Christine Miles, the author of, “What’s it Costing You to Not Listen,” shares insights on how as coaches and school leaders we need to move beyond active listening. Listening to understand is critical in building relationships and trust with those we coach. Christine identifies how our listening and questions assist a coachee in telling their story which increases our understanding.
Connect with Christine and visit her website here.
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Podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00.000] – Steve [Intro]
Welcome to the Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud podcast. As instructional coaches and school leaders, you are tasked with guiding continuous teacher growth to create student success. This podcast looks to support you with strategies from experienced guests, as well as my own insights that I’ve gathered over the years. I’m thrilled to have you with us. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:00:30.080] – Steve
Listening: The Power of Understanding to Connect, Influence, and Solve. I’m excited to welcome Christine Miles to the podcast. She’s an expert in the transformative power of listening. She’s a trainer, consultant, coach, and the author of, “What’s it Costing You Not to Listen? The Power of Understanding to Connect, Influence, Solve, and Sell.” As an instructional coach or school leader, the way that you listen can shape the culture of your school, the success of your teachers, and ultimately, outcomes for students. I’ve asked Christine to explore how deep intentional listening can unlock trust, collaboration, and growth in our coaching practices. Welcome, Christine.
[00:01:27.170] – Christine
Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You got the title right. That’s good, Steve. Not everybody can. It’s a mouthful. [laughter]
[00:01:33.820] – Steve
[laughter] I did practice a little.
[00:01:36.310] – Christine
Well, I appreciate it. Yes, I titled the book “The Problem” because most people don’t know we have the problem that we have, that it’s costing us to listen. It is a mouthful, though.
[00:01:48.000] – Steve
Yeah. Well, let’s jump in because I do recognize that across the board, that not listening comes at a great cost in many different place with the systems. So what is it that inspired you to jump into a work focused on the art of listening?
[00:02:10.040] – Christine
Well, it started really when I was very, very young. I say I started listening differently at five because that’s my earliest memory. I grew up with a mother who had mental health issues, anxiety, depression, and other things. It started with the loss of her mother. Her mother had rheumatic fever as a child and was told not to have children, and she didn’t listen to that advice. Within three months of giving birth to my mother, she died. My mother carried a lot of pain and sadness below the surface. My mother was warm and loving. She lit up the room, but below this was this unspoken thing that most people didn’t see. I saw a pretty painful pattern when my mother would express how she felt. People would try to talk her out of it, like, oh, the great things in your life and all these things that are wonderful. I saw the cost with each misguided interaction. People weren’t listening. Listening and able to understand the difference. So I saw that at a young age, and then I learned to listen differently. It’s really been the single thread in any success I’ve had. I’m pretty average across the board.
[00:03:14.410] – Christine
I could prove it, but I’ve achieved, I think, some remarkable things, and it’s always come down to that skill. And so in some way, shape, or form, I’ve always been in the business of listening. And in the last 10 years, I’ve really worked to codify it in a way that It’s simple for people to adopt.
[00:03:32.830] – Steve
So how does what you’ve learned about listening influence your perspective on leadership?
[00:03:40.510] – Christine
It’s a good question. I think people assume if they intend to do it well, they’ll do it. Leaders often think they’re being intentional and therefore succeeding, and that is not the case. It causes a big gap in terms of how employees feel, like you said at the beginning, how cultures are developed. I hear leaders doing listening tours and things like that, but they’re really talking more than they’re actually listening, even with the intention to listen. It’s a big cost, but it’s a problem that most people don’t know that exists because we’ve been told to listen and very rarely taught how. I think listening is very misunderstood.
[00:04:29.630] – Steve
How does listening connect with trust building and with relationships with leaders and staff?
[00:04:42.870] – Christine
Yeah. I think you would agree – it’s really the foundation, isn’t it? It earned you the right like that. And one conversation changes the game. So when someone feels listened to, heard, seen, and most importantly, they understood, they’ll go to the wall for you. And that cannot happen for a long time. And then suddenly, you start listening differently, and the trust becomes immediate. So it’s critical. It’s everything, in my opinion.
[00:05:17.380] – Steve
So if we move this into a school leader setting, so talking building principals, instructional coaches, I work with a lot of teacher leaders. They may be full-time teachers, but they have a role at a grade level or a department leading. What would you say are some common barriers to people being better at listening than they are?
