Oscar Trimboli (00:00:03):

Do you get drained, distracted and bored during a video conference, do you struggle to stay focused and maintain your presence?

Are you the host of that video conference and what could you do to get more engagement and impact from all the participants rather than the dominant voices?

Today, we discuss how to listen during a video conference, as a host to create the most significant impact for you, the other participants, and for the purpose and outcome of the meeting,

G’day, I’m, Oscar Trimboli host of the Apple award-winning podcast, Deep Listening and along with our Deep Listening Ambassadors, we’re on a quest to create a one hundred million Deep Listeners in the world.

I’ve heard loud and clear. You’re all struggling with listening during the video conference and I’ve listened and taken an action. You said, how do you prepare and maintain your attention?

What are the practical tips and techniques to notice and adjust to distractions, whether they’re internal or external you ask, how do you deal with a visual overwhelm?

How do you avoid boredom when you can’t read people?

What do you do to address the urge to multitask? And how do you deal with people who want to dominate the video conference rather than have a balanced contribution?

As a result of all these questions, I’ve put together a really comprehensive guide to answering these listening questions.

This is the first of three episodes in a series about how to listen during a video conference listening face to face in the same room or listening in a video conference are the same yet. They’re different.

Listening is situational, relational and contextual. And you listen differently. In each context. Video is a very different context from face to face.

As we spoke to people who are struggling with video, one of the participants from Brazil described this difference through their love of wine.

They said the end meeting experiences, bright, crisp, delicate, fresh, light, energetic, and zesty the sparkling white wine version of their conversation.

And the video conference listening experience was bitter course, chewy, harsh, heavy like red wine.

Ironically, I’ve never drunk alcohol in my life. So I find this comparison and lightning and helpful whether you drink wine or not. And depending on how many video conferences you participate in, it would be fair to say that like a red wine listening on video conference, Hmm. It’s an acquired taste. One that develops over time. And one that allows you to explore different and nuanced flavours

Over the next few episodes, we’ll be exploring listening on video conference through three orientations.

The first is through sequence before, during, and after the video conference, we outline this in the guide through the framework.

Next is based on the role are you host or participant? We spend the first part of the guide and about 10 pages discussing the perspective taking that the host needs to adopt some hosts, want the participants to listen to them.

Good hosts, focus on getting the participants to listen to the active speaker and great video conferencing hosts, get the participants to listen to each other.

A great host is simultaneously listening to themselves, the speaker, the participants, and ultimately two. And for the purpose and outcome of the gathering

In the guide, we help the host to notice their current orientation and the questions that could improve their listening and the engagement of the audience.

This thread connects all elements of the guide with over 40 separate host, exclusive tips and questions designed to take a video conference to the next level of performance.

Some of these host tips include, decide if the meeting needs to be conducted on video at all, is it serve better as a audio meeting, an email?

We take you through the decision making process on that. The next tip is ask the participants what they would like to achieve before you arrive at the meeting, why and when to use close captioning, to improve participant listening, the critical steps to verbal queuing as a host so that everybody feels noticed and heard. How to use breakout groups that are impactful rather than going through the motions.

And finally, we have a look at planning and participating video conferences based on their meeting size. These three meetings are the intimate, the interactive and the broadcast.

The Intimate has got nothing to do with the content being discussed. Intimate describes the meeting size. Typically the participants in this discussion are two or three, and we cover that off around page 10 of the guide.

The interactive meetings are dialogue typically around a project or a group. And the group might be between 10 and 15 people based on our research. This is by far the most common meeting type where people get frustrated and struggle with their listening. We cover the content in the guide here. It’s about 30 pages in length. It’s very deep. It’s very thorough. It’s very detailed and thanks to everybody who participated in the research so that we could validate what we wanted to keep in and what they prioritized.

                We move to the broadcast meeting and this typically takes the form of some kind of training session, a town hall meeting, an organisation-wide announcement. Typically this meeting might involve 2200, 2000 or 20,000 people. This guide covers off the broadcast component of this very thoroughly in around 10 pages.

I also want to describe what the guide isn’t.

It’s not a technology guide.

