In this episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Tim Hast, Author of "Powerful Listening Powerful Influence" and executive coach. Tim discusses why listening is important and some ways to improve our ability to listen.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Matt Yehling, Directory of Claims at Midwest Employers Casualty.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
In this episode, ADJUSTED welcomes Tim Hast, Author of "Powerful Listening Powerful Influence" and executive coach. Tim discusses why listening is important and some ways to improve our ability to listen.
Season 5 is brought to you by Berkley Industrial Comp. This episode is hosted by Greg Hamlin and guest co-host Matt Yehling, Directory of Claims at Midwest Employers Casualty.
Visit the Berkley Industrial Comp blog for more!
Got questions? Send them to marketing@berkindcomp.com
For music inquiries, contact Cameron Runyan at camrunyan9@gmail.com
Hello, everybody and welcome to adjusted. I'm your host Greg Hanlon coming at you from beautiful Birmingham, Alabama, where Spring has arrived, and the sunshine is out. And with me is my co host for the day Matt yelling. Matt, you want to introduce yourself and say hello to everybody.
Matthew Yehling:Hello, everyone. This is Matthew Yaling, joining you from St. Louis, Missouri along the banks of the mighty Mississippi. Welcome.
Greg Hamlin:Always glad to have you back, Matt. Thank you. Well, I am super excited about our guest today. With us today is Tim Haast. And he is an executive coach and author of a book called powerful listening powerful influence. And I first ran into his book a number of years ago, and had always wanted to do an episode with him. And I thought, well, if I could figure out how to get ahold of him, maybe he'd say yes. And so here he is. So Tim, if you could say hello to everybody, and maybe introduce yourself a little better than I did.
Tim Hast:Well, thank you, Greg. I'm Tim hesed. And I am as they say, I'm glad to be here at my gym. Glad to be anywhere. But welcome to you guys to my neck of the woods. Since we're since I'm seeing you from Oklahoma today. That's where we're at. It's rainy and turning spraying. And I've got tomatoes planet. And I'm looking forward to about the middle of July when the tomatoes are nice and ripe. So that's where I am today.
Greg Hamlin:You're making me feel guilty. I haven't gotten to my garden yet. It's still got a bunch of grass in it that I need to turn over. So I need to get to get on that this weekend. Well, Tim, I wanted to start little bit by just understanding how you got into the coaching industry. I know, obviously, I've read your book. So I'm just curious what brought you down the path of one deciding to write a book on listening? And then maybe how did you end up in the industry you're in, I'm sure when you were a kid, you thought to yourself, This is what I'm going to do.
Tim Hast:When I grew up, I want to be a consultant. Well, I started out Greg, I started out as a counselor, I'm a therapist, I worked with couples, and I worked with Angry Men. And then the myrrh building bombing happened back in April of ninth and April 19 in 1995. And at that time, I knew the chaplain for the Oklahoma City Fire Department. And he said I'd like to send some of my first responders at, you know, it was months later. And the first responders worked in the rubble for about four weeks after the bombing. And this Chaplain said, I need to send you some of my people. And so I started working with first responders and DISA and just realized that I really loved helping them. But there's a problem when you're working with trauma, I noticed that as satisfying as it can be to work with people that are hurting, I found that my own bucket was getting a little too full of trauma, you hear stories over and over. And we call it secondary trauma when you're listening to people, people's stories. So that began to kind of create a change in me. And during that time, I noticed about a third of my clients were really depressed. And about a third of my clients were trauma victims. But about a third of my clients were people that just didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up. And they were they would be asking me, you know, helped me kind of figure out my direction. And, you know, I discovered that I really loved I loved working with all three of my my different sets of clients. But those clients that I was helping them with their career, I just found that I had a really propensity for that. And, and it was a way to not focus quite so much on trauma. So I'm focused on these people that are wanting to be better in their career. And I discovered they have a name for that. Imagine this, they call it Life coaching. And I thought well, that's pretty smart. That's pretty cool. So I begin to make the transition from psychologist or psychotherapist to executive coach, actually keep my counselling lives current my counseling lives since say that fast 23 times. I tried to keep my license current and up to date, but mainly I coach and I train. And I started enjoying successes as a coach. The more I coach, the more people will say we'll come talk to our group, you helped me so help our group. So I remember the first time I got up and stood in front of a bunch of people and got to talk. And I realized this is really fun. I'm one of those really sick people that instead of being afraid of getting up in front of people and talking, I love it. So that's kind of what has led me to where I am right now. I do executive coaching and I do training and I go in and analyze systems I don't mean operational systems, but people systems and and really my vision is I go into the workplace and help people get along and share their toys. So that's where I am and that's what got me here. That's awesome.
