 --> 00:14:22.645
you’re going to lose 
social status based on dominance,

00:14:22.645 --> 00:14:26.676
but you will gain social status
based on prestige.

00:14:26.676 --> 00:14:31.169
So it's up to you to choose
how do you want to build your status.

00:14:31.169 --> 00:14:34.495
And then some people,
when you try to listen to them,

00:14:34.495 --> 00:14:36.135
they get nervous.

00:14:36.135 --> 00:14:39.231
You ask them questions
that are not comfortable.

00:14:39.231 --> 00:14:44.618
For those people, try to talk to them
at first only about technical things.

00:14:45.444 --> 00:14:51.353
And then, when you listen to people,
you may start to hear horrible stories,

00:14:51.353 --> 00:14:54.661
about the Holocaust, about rape,

00:14:54.661 --> 00:14:59.261
about cancer, death, premature death.

00:14:59.261 --> 00:15:04.864
You may feel burdened that now you need
to help the person who shared the story,

00:15:04.864 --> 00:15:07.378
but you should know that often

00:15:07.378 --> 00:15:12.438
what the other person wants
is nothing but your listening.

00:15:12.438 --> 00:15:17.635
If you listen and believe it is helpful,
you will not have such burden.

00:15:17.635 --> 00:15:22.820
And last, listening is a cost,
it's an effort.

00:15:22.820 --> 00:15:24.682
So that's what I suggest to you:

00:15:24.682 --> 00:15:27.582
spread your eggs, don't start
right now to listen to everyone,

00:15:27.582 --> 00:15:28.989
it's impossible.

00:15:28.989 --> 00:15:33.476
Every day choose one, two people
to listen to just a little bit more.

00:15:33.476 --> 00:15:39.046
Then, you should respect your limitation
of how much you really can listen to.

00:15:39.046 --> 00:15:41.238
And to build your energy to do that,

00:15:41.238 --> 00:15:45.188
you will need somebody
to listen to you as well.

00:15:49.628 --> 00:15:52.768
Actually, everything that
I have said is not that new.

00:15:52.768 --> 00:15:56.757
Let me show you what is written 
in the Book of Proverbs in the Bible:

00:15:57.719 --> 00:16:03.105
"Counsel in the heart 
of man is like deep water,

00:16:03.105 --> 00:16:07.686
but a man of understanding
will draw it out."

00:16:07.686 --> 00:16:12.593
That is, each of us
have an advice, a counsel,

00:16:12.593 --> 00:16:14.843
to our own problems and challenges

00:16:14.843 --> 00:16:19.289
and the value of this advice

00:16:19.289 --> 00:16:22.729
is like water which is a source of life.

00:16:22.729 --> 00:16:26.362
That is, the advice that we have
for ourselves is a source of life.

00:16:26.362 --> 00:16:32.405
But a man or a prisioner
of understanding will throw it out.

00:16:32.405 --> 00:16:37.207
This is the other that will bring
our own wisdom outside.

00:16:37.207 --> 00:16:41.520
So, I'd like to conclude
with two dreams that I have.

00:16:41.520 --> 00:16:45.887
One, I wish that in 20 
or 30 years from now

00:16:45.887 --> 00:16:51.834
every child in every school
will learn reading, writing,

00:16:51.834 --> 00:16:54.624
and listening.

00:16:54.624 --> 00:16:56.473
And my other small wish

00:16:56.473 --> 00:17:01.182
is that, during the break,
the breaks here today and tomorrow,

00:17:01.182 --> 00:17:03.846
you will go and ask somebody around you,

00:17:03.846 --> 00:17:07.306
"Could you tell me
a story about good listening?"

00:17:07.306 --> 00:17:08.873
Enjoy it.

00:17:08.873 --> 00:17:11.865
(Applause)