Although we explain some software specific settings that will enable another level of listening, a higher level of listening for you, the participants, the agenda, and even people who aren’t present in the meeting. The guide allows you to pinpoint the meetings that you’ll be hosting and attending really rapidly. We’ve done a great job of building fast navigation into this document, so you can jump around to the meeting that matters for you in the moment. And you can decide about before, during or after intimate interactive or broadcast. And your role

This framework for listening in a video conference will change the way you approach your meetings. They will be shorter. More people will engage, more will contribute, and the result is you’ll achieve much more significant impact, less miscommunication, frustration, rework, budget, overruns, and overruns

Shortly.we’ll hear from Natasha who describes this and how it impacted her team. The Ultimate Guide to Listening is 105 pages. It’s a step by step approach to sequence role and meeting size, and we’ve called it the Ultimate Guide to listening in a video conference.

If you visit https://oscartrimboli.com/product/the-ultimate-guide-to-listening-in-a-video-conference/?EP101 you can explore the full 105-page document

Throughout these next three episodes, you’ll hear from a range of voices, some asking questions and some providing their unique real-world experience when it comes to listening in a video conference.

Now, remember if you’ve got any questions at any time, send me an email podcast@Oscartrimboli.com

 The first voice you’ll hear from is Natasha. She’s already got the guide, and she’s gonna explain the impact of implementing the guide in her workplace.

Natasha Orslene (00:09:12):

Hello, Oscar it’s Natasha from San Antonio, Texas. I wanted to share the impact of implementing some of the tips and techniques from the ultimate guide to listening in a video conference.

Some of the things I have been implementing are around preparation for when I facilitate workshops, I have a little sticky note on the side of my computer screen that says

Participants and then under that, it says thinking, feeling doing, and I’ve been making sure the agenda and objectives are all clear in advance.

I’ve noticed that I get a lot more interaction throughout the session and my introverted teammates have reached out and said, they really appreciate it. I’ve been making sure I can see as many participants as possible at once. And this has allowed me to see when people do the little unmute to speak, but then someone else jumps in before that person has started.

So then I can circle back to them so they feel seen and heard.

Overall, I’ve noticed three main things since I’ve brought this awareness and listening to my sessions

First more interaction in the actual sessions. I think people feel empowered before enduring and then they feel seen during. So they are speaking a lot more, which is great for a lot of reasons. We have so many great minds and when they share more, we get more ideas and more insights.

Second more people are staying after to continue the conversation with me and with each other. This has been really great and has helped our teammates connect across business units.

Finally, more folks reach out in appreciation while it’s nice to be appreciated. The bigger thing here is that people are finding a deeper value in those sessions.

Oscar Trimboli (00:10:49):

The difference between hearing and listening is action. Well done, Natasha for taking action in this case, the difference between reading and change is the action you’ve taken.

It’s amazing to see the extraordinary value you’ve already created. Significantly more engagement, introverts speaking up and probably dominant voices listening for the first time. Wonderful outcomes from your attention around listening, being orientated in a completely different way. I can’t wait to see where you take it in the next few months.

Let’s unpack the guide today and if you’ve got any questions, please again, just send me an email podcast@oscartrimboli.com

In this episode, we’ll focus on sequence before, during and after. And in the following two episodes, we’ll look at roles and meeting size. We’ll answer the questions from the Deep Listening Ambassadors who replied either via email. And some of them were kind enough to send me voice messages that I could share with you as well.

When it comes to the struggles that people have when it comes to their listening in video conference, the Deep Listening Research reveals people struggle a lot, probably more than they need to, and we’ll touch on some of these struggles and we’ll answer them here in the podcast episodes, this one and the next two, as well as the ultimate guide to listening in a video conference,

I think it’s important to have a high level context and for that inside a video conference, you are creating and curating a culture. Next you’ll hear from Michael Henderson, who explains the three dimensions of human motivation in any form of connection, whether that’s in person that sparkly, white wine or via video, that red wine, that acquired taste.

I’d love you to notice how Michael explains the distinction of listening to something and listening for something as well.