Greg Hamlin:Well, I mentioned this as we were starting up, Tim that about I think it's probably been seven or eight years ago, I did a 360 review. And for those who don't know what those are, they're it's a really a window into how others perceive you. So you have your, your boss evaluates you, your peers, and your direct reports. And so I managed a very large department at the time of about 60 people. So that that was a lot of feedback to receive, and it was scrubbed down. And I had done this years before and got quite a bit of positive feedback, but probably not as much constructive feedback as I could have hoped for. And one of the things that really stood out as I went through that was one of the comments was the sub several different people didn't feel like they were heard. And that was really surprising to me. Because I always felt like I was a really good communicator, and the person leading the 360, probably could have done some things different. But she's like, well, what would your wife say if you talk to her about it? And I was like, I don't know, ask her if she's never said her. And she goes, she actually was like, Well, I think you you do a good job. And I was thinking, Well, I must be missing something. Because people are perceiving me this way, or some people are. And so I bought a book on listening, hated it. Whoever the author was, I don't remember what the book was, but it felt very condescending. So I just couldn't connect. And then I picked your book up and read it. And I started doing some of those exercises, some of the things we'll talk about today. And it was like, a switch were on. And I've really felt like it's impacted my relationships with my kids, my family, my work. So I felt like there was a lot to talk about, and really would say, like, I've I've got a whole pile of books here. But of all the books I've read, that was one of the most meaningful so I'm really excited about this topic of listening for you, Tim, why do you feel like listening is important?
Tim Hast:I'm gonna answer that I'm gonna go around the block the long way around the block to so that the answer that I come up with is really tied to my experience working with couples, and also working with people that were responding to the bombing. In both of those situations, people are hurting. And in that moment, life really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. We learned from the bombing and, and also working in other disasters, that the most powerful tool for helping people move beyond trauma is to have another human being take the time to really listen, listen without giving advice. And in doing that, you know, as a therapist, we're trained to listen. But I begin to realize if I can teach my clients to listen to each other, they would need me so much if I could teach them to really hear each other in that moment when someone says something to you. And the last thing you want to do is listen, the first thing you want to smack him upside the head and say, Stop doing that. But if I could catch myself and remind myself, they're hurting, and they need to be, and they need to be heard or hurting and heard, if I remind myself that suddenly listening takes on a whole new dimension. So the wire the rationale behind the importance of listening, is that it should number one tool in your toolkit. When I begin to make that transition into coaching people in leadership, people would come to me like Greg, who had just taken a 360. And often the 360 was say, he doesn't listen, she doesn't listen. And so the team would be really ticked off of their boss, because they would, they would, they would say, you know, I tell my boss things, and he really does. I'm not just using guys, because it is not gender specific. But the complaint was, I'm having a problem with my team. And after they would take 360, they would realize the problem really was that the person at the top was not listening. And I realized that in there that if I'm going to help people be better, the first tool in their toolkit has got to be the tool of listening more effectively.
Matthew Yehling:It's kind of like, when I take my dog to training, I find out that I'm not really training the dog, I'm training the teacher, right?
Tim Hast:That is so true.
Matthew Yehling:In your, in your book, you actually outline four reasons why people tend to be poor listeners, maybe as we launched this podcast you could walk through and those four reasons.
Tim Hast:Well, one of the reasons why people are poor listeners is, first of all, and we're going to come back to this later, I'm sure is we make it all about us. The world revolves around us. And if the world revolves around me, why in the world would I want to listen to you, Matthew? So that's one reason. Another reason is when we're physically tired, when we just want when it's the end of the day, and I'm worn out, you know, even though I wrote a book on listening, I'm just as human as anybody else. And I have to remind myself to abide by my own rules. So reminding myself, hey, you know, you might not be a good listener right now. Or when I've got a lot of stuff going on when I'm in the office and two things are happening at once. Or when I'm thinking that I know what the person and where they're going, what they're saying and where they're going with that, that line of thought, and I go in one direction, and they go in another direction, I'm adding to my reasons. And we will probably come back to this and talk about this more, there's a word and the word is halt. And the halt, halt stands for when I'm hungry, when I'm angry, when I'm lonely. And when I'm tired, when one of those four conditions exist, it makes it really hard to listen, when all I can think about is having a Big Mac, then my ability to listen is severely impaired. If I am ticked off, if I've been driving down the interstate, and someone pulls in front of me and throws in the brakes, and I'm, I'm in a state of anger, then I'm not going to be a very good listener, if I feel disconnected, or lonely, and I don't mean lonely, like who I want to be married, I mean, lonely, like, I haven't been around the people that bring me joy that that encouraged me, then I have a propensity to not really want to focus on people, or when I'm simply tired. I can't tell you how many times this is a therapist, couples would come in and sit and say, Oh, we had this terrible fight the other night, and it was terrible. And, and we said all kinds of awful things to each other. And they said, and then we went to bed and the next day, we got up and we thought what will we argued about last night, and I would look at them and say you are simply tired, you're suffering from halt, Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. So there are many external variants that keep us from listening. But I think the biggest one, and we're going to come back to this is that we tend to make the world all about us. In just a little bit, I'm gonna give you four things that will help you be a better listener. And we'll revisit those things.
