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About this lesson
Attending a meeting or speech isn't enough; sit up front or in clear view of the speaker so you can listen best - and show respect.
- 00:04 Let's stack the deck even further to your advantage.
- 00:08 There's a clear cut hierarchy of physical environments
- 00:12 that are more conducive to good listening, and less conducive.
- 00:17 The best is always going to be one-on-one in the same room,
- 00:21 two people sitting down, no desk, no table,
- 00:25 nothing in between them, and they can just look at each other.
- 00:29 And you can really look and listen to that person.
- 00:32 That's always going to be the best situation.
- 00:35 The next best, a group people, you perhaps have a boss,
- 00:39 a colleague, an associate, speaking.
- 00:42 Other people are the room, but you can clearly see the person,
- 00:47 hear the person, they're not a lot of other things distracting.
- 00:53 Then, it starts going down quickly.
- 00:55 I would put a Skype video, a Zoom, a live webinar where you
- 01:00 can actually see someone's face as the next best thing.
- 01:05 Certainly, you heard of just a telephone call.
- 01:07 Then, there's a telephone call.
- 01:09 Last on the list is probably an email, or for millennials,
- 01:13 a voicemail since young people don't like to listen to voicemail.
- 01:18 So, always try to do everything you can to increase your odds.
- 01:23 Here's one technique I do.
- 01:24 You're going to call this nerdy and weird, but
- 01:28 anytime I have to go to a meeting, a conference where there is a speaker,
- 01:35 a presenter, I try to go sit on the front row.
- 01:39 Typically, unless you're at a Rock concert,
- 01:42 the front row is the last place most people sit.
- 01:46 They're expecting the speaker to be boring, so they want to sit in the back
- 01:50 row, so they can multitask, and check email, and leave early.
- 01:54 If you really want to listen, and
- 01:57 show the person who's speaking ultimate respect, sit on the front row.
- 02:03 This way, you're not tempted to pull out your cell phone because the person is
- 02:08 standing right there, and they can see you being rude.
- 02:11 Now, I admit I'm one of the worst when it comes to being at a conference or
- 02:16 speaker, I don't deem it critically important to my business and
- 02:20 I'm pulling out my cell phone.
- 02:22 So, I want to offer you full disclosure, I'm guilty of this too.
- 02:27 But when you are in a room where your own boss is speaking, your own client,
- 02:32 someone influential to your career, don't do that.
- 02:35 I certainly don't do that when I'm meeting with a client, or a customer, or
- 02:39 a prospect.
- 02:40 Now, let's turn the tables a little.
- 02:44 You're the one speaking and you want people to listen to you,
- 02:48 get rid of the tables.
- 02:50 Take that table, throw it away.
- 02:52 Most of what I do in my day job is I fly all over the world, and I conduct public
- 02:56 speaking, communication skills, and media training workshops for groups of people,
- 03:02 executives, business leaders, government leaders, all over the world.
- 03:07 Invariably, I'm taken to a training room, and
- 03:10 there are tables and things are set up in rows.
- 03:13 First thing I do, I get rid of all the tables.
- 03:17 I arrange the room so that everyone has a front row seat.
- 03:22 Even if they're 50 people, it's a gigantic semicircle.
- 03:26 What does this do?
- 03:28 It forces people to kind of have a front row seat.
- 03:33 It's easier for them to pay attention and to listen to me.
- 03:37 And it's so much harder to be distracted by pulling out their cell phones,
- 03:42 because they know I can see them.
- 03:44 I can see them.
- 03:45 I'm likely to walk over, not be rude and take it out of their hand, but
- 03:50 ask them a question, connect with them to try to get their attention back.
- 03:56 So that's something you can do if you're trying to increase your odds of people
- 04:00 listening to you.
- 04:01 But, again, when you're just listening to someone,
- 04:05 try to get the best seat in the room.
- 04:07 And that's typically the one nobody else wants right in the middle, in the front.
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