Michael Henderson (00:13:14):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/005/

Hi Oscar, this is corporate anthropologist, Michael Henderson from cultures at work. It’s very helpful for all of us to understand that there are three primary drivers for all human behaviour and all human thought. And those drivers are controlling, relating, and developing. Look at all human endeavour, all human activity, all human aspiration and motivation, the desire to think, or to act or behave for all human beings across all cultures and all time spans has always been a combination of any one of those three elements.

When we are participating in conversations and listening, we can actually listen for and listen to where people are coming from in terms of where the motivational, the desire for what they’re saying is emanating from. So if somebody is motivated or has an aspirational desire to be in control or ask you to increase your control, the control driver is the element that will deliver language or communication that will refer to things like productivity or improving outcomes or achieving outcomes or conducting ourselves in a particular way.

So one of the key things to listen for is how somebody’s describing what they want to be in control of what they feel needs to be controlled or potentially even what you may need to be in control of in order to get better results or a better outcome.

The second element is around relating. So all human beings are motivated to describe and articulate how they are interrelating with the world around them. And that particularly occurs when people are referring to interrelationships about how they feel about talking with you or sharing with you, any reference to how relationships are playing out for the most part of the conversation is a very powerful thing to listen for, cuz it gives us deep insights into how people are connecting or being received or perceived by others.

The final element is around development and development is any aspiration, desire, or even need for change or evolution or shift or redirection or reforming. And so that will refer to people suggesting that they need to progress or learn more or refine their ability or redirect themselves, or potentially take any of those concepts that have just shared and place them into the conversation for you or others that are participating in the video conference.

Those three, again, all human conversation world human behavior is motivated by controlling, relating and developing.

Before you even join a conference, you can start to consider what the topic or the agenda or the discussion’s about and just map out for yourselves. What are the areas of interest for you in terms of being in control or what would the conversation need to control in order to progress?

How does relation with one another influence how well the actual conference itself goes, but also post-conference in terms of how are people expected to relate to one another post-conference and is that being discussed in reference?

And the development side is note down, what are some ideas or hypotheses or concepts you’ve got about how change or evolution or growth or learning or ideation or innovation, um, could be something you could contribute into the video conference.

Listen during the conference itself for those three elements and then post-conference, you can also do the same thing is that just listened back to the recording of the conference and just see if anything else emerges on a second or third listing around controlling, relating, or developing that you think would be useful for all those that participated

Oscar Trimboli (00:17:17):

These three elements of controlling, relating and developing are a great way to notice before any meeting takes place. What’s its primary purpose and then when you’re in the meeting, are you notice one or more of these dimensions of human motivation that are being explicitly addressed in the agenda and possibly those that are not, when you arrive before a video conference, it’s a great time to check in on your mindset.

Many people struggle with their inner dialogue, especially when it comes to judgement , either judging the purpose of the meeting, judging the speaker, or maybe judging yourself

Pulling Michael’s point about relating through Dr. Justin Colson is an extraordinary communicator on TV, radio, via webinars and podcasts. And he talks about one of those elements of relating that you need to adopt when it comes to listening to the speaker.

Dr. Justin Coulson (00:18:15):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/062/

This is Dr. Justin Coulson from episode number 62, called how to listen to your kids.

First off an admission. I really struggle to listen during video conferences, I sign up for webinars and I attend conferences and often I find myself either nodding off or doing other activities because I’m just struggling to find the relevance in the conference or the webinar for my life and for my work.

So I’m really bad at this stuff. I get very easily distracted. I’m very quickly bored. So give the speaker the benefit of the doubt and I think if we have compassion and empathy for the presenter or facilitator, we’re more likely to want to be a helpful and engaged participant

Oscar Trimboli (00:18:55):

Compassion and empathy is a constant struggle for me. I set really high standards for myself before I dial into a video conference. And when I adopt the identity of the host, my listening is totally switched on. My listening batteries are completely charged

Yet, Justin’s got me thinking, he’s got me thinking about the 20% of video conferences that I attend as a member of the audience, the participant. And I wonder if I could do with a good dose of compassion and empathy for the speaker or the speakers.

Now we’ve got some foundations in place. We’ve got the foundation of your mindset, the context of your motivation and the importance of being connected with the person speaking. I wanna share with you some questions from Aiden and from Geoff, who are members of the Deep Listening Ambassador Community.