Greg Hamlin:I think that's really powerful. Some of the things you're mentioning there. And I think probably that one comment you just said is the hardest to come to terms with that we actually are thinking about ourselves a lot. And it's a hard thing to hear. Because you think well, I care about all these people. But one of the things I've learned through my own experience, and through some of the exercises was just that hearing somebody and having them feel heard are different things. So I might feel I took in the information. But if you don't feel that I took in the information, because you don't feel heard. It doesn't matter. And I can remember, I've got six kids. So I'm in the teenager zone. Yeah, I got 18. One, right. My 18 year old when she was about 1617. So not that long ago, we were having a discussion about kind of where she wanted to go with her life. And I was just really trying to use my listening skills and not my dad lecture skills. As she was talking, I said, so what I'm hearing you say is I feel you're feel really frustrated that what I want for you and what you want for yourself are different things. And she goes, Yes. And then when she said that, I was like, You know what she feels heard as the indicator right there. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many times I've had some since I practiced it. I'm not perfect at it. But when you get that response, whether it's from an external
Tim Hast:response, when they go yes, when you hear the sigh in their voice that you know, you connected, you know, you hit a homerun,
Greg Hamlin:right. And it's so easy to be thinking about what you want to say next, instead of just taking the time to slow down and make sure you understand them and that they feel understood. And I think that's the biggest thing I've had to keep working on. As I'm so busy. I've got six kids and I got this job going 1000 miles a minute. Yes, slowing down. It's hard.
Tim Hast:I'm still stuck on you having six kids. That's crazy. 18. That's amazing.
Greg Hamlin:That's a crazy world we live in. But talk to us a little bit more about the difference between hearing and listening. I talked a little bit about my experiences, but maybe some of the things you've seen.
Tim Hast:Sure. Well hearing is the psychological process of attending to the sound in one's environment. I hear frogs, I hear birds, I hear the wind blow listening. And some people might say well, you're making a distinction that's really not there. But for me listening is focused, it's concentrated, it's an approach to understanding the meaning of the message that the person is sending. We think in pictures, not words, I'm taking the picture in my head, and I'm converting it towards so that I can beam it across space in your head where you convert it back to pictures. And until the picture that is in my head is in your head, the transaction is not taking place. So as a listener, I'm trying to do my best to hear what is that that person is picturing in their head and recreate that picture in my head.
Matthew Yehling:Right and my shift gears on you a little bit I know so in the work comp industry, you know we deal with trauma everyday too. And I think you know why we brought you on and why we wanted to talk to you about this is like for the industry and for 10 prove our own careers and In the careers of our staff, right, it's, you know, we have to be all be better listeners. And before we started, I talked to you a little bit about, you know, that we're going through a big innovation push and innovation is important. And you know, I applaud you because you know, reflective listening was one of the key phrases in your book that I picked up on, and we are taught how to speak clearly. And we're not going to hear the hums and ahhs that I'm saying in this conversation, because Jacobs gonna edit all that out. But, you know, we take speech classes, we take those in high school, we take them in college, but there's no listening classes. So why do you think there's more focus on the skill of speaking, and no emphasis on listening?
Tim Hast:Well, I think it's real simple, it's a lot sexier to get up in front of people and talk and make it all about me than it is to be quiet and focus on the other person, I really think that we can see the line between the action and the results, the line of connection between I'm going to get up, stand up in front of people and speak and communicate, and success, we can see that direct line, it's a lot easier to see that line. But when we take the time to listen, the dividends are not quite so apparent in the moment. Sometimes they are when you speak to your daughter, and you're when your daughter's speaking to you and you finally hear her and she goes, yeah, that is that direct connection between what I'm doing and the dividend, the payoff from that. But often we don't see that payoff. And I just think that it's a lot, it sounds a lot more exciting to talk about being a better communicator, when the truth is, and I'm gonna preach here. But the truth is, if I learn how to listen to Matthew, If I learn how to truly hear you, that I have a wonderful roadmap that teaches me how to communicate more effectively, because if I know what it takes to make you feel heard, and I have the roadmap to effective communication as well, that's wonderful.