[00:05:44.850] – Christine
The biggest barrier is that most people aren’t taught. So 2% of people worldwide have any type of listening training. So I have a master’s in psychology from an Ivy League school in the States. I’m a certified family therapist from the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center, which at the time was a world renowned facility, and I have zero years of listening training, formal listening training. So how can you do something well when you’ve never been taught how to do it? We’re relying on our instincts. We’re relying on our brains to cooperate with us. And more than often, we’re failing and we don’t even realize it. So that’s the first barrier, is that we don’t even know really what good listening looks like. Even though I think educators can be better at it naturally, that doesn’t mean they’re doing it to the proficiency that they could be to not only be better connected and build trust and all those wonderful things on a human level, but to actually solve the right problems. Because until we really understand and get to root cause, we can fix a lot of the wrong problems.
[00:06:53.130] – Steve
That’s interesting because I do a lot of work training coaches. When people are new moving into the coaching piece, the biggest struggle I have is they’ve invested their ego or their success in solving problems. And a sense that the quicker they solve the problem, the more valuable they are to the person.
[00:07:21.600] – Christine
Yeah.
[00:07:22.500] – Steve
I think you’ve nailed it in that it leads them to solving the wrong problem.
[00:07:29.210] – Christine
Well, what are we taught from a young age? We are taught to solve problems. That’s a critical skill. It’s a very important skill. But in the absence of not being taught to listen, it’s understandable we jump to conclusions because we get a piece of information or pieces of information we’ve seen the movie before, so we assume that it’s the right solve. And in reality, every situation is a snowflake. There’s nuances. And so even if you think you have the right solution, you might be missing something that’s critical that changes that just enough to make it different. But I call it a closeness bias. The more we know something, the less curious we become. So every relationship will speak to that, right? Just think about your partner.
[00:08:20.780] – Steve
That’s really interesting because when I first go to a school and introduce peer coaching, teachers going into each other’s classrooms and coach, I often recommend, especially at the secondary level, that people do their first rounds of practice outside of their department. So if I’m the math teacher, I’m doing a coaching session with the art teacher, I actually listen a whole lot better than if I’m doing it with another math teacher and I take on the assumption that I already know it all.
[00:08:53.560] – Christine
So knowledge and experience is an enemy of listening. It’s a big enemy. So my dad used to say, “don’t we all do the same 10 things in a week, in our work life?” We’re seeing the same things. I live in the Philadelphia area in Pennsylvania, and I say, I don’t go to the Liberty Bell anymore. I’ve seen the crack. I know the story. I don’t visit that. But if I were a tourist and visiting Pennsylvania and Philadelphia for the first time, I want to see that. I have it more curious about it. The more we know something, the more inclined we are to jump to problem solving, because we’ve seen the movie before. We know how this ends. So you use the words we make assumptions. That’s a natural human thing to do. I always say, if you’re certain or you’re confused, those are two things that you’re usually going to be in a conversation, certain or confused, go back because there’s more to figure out, because one of those, confusion is your friend, and certainty is your enemy. So don’t trust either one of those and take a step back.
[00:09:52.800] – Steve
So could you talk a little bit about what does listening training look like for adults If you were to do a workshop for a series of school leaders in a district, and people were coming with the focus that they’re coming to improve their listening skills, what stuff is built into that?
[00:10:16.680] – Christine
Well, most people’s expectation is that we’ll do something called active listening because it’s the Kleenex of listening. It’s brand recognition. And I believe in the principles of active listening, I think it’s amazing, but it’s complicated stuff. It’s not for the faint of heart. It’s show no judgment, pay attention, give thoughtful attention, ask good questions. There’s 11 to 12 behaviors to actively listen, and people’s minds are… it’s a lot to do, and it’s very arduous. The difference is that some of those principles exist in the way we teach listening, but it’s much simpler. There’s a metaphor around it. That metaphor is you wouldn’t go hiking in the woods without tools or supplies. You wouldn’t go in unprepared. We go into the conversational woods all the time unprepared. You need tools to navigate the path to understanding. The listening path is that path to understanding. We make listening very tangible by having a game and having it put listening in people’s hands so that they can use these tools and learn to listen and find the meaning of what is said rather than just hearing the words that are said. Because when you use the tools, the meaning comes to you and when you do that, then you earn the right to start coaching, to start telling, to start influencing.
[00:11:36.940] – Christine
But you have to do that listening part first. So we do that by taking them along the path, having them enact these tools, learn to share experiences and stories where they have to uncover things, and it’s very practical, and so that they can apply it right away the next day.
[00:11:54.030] – Steve
It’s interesting – I would call it a tool that I have.
[00:11:59.420] – Christine
Okay. I love it.
[00:12:00.750] – Steve
But I share with people when they’re going through the coaching training with me, I cannot coach without taking notes.
[00:12:11.440] – Steve
And the biggest thing that the note-taking does is keep me conscious.
[00:12:21.830] – Steve
Then I found out that taking notes had a tendency to make people nervous. So I set up my coaching so the person seated next to me, and they can actually see my notes.
