The Art of Becoming a Better Listener — Tactical Advice for the Startup Setting

If you haven’t made a resolution for 2022 yet (or you’ve already fallen off the bandwagon for the one you did select), it’s not too late to reset and reaffirm your intentions for the remaining 11 months of the year. But if typical goals like reading more or spending less time on social media are leaving you uninspired, you might be looking for something different to shake things up.

Ximena Vengoechea recommends one that’s probably not on too many resolution lists: Striving to become a better listener.

“It’s very common to have a goal to work on your presentation skills or become a better public speaker. But listening is the other part of that equation — and we don't pay very much attention to it,” she says.

Vengoechea is a practiced listener. As a seasoned user research leader, she’s led and observed thousands of interviews, working at companies like Pinterest, Twitter and LinkedIn to hear more about people’s needs and motivations in order to design better products. 

Tapping into more than a decade of experience doing this work, Vengoechea quite literally wrote the book on listening, publishing “Listen Like You Mean it: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection” last year.

The topic is, of course, incredibly timely. “These last few years we’ve all been struggling with alienation and disconnection. It’s an odd combination of feeling both isolated and then overwhelmed when we do try to connect with others,” she says. 

While this observation may seem particularly relevant in the realm of our personal relationships, it’s just as salient in the professional arena. “We often think of miscommunication as an issue with our own content or delivery — that if we could tweak the what or the how, our message would be more effective. But that perpetuates a dynamic where we view our counterparts as an audience, not as collaborators.”

In this exclusive interview, Vengoechea offers up a tactical guide for how you can become a better listener at work, no matter where you sit in the startup org chart. Here's a preview of what she shares:

• Fundamental skills and common pitfalls, like our tendency to project in conversation.
• Advice tailored to the challenges of founders, execs, managers and direct reports (such as the tip to flag your natural listening mode — see her illustration below).
• Tips specific to startup functions, from how sales leaders can get more comfortable with silence, to how people team leaders can recharge after emotionally draining conversations.

Thanks, as always, for reading and sharing!

-The Review Editors

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Recommended resources:

These tips for hiring and managing a head of product.

A tactical tip for reframing your weekly status updates.

This read on how to raise the bar.

This podcast episode on how to grow a startup with the jobs-to-be-done framework.

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