Matthew Yehling:In your book, you also referenced that, you know, even as a psychologist, you took one semester of listening, right? And then even in that class, you mentioned that the focus was on how to respond to people wasn't even like listening to them. Is that changed? Are we you know, like, how is that possible? It's, you know, it seems almost common sense. But, you know, you're, you're the expert on this. Yeah. So
Tim Hast:I will, I'm not the expert on why people do what they do that there's still a big mystery to me as well. But I simply think that it's just not as glamorous to talk about, I'm going to sit down and be quiet and listen to people as opposed to, I'm going to get up in front of people and communicate and influence the minds of millions. I know that that's, that's a reductionist approach. I think that's kind of big, using really bold lines to describe something that it's a lot more nuanced than that. But I think the bottom line is that we put a lot more emphasis on what comes out of our mouth and what goes in our ears who somebody write that down. That was good. I don't know where that came from.
Greg Hamlin:I agree. And I, you know, I think one of the things that I've learned is that, to be a good communicator, if you want to make real meaningful change, you need trust. And trust only comes from showing respect and understanding. So whether that's in your family or on your team, or wherever you're working with, it's a really important key. I when I started doing my own self reflection, I realized one of my blockers was, I'm so busy, and I have so many things on my list that I want to go 100 miles an hour. And I've had to learn to slow myself down. When people come on my office, I turned my phone upside down, I locked my computer, I slide away a Cray from my monitors, so that they could see I am fully present for you right now. And I'm not even going to let those other things distract me, even though I know how busy I am. So that was one of the things I worked on. But I know there are other things that create that make us bad listeners. Tim, what are some of the other things out there that you feel like are blockers that cause us to be bad listeners?
Tim Hast:Well, I want to mention something. One of the things I do is I do personality assessments and I do team assessments so that everybody on the team understands each other, and people that are very extroverted and very fast paced, that's, that's one personality style. All the personality styles are good, there's not a bad one. But because of that nature of being really, really forward thinking and getting the job done. They're like Larry, the cable guy, you know, get her done. And it's like, let's get this done. And that becomes the enemy of listening because listening requires that I for a moment, or for a few moments or for a few minutes. I disabled that need to move on to the next thing and simply be present in the moment. That's wonderful. So when I revise the book, I'm gonna go a lot more into situational that what your personality style is. There are some things about the way you listen and The way you want to be heard that really impact these different styles as well. But that's for another book.
Greg Hamlin:But we've as a company, I know we've looked, we've done exercises in both disc and Strength Finders, and both of those have been really eye opening just to kind of see where your blind spots are and where your superpowers are, and really get an idea of what okay, this is where we meet. And my president who's now about to retire. He on the disk is opposite of me. And one of the things I learned through that is that he likes to have all the information I have time to process it before he makes a decision. So I will send I would send him an email, explain all the details about why I might want to go down a path and I said, and then I'll I would tell him, I'd like to meet him three days after you've had time to think about this. And he'd say, Greg, you know me so well, I really appreciate that. I need that. So I think there is something to that we we process information differently.
Tim Hast:We do we do. And I'm glad you all use the disc because it makes my visual, it makes sense to me. So good. Very good.
Greg Hamlin:So what are some of the filters that impact our listening, we talked a little bit about that, in your book, we talked
Tim Hast:about halt when I'm Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. Sometimes insecurity, if I feel like you're attacking me in and you might do something that has nothing to do with me, but if I feel attacked, then I begin to leave the prefrontal the logical part of my brain and I begin to move down into the part of the brain or fight or flight lives. And when I'm down there, I get defensive. By the way, when I'm down there, I have the problem solving capabilities of a four year old. And as you who have have a one year old, you've been through this five times before, when they get to be about four, when they get into conflict, they don't handle very well. And that's where we go when we get defensive and get insecure, we begin to move down into that part of the brain that is not equipped to listen, it doesn't want to listen, it just wants to go to battle and kill and maim and, and destroyed. So insecurity. Another filter is really, I'm gonna get trouble for saying this, but it's more gender specific. Men tend to have a lot more this DNA in their their bloodstream than females in my experience. And it's that need to fix things. When my wife comes in from work and I hear that she's had a bad day, I can tell because I can hear it in her voice. And I know better I wrote a book on it and and I tell people don't do this. And I find myself doing it. What is it? I try to fix her? Now? Oh, honey, don't feel that way. It's gonna be okay. And I have to remind myself, Tim, you idiot. You wrote a book on this, you're supposed to listen and go there with them. And then after they'd been heard, say you would? Are you just wanting to vent? Or do you need me to kind of brainstorm with you a solution on this. So fixing things. And then physical distractions, I came up with a new word Spitz, beware of spirits, physical distractions, which are spirits, which are shiny, pretty inconsequential things. Because those things that distract me I am add on the disk, I'm a real high I and I think we invented add, and I get distracted by stuff. So when I meet someone for lunch at Panera Bread or something, I always try to get there early and sit where I'm facing the wall. So we'll be distracted by stuff in the background. So those are some of the things that distract us. And again, if I'm thinking about a hamburger, I'm really not gonna be thinking about you. So when I'm hungry, angry, lonely and tired.