[00:12:35.480] – Christine
Oh, interesting.
[00:12:36.570] – Steve
My notes would mean nothing to anybody else afterwards. A matter of fact, my notes, I generally don’t even reference my notes afterwards. The notes are just like, if you pick a certain word to describe a situation or a problem, I’ll just write down that word, isolated. And then it causes me to stay focused on it. So first of all, that’s a big question in the field of psychology.
[00:13:04.410] – Christine
When you’re with a client or patient, should you take notes? The answer is notes can interfere, notetaking can interfere with listening or can do exactly what you describe because you’re not trying to capture every word. You’re trying to capture the essence, and it’s a reminder. You’re doing something that’s kinesthetic. It’s helping the brain, which is exactly why I created a game to teach listening, because if you can’t touch it, feel it, move it, it’s so tangible for people. So that question comes up all the time. So the way you’re doing it is amazing. And I just say, ask people, “is it okay if I take notes?” It’s for my benefit. Most people are like, I’ve been in sales meetings where I said, I’m only here to make sure I understand you. I’m going to write down the important things that you say. And somebody else runs the meeting. Every time somebody says something important, they would look at me and make sure I’m writing it down. It’s all how you frame it. You know this, right? As a coach, it’s all how you frame it. So if you say something important, I’m going to write it down.
[00:14:03.430] – Christine
People are like, This is important. I’m going to tell you this, and I know to write it down. So, yeah, it’s pretty fascinating.
[00:14:11.300] – Steve
It’s funny because I’ve often described that many of my best sales were made on napkins.
[00:14:18.600] – Christine
Absolutely. There’s a book called, “The Back of the Napkin.” You know this, right?
[00:14:22.010] – Steve
You’re out having lunch with the client, and a story comes up, and I flip over the napkin. And one of my biggest long-lasting ones, I left with the napkin. I went back to my office, which meant flying back and I wrote down some things that were on the napkin that I thought, if I get back with that client, I’ll need it. And I actually got a call from the client asking me if I could send her a copy of the napkin.
[00:14:53.700] – Christine
Oh, that’s funny. You know there’s a book called “The Back of the Napkin,” right?
[00:14:56.810] – Steve
I didn’t know that.
[00:14:58.220] – Christine
Yeah, that’s exactly what that’s about. I want to say something to your administrators, your teachers, to your coaches. We’re all selling. If you’re a coach, you’re selling. If you’re a lead teacher, you’re selling. If you’re a teacher, you’re selling.
[00:15:13.800] – Steve
For sure.
[00:15:14.710] – Christine
I was in denial. I was in sales for most of my career. I’m helping people. I’m not a salesman. What do you mean? To try to help somebody learn a new skill, that’s selling. Listening helps you sell. Listening helps you get buy-in. It earned you the right to push people harder, to tell them things they don’t necessarily want to hear. But you have to communicate the understanding. It’s more than just listening. It’s listening, getting the story and then being able to communicate what you understand before you dare to do any of that other stuff.
[00:15:53.800] – Steve
Would you talk a little bit more what you mean when you use the phrase, “getting the story?”
[00:15:59.630] – Christine
So I believe that when we’re listening, we’re always listening to a story. If you say to your child, and I hear this a lot – “my kid doesn’t talk to me.” “How was school today?” “It was good.” They just dropped you into their story. Your job as the listener is to uncover it. We’re terrible storytellers for the most part. It’s not a natural skill, just like listening is not a natural skill. As the listener, our job is to organize the speaker to tell their story in a way we can understand. We have to guide that child in that case to tell them, to tell us more, and to organize that story. That’s part of the path. There’s four parts of the story, just like in a movie. You could do a three-act movie, you can do a four-part, beginning, struggle, tipping point, ending or new beginning. Your job is to get all of that. So if your kid says, “how was school?” “Good,” Well, you’re in the middle. You’re just in the middle of the movie. You got to get it all. So that’s That’s what I mean about getting the story. You have to realize that there’s an order to things, and you just have to organize that person to tell it to you in a way that you understand because people don’t know how to communicate their own movie.
[00:17:12.600] – Steve
So let’s take that now, and I’m going to make you an instructional coach, and a teacher in a school comes up and talks to you about a problem she’s having in the classroom. I’m seeing that’s the connection I need the whole story.