Matthew Yehling:So I know we talked about some of these things a little bit already. But what is our listening tests? I think that's the acronym you use in the book. And yes, we fit some of the ar e already. But what is what? What's that mean?
Tim Hast:Well, let me give you something before I tell you that when I wrote the book, they say that necessity is the mother of invention. And I had executives that were sent to me that had just taken 360s. And the 360 said, he doesn't listen, she doesn't listen. And I thought, I've got to have some kind of system, where I can give them something on a postcard, something so simple, that they can walk out of my office and immediately implement it. Because if you get people, reams and reams and reams of stuff to do, it's going to sit in a desk drawer, and they're not going to learn it, they're not going to do it. They're not going to implement it. So I thought I've got to have some kind of a system to remind them to listen. So I thought, Oh, are you listening? Okay? Are a that's active listening. And when we engage in deep, powerful listening, it is a very active thing. It's not passive. I am moving towards the person. I am trying to picture everything that I'm trying to visualize what they're saying. I'm testing. So you're saying are so you're feeling are are so that really bothered you? And they might say no, it didn't bother me just made me mad. And so I'm stuck. going out and taking a risk. So there's the active part, the reflective part is simply, in really good listening, we become a mirror. So Greg is talking to his daughter, and she says, You know, I'm really, really upset by this, that you know, this thing that you're doing. In fact, Greg, remind me what it was that she was saying she
Greg Hamlin:she said something along the lines of, I feel like what you want for my future, and what I want for my future are different things.
Tim Hast:You feel like I'm trying to co opt your future. Yeah, I feel like I'm trying to tell you what to do. Yeah, I feel like you feel like I'm the boss of you. That is reflective. I'm going I'm reflecting not what exactly what they're saying. But I'm reflecting the essence of what they're feeling. When a human being has someone else reflect what they're feeling, it connects at a deep level. And that's where you get the Yeah, so this hurt in parentheses there saying, Somebody actually hurt me for the first time. So that's the real reflective part. And the empathic part is, where you feel where you Ooh, you know, someone's walking down the street, and they fall down and hurt themselves. And when you don't, you don't get injured, but you see them fall and go, Oh, that hurts. There was an old commercial of animal Snickers. Commercial. And there's an it's Betty White, that guy turns into Betty White, and there's the some old guy that's also in the commercial, and they and they knock him down and he goes, ooh, that hurts. And, you know, empathy is, it's feeling a little bit of what someone's feeling it's, it's going there, I will always be a short, bald white guy, I'll never know what it feels like to be a female, or a person of color, or someone really tall, because I'm sure I'll never understand those things. But I can try, I can try to put myself in their skin in their shoes, and ask myself, if I were going through that experience, what would I feel. So that's why listening is hard. Because I'm active, I'm engaging in the process. I'm really listening to everything so that I can catch the emotion reflected back. And I'm trying to allow myself to feel imagine what it would feel like to be that person.
Matthew Yehling:I've got a basically not taking your class, but I can assume that it's going to be like halt.
Greg Hamlin:Ya know what, just to finish that story to end with my daughter, after she said that, and we had that discussion, then I slowed down and I said, You know what, I think I can understand where you're coming from, because I know my mom wanted certain things for me that I didn't want. And that was frustrating. And you know what, you then we just talked about it for a while I said, you know, you're awesome. And you're gonna do some things I'm not gonna want to do and it's gonna be okay. Because you've got your own path, you're gonna have to walk. And as we talk through it, I think like it was watching what happened from her junior year to her senior year was so cool, because she kind of found her own path. And now she's getting ready to go to college at University of Alabama with a with a full ride. And I couldn't be more proud. Yeah, and it's her path. But it takes letting go some and in trying to put ourselves in the other person's shoes to understand, well, what are they feeling? Where are they at?
Tim Hast:That must have felt really good to be in that moment, where instead of her being an adversary that she was drawing from your, your connection with her. And it
Greg Hamlin:took probably half an hour, the first 20 minutes were a lot of her just being upset. So yeah, that's the other key when you're listening as sometimes it takes a while to get to that good spot, it doesn't come right away. And you have to do a lot of listening,
Tim Hast:that connects with what you do. You're listening to people that are distressed. And even if your job is to fix them, you can't get to fixing them until you hear them. I was in Birmingham, I just had one of the there's a downtown, there's a place in downtown Birmingham that has the best hamburger in the world. It's a gourmet hamburger place. And we're flying home and I'm in the Birmingham Airport. And I'm talk to the ticket agent at Delta. And I said, Hey, I'm doing some research on customer service satisfaction. I said, What do you do when customers are really upset? And she said, we're trained to listen to them. She said when they're really upset, they don't know what they want. And so we just, we get them to talk and we listen to them. And after they calm down, then we say, What can I do for you? And she says sometimes they'll stop off mad, but she said, it's amazing how many times if the plane doesn't leave, right, then they'll come back a few minutes later and say, I'm so sorry for treating you that way. And then they'll ask for help. But delta is training their people to understand that in the moment when the customer is upset, you can't fix them. The one thing that you can do for them is listen to them and that begins to disarm that that angst that they're suffering in the moment. Great points. Yeah.
Matthew Yehling:I mean, there's a there's the old nursery rhyme I don't know if you've heard this one. There was an old owl that lived in an oak The more you heard, the less he spoke, the less he spoke, the more he heard, oh, this man, we're all like that wise bird.
Tim Hast:You need to write that down and email me that because I love it when I, when we do the Edit, we're going to want to do a second addition that's a little more scientific and, and that would be a good addition to the next version. So
Greg Hamlin:we've talked a lot about empathy and the reflecting piece of it. And we talked about where empathy fits into that. Why do you think sometimes we forget that last piece to trying to put ourselves in other people's shoes, or what keeps us from getting there?
Tim Hast:Sometimes, and this is this is not a planned answer. This is just off the cuff of my my shirt. Sometimes I think the level of intimacy that it requires to enter into someone else's pain is, is unbearable in the human experience. Sometimes we just last night, I was worn out, I had been I worked all day. And I went to I'ma say, I'm an elder on session at our church. I went to a session meeting, and I got home. And I just put on my pajamas. And I climbed in bed. And I told my wife, I said, I suck as a listener tonight. I just didn't, I thought, I'm doing this podcast tomorrow. And I'm supposed to be the epitome of good listening. And here I am. I can't even listen to my wife. But I was just worn out. And how did I get there? I got distracted. What was the question? Now? I thought that I think you're listening?
Greg Hamlin:No, I think you're spot on on that on why we forget to have empathy. Sometimes we just get worn out and we just get
Tim Hast:worn out. And so at some point, we have to say I'm human. And I'm going to do better next time. Yeah, I'm going to do better next time.
Greg Hamlin:I think, you know, one of the things you had in your book was doing a listening exercise where you kind of rate yourself after every conversation, how did I do on these and I did that for a week, while I was reading it rating myself after different conversations. And that's I think that helped me see some of the areas where I'm like, you know, I could have done better, I should have, I should have moved away from my monitors, or I should have locked my computer, I should have turned my phone over. I didn't take the time I rushed them out the door because I heard what they said. And then I don't know if Matt, you've ever had this where someone comes into your office, and they start talking to you, and you got what you needed from them and like the first minute or two, but they're still there, and they talk for a really long time and you're thinking about nine or other things you got to do. It's hard to slow down and just be like, You know what, I need to be present in this moment. Yeah, yeah.
Matthew Yehling:Yeah, my technique is I stand up and walk out of the office with them that they've tried out the past probably shouldn't know that on the podcast. You know, Tim, what are what are some of the exercises or techniques, you know, for, for us, but for the industry as well the and to help be better listeners to practice listening better to be get to do the our, I guess.
Tim Hast:So what is the politician say? He says, I'm so glad you asked that question. So I'm so glad you asked that question. Because my issue with executives, remember, I'm an executive coach. And I saw this number one deficit was that was across the board was the inability to really listen. And I thought I could have come up with something that they can remember. So I came up with four things. And here they are. And I tell people write these down on a card, I've got a little business card, I've got these printed on the card, and I tell people carry the card around. And every time you have a conversation, remind yourself to do these four things. And if I were drawn a little stick figure, I would point at the foot and I would say listen patiently, because when we're impatient, we tap our foot. And then I would put another arrow at the little guy's body and I would say listen with your body. And then I would put an arrow at his throat. And I would say listen with your voice. And I would put a final arrow at his head and say listen with your mind. Let's go deep, shall we? Let's talk about the first one. Listen patiently. All of us suffer from a disorder that happens at birth. When you're a week old, and Greg has a lot of experience with a baby is a week old and they're hungry. What do they do? They cry, they cry and what happens?