[00:17:27.490] – Christine
Yeah. So they’ve just dropped you in the middle of the movie. So what happens when you start a movie 20 minutes late, other than that you’re annoyed with your spouse or partner because they made you late if you left for the movie, right? Why were we late? That argument happens. And then you are frustrated, confused. You don’t know who the characters are. You need the beginning of the story to understand the story. But what happens, we don’t realize that people start in the middle, so we go forward. We go forward. So I was an athlete for a long time. I played field hockey. That was my sport of choice, but I’ll chase any ball, basically. And in sports, especially team sports, you need to move the ball back in order to score. If you just move forward and run at… You’re not going to score. You need to move the defense without it orient them. So when we listen, we have to go back before we go forward. Forward is solving, backwards is understanding. So I have to say problem. First question, and this is another tool – we call it the compass. It’s how do you guide the speaker to tell the story?
[00:18:34.130] – Christine
You need the right questions. We’re taught that questioning is a really important part of listening. But question can also interfere with listening because our questions can shape the story. It’s a simple thing. It’s just, take me back. Where did this start? Oh, I had this problem in the classroom? Okay. Take me back. Where did this start? That opens up a totally different story.
[00:18:55.610] – Steve
As we pull to a close here, I’m wondering if you’d offer up one actionable tip that you think for leadership people in schools working with teachers that they could make as a… Part of what I’m learning a lot from you today is I got to move it to a conscious level. It’s unlikely on an unconscious level. So is there like one conscious strategy you’d put out there for us to consider in our listening with staff?
[00:19:29.410] – Christine
Yes. So I’m going to focus on the questioning part again, because we think we have to ask really brilliant questions to get good stuff from people. And questions help, but like I said, they can also interfere. So there’s two powerful questions that I would encourage your leaders to enact. One is a simple question is, “tell me more.” Because what happens is, again, we hear problem, we jump to solving, we jump to advising, we jump to telling. Before you go to that, just say, tell me more. Let the person tell you more. The other question, and this is just one of the two of the six, is, how did that make you feel? We are used to asking about facts and chasing facts. Most people, even in coaching situations, leave out, how do you feel? Feelings actually help you uncover more of the story. And when you get the feelings, you get more of the dynamic part of the story because you get the person or the people, the characters, as well as the facts. So that changes a lot of how you solve problems just by using those two questions, and you’ll get more buy-in.
[00:20:35.230] – Steve
That second part is really powerful for people coaching teachers because a lot of the decisions that a teacher makes while teaching our feelings.
[00:20:51.340] – Christine
And CEOs, and salespeople, and fighter pilots, and you name it. And some of that is making a conscious awareness so we don’t just act on our subconscious feelings, right? So we’re doing things. So that’s also why it’s so important to ask it. But how could teachers not feel with all these little beings around them and help? They’re all feeling so much. So they have 30 people in front of them, little people. So it’s just critical, and we don’t do it enough. We just don’t do it enough.
[00:21:23.480] – Steve
And as a coach, if I don’t know the feelings that what happened in that class generated for you, I’m really missing a chunk of being able to move ahead with understanding.
[00:21:37.720] – Christine
Yeah. Would you watch a movie that had no emotions? Absolutely not. You would not be curious at all. And a lot of times we go in thinking we already know how that feels because, again, closeness bias. We’ve been there, we’ve done it, knowledge and experience. Your feelings and their feelings might be completely different, even if the situations are exactly the same.
[00:21:56.250] – Steve
You just hit a big one for me because I’ve spoken and written frequently about what schools call walkthroughs, where an administrator is walking through a teacher’s classroom in 10 or 15 minutes or even shorter, and then they’re trying to leave a note or send an email of encouragement. I’ve always been big on you have to have a dialog. But I’m realizing now as I’m listening to you, the part that the dialog gives that is totally being missed there is the emotion.
[00:22:36.390] – Christine
Yeah.
[00:22:36.820] – Steve
I’m leaving you a note about what was happening, and I don’t have any understanding of how it was impacting you while it was happening. Good, bad, and whatever.
[00:22:45.890] – Christine
Yeah, I agree.
[00:22:49.530] – Steve
Well, I knew I was going to be learning during this call.
[00:22:52.850] – Christine
Me too.
[00:22:54.430] – Steve
Thank you for reinforcing that for me. What’s the best way that listeners can follow up with you, learn more about your work, and perhaps get back to you with some questions even?
[00:23:06.280] – Christine
Sure. They can go to thelisteningpath.com. So there’s a button that go for the educator or the business because we serve both, go right in there, and they can reach me there. So they can also follow me @christine.miles.listens.
[00:23:21.960] – Steve
We’ll put both of those in the lead-int o the podcast. Thank you so much.
[00:23:26.350] – Christine
A pleasure, Steve. Thank you.
[00:23:29.790] – Steve [Outro]
Thanks for listening, folks. I’d love to hear what you’re pondering. You can find me on Twitter or LinkedIn at Steve Barkley, or send me your questions and find my videos and blogs at barkleypd.com.