Greg Hamlin:You can't feed them.
Tim Hast:These giant hands appear out of nowhere and they pick the baby up and they they feed it and when a baby is a week old and he or she is poopy giant hands appear out of nowhere and they take they clean the little baby up and they wrap it up. And when uh you know when a baby's a week old and they're sleeping, those giant hands show up. All the baby has to do is cry and these giant hands show up. And when you're a week old the entire world revolves around you, all you have to do is make noise. And all of your, all of your deepest needs are met. And the problem is, we get to be 18, or 28, or 38, or 58, or 68. And we never get away from the notion that the world revolves around me. Now asked this question earlier, why in the world would I ever think about listening to you, if the world revolves around me? I think about that. And so we tend to make when someone's talking to me, I tend to be in a hurry, come on, get here, hurry up to say what you're going to say. So I get on down the road. Or as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, Well, I know the answer that question, if you shut up, I can tell you and we get this thing fixed and get on down the road. So we tend to listen and patiently listening and patiently is listening and forming a judgment. Before we've heard the whole story. Listening and patiently is figuring out a rebuttal. In our mind, if people could read our mind, while they're talking, we would be in a world of hurt, we would be in big trouble thinking about the golf game, or what we're gonna do tomorrow, or I'm getting on a plane on Thursday, we're all thinking about something else. So listening patiently, is turning the volume down on all that, and taking my foot off of the accelerator of life, and slowing down and walking down the road of life with that person, it doesn't mean we have to do that for three hours, sometimes three minutes of patient listening means the world to the other person. So the first thing I tell people to do, is listen patiently. And when someone begins to talk to you, catch yourself in that moment and say, I'm going to let go, I'm going to set my agenda aside, I'm going to go with this person where they need to go. The second thing I tell people is listen with your body. You see, in communication theory, when we're really really upset when we're in fight or flight. Only about 7% of our listening, or our of our speaking is words, then 30% of our speaking, or our communication, when we're really upset is the inflection of the words, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, every one of those, those is the same word, but they mean something completely different. So 30% of the communication is inflection. And then a whopping 55% of our, of our length of our communication when we're really upset, just when we're really upset, is our body language. So 738 55 7% words 38%. inflection, and a whopping 55% is body language. That's how I communicate when I'm really upset. Well, I've turned that around and assume that, that for us, when I'm trying to listen to a person that's upset that I need to do a lot more pay a lot more attention to mind body language. So if they're standing, I stand if they're sitting, I sit, I want to sit at a 45 degree angle so that my shoulders are not squared, I want to drop my hands on it, my hands are cross, I want to cross my hands. If my legs are cross, I want to cross my legs and lean into the conversation, I want to keep within the four COVID-19 We said said four feet, don't get closer than four feet don't get too much farther away than four feet is kind of a magic area. And so I want to be conscious of what my body is saying. The bottom line is we want our body to say two things when we're listening. The two things we want the buyer to say is, I'm open to what you have to say. And you're safe with me again, and you're working with customers over the phone, they can't see your body. So that requires that you do those other the other three a lot more. But even when I'm listening and they can't see my body, right now, with you guys, I'm leaning into my microphone, because when I assume a posture of openness, research indicates that I actually hear about 20% more. So I tried to even when people can't see my body, I still try to hold my my arms and in an open stance and open my body up because I'm wanting to communicate to things that you're safe. And I'm open to what you have to say. The third thing I tell people to do is listen with your voice. And if you've gone to reflective listening or some kind of class on communication, we all know active listening. But the problem is we teach people I think I'm hearing so I think you're saying so it sounds to me like and those are all good. Those are good places to start. But I want you to get so good at listening that you say that really bothers you. You're really excited. You're really upset that I where you're not saying I think I hear because they know you hear you just just make it short, make it sweet, toward they don't even realize that you're you're reflecting human beings when you begin to reflect and really hear them. They're not even aware of what you're doing. They're just feeling this sense of someone. They're not even articulating that If someone is hearing me, they're just sensing a freedom and a relief and, and a satisfaction in the fact that they're heard, and they're not even thinking, Oh, he's hearing me. So listening with your voice is something that we tend to make more of it than it really is. When you guys leave this podcast, when you walk out the door, and you have a conversation with someone, just as soon as you get done from the podcast, remind yourself to listen with your voice listening with your voice is listening and restating a little bit of what you hear the person say, you're really excited. You're having a good time. You're thinking about that hamburger in Birmingham. It really wasn't good hammer. That's kind of the theme today. That's the third time I've said hammer. It's like, why are you making me hungry? craving a hamburger?
Greg Hamlin:That's great. And I think the reflective part is really important. And I love what you said about your body in that. We think that while we're on the phone, people can't see us. It won't, it won't matter. And it really does. I noticed. So before I got into claims when I was still in college, I was doing nonprofit fundraising for the university, raising scholarships for students. And I noticed on the days that I was struggling, like I was really struggling to connect with people. If I just pushed my chair back and stood up, engage more with my body, I got better results. And so there was something about just it turned on some things in my head, I guess or my my voice, you could hear that I had more energy, that I was more connected and that I was more engaged. So I really do think there's something to what you say about even if you can't be next to somebody, still how you Hi, how you sit where you are, it matters.
Tim Hast:What a great discovery you just winked out on me. I'll make sure making sure that I still have audio. We're here. Yeah, good, good, good, because he just went Max Headroom for just a second. So listen patiently with your body, listen with your voice. And finally, listen with your mind. And listening with your mind is simply visualizing what the person is telling you. When you told me you had six kids, I pictured him, I could just see them, you know, like the stickers on the back of minivans, you know, that has mommy and daddy in the stairstep, I saw all six of the kids. And it doesn't have to be a it can be a caricature. In fact, the more colorful and the more outlandish the picture is, the more it will help you remember what the person is saying. And the beauty of when I listen with my mind, if I want to listen with my voice, all I have to do is kind of look at the picture that I've created in my mind and just describe the picture. And it helps me listen with my voice. So I tell people take these four things. And every time you anticipate that you're going to have a conversation, if you've written these things down, listen patiently with your body with your voice and with your mind. If you've written these four things down on a three by five card, or the back of a business card, if when you're approaching that meeting, you're reminding yourself, okay, I'm gonna meet with Jacob, and I'm gonna remind myself to listen patiently, I'm not going to make it all about me, I'm going to listen with my body, I'm going to make sure that I'm open, I'm going to do my best to hear what he's saying and reflect back the emotion that he's feeling. And then I'm going to just do my very best to picture what he's saying. That's hard work. You need to know that when you listen, and really listen, when you engage in our listening, active, reflective, empathic listening, you're going to be tired at the end of the day, because it is hard work. But folks, the dividends are so great, that is worth all the effort. I gotta tell you,
Matthew Yehling:that's why I know your meeting last night was effective. Because you came home when you were exhausted.
Greg Hamlin:I think that's a great place to kind of tie things up is, is just at one, it's something we have to practice all the time. And it's not something you arrive at, and there are days that you're gonna you're not going to be your best, but it's just continuing to work at it. And when we do that, the the results really they're there. Tim, as we wrap things up, if people want to connect with you, either to get your book, I know I found it on Amazon. So I assume they can find it there like I did, yes. But if they were interested in your executive coaching, or some of the trainings you do, whether that's disk or some of the other types of trainings that you do, how do they find you to
Tim Hast:the world's easiest email address? I'm at coach@att.net. That's COA CH, at sign a ti t.net. And I'd love to hear from you. That's excellent.
Greg Hamlin:Excellent. Well, one of the things that we're doing this season because I it's really important to me that we put good good stuff out in the universe. There's so much negativity. And so one of the commitments that I've made when we did the podcast after we got through the first season was I wanted to end on something that just put some of that good stuff back out there. And I'd like to ask you this final question. What's something you You're grateful for
Tim Hast:what am I grateful for? I'm grateful for people who forgive me when I failed to listen to them the way I should.
Greg Hamlin:I think that is the most meaningful, grateful thought this season. I love that, you know, and I think we all probably could do a better job of forgiving each other of our weak spots. So, what a great, what a great way to end
Matthew Yehling:that. Thanks, Tim. Thanks, Greg, this has been great. We get to do these things. And it's a it's a lot of fun. I always learn so much. And this one's been really special. I think it speaks to me, you know, in a management position, I think hopefully it speaks to those out there listening to this adjusters or wherever you are in the in the whole worker's comp process, you know, I think we can all be better listeners better communicators. Thank you very much. I mean, halt in our I'm going to remember that. And I took copious amounts of notes. Thank you very much.
Tim Hast:Well, it's been a pleasure on my part. And I try to listen well, but I'm an eye on the disc. So I like to talk to so anytime you guys want to do a podcast, give me a call and we'll talk about we'll talk about hamburgers or, or effective listening or effective speaking or whatever you want to talk about it. So thank you for your time.
Greg Hamlin:That sounds fantastic. Thanks again, Tim. And I just remind all of our listeners our motto to do right think differently and don't forget to care. And that's it for this week, guys. And we will see you every two weeks as we release on our regular schedule. Thanks again.