Aiden (00:19:56):

Hi Oscar. This is Aiden from Dublin Ireland. My questions about listening during video meetings are what are three things you can quickly put in place to create a foundation for better online listening.

Geoff (00:20:07):

This is Geoff from Toronto, Canada, Oscar. I’m struggling with sustaining deep listening in video conferences because it’s less engaging talking to a screen and more tiring because I just have so many in succession. Any tips?

Oscar Trimboli (00:20:22):

Well thanks, Geoff and Aiden today, we will focus heavily on the sequencing before, during and after the video conference. And yes, Aiden and Geoff will be providing a range of tips to answer your questions. If you wanna access the benefits of being in the Deep Listening Ambassador Community, visit

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/ambassadors/?EP101

This is what others in our research group have explained about what they struggle with when it comes to their listening on video conference, similar yet different from Geoff and Aiden distractions, all around them, email messaging, the environment or location. They’re part of being overly conscious about my own facial gestures,

Struggling with seeing so many faces and not knowing where to focus. Where do I take my eye contact? How do I deal with a two second lag, which kind of stifles the communication flow? How do I deal with getting tired and bored? Because I can’t read the people any suggestions about how to stop myself thinking about other things and doing other tasks and the temptation of the keyboard or the mouse. What do I do when the connectivity gets limited and video goes off, how do I maintain my focus? How do I not be distracted by this amazing everything going on? The chat that people’s faces? The multitasking, the email, the host talking the active speaker talking over, oh, and my phone just went and look, it’s just difficult to pay attention when others don’t even put their video on how do I fight the urge to multitask Oscar? When the content is of no interest to me or my energy dips, I’ve been in so many back to back meetings help me out.

These are all great questions. And these questions are all ingredients that we’ve put into the bowl and pull together the guide and the guide is a recipe. So today we’re going tofocus on progressing and listening through the lens of sequence before, during and after the video conference.

Let’s commence with before the biggest struggle most people wrestle with is their mindset in preparing for the video meeting, where is the location of their attention and concentration?

I decided to ask Stefan for a deeper understanding,

Professor Stefan van der Stigchel (00:23:16):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/061/

 https://www.amazon.com.au/Concentration-Staying-Focused-Times-Distraction/dp/0262538563 

https://www.stefanvanderstigchel.nl/concentration/

Hi Oscar. This is Professor Stefan van der Stigchel from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Episode 061 about the myth of multitasking with the offer of the books called Concentration and how attention works. Here are my tips for listening during a video conference, which I know is really difficult.

 

The first one is relatively simple.

Don’t display your own face on the screen.

We know from scientific studies that it’s difficult to disengage your attention from your own own face. So if you have a programme that displays your own face on the screen, try to remove it. That’s actually possible. In the majority of the programmes in the end, you will then end up looking at your own face, the vast majority of time, and even finding a difficult to disengage, looking at your own face. This is very normal. Almost everyone has it.

Second tip, make sure there’s nothing in your surrounding that attracts attention towards non-work related things.

In these days. It’s very difficult to disengage and disentangle actually work and private in space and time, but we have to do that as much as possible. So don’t work and do hobbies at the same time, or try to do household things at the same time while you’re working, try to disentangle that in time and in space, if possible, try to work and live in separate spaces in your house if that’s possible, of course, but even if you only have one room, try to create an area in which you work and an area in which you don’t work. If you mix those two up too much, it becomes difficult to listen during a video conference because you’re also looking at things that are not work related, and this might distract you.

Oscar Trimboli (00:25:06):

Thanks, Stefan, organising the physical space, whether you’re at home in the office or a third location, create a distraction, free physical location. I think it’s a brilliant practical tip. Now, if you’re in an open plan office environment and not able to access quiet room or a meeting room, I strongly recommend that you use headphones during the meeting.

Of course, this will help you hear better, but more importantly, the reason I’m recommending this is by putting headphones on, in an open plan office. I want you to create a visual signal or a reference point for others in the area around you, that your attention is elsewhere. And hopefully they won’t disturb you.

Pre-meeting preparation is about collecting your thoughts about the purpose of the meeting. And for some of us that means collecting notes from previous meetings and ensuring we arrived to the meeting with a clear understanding of the past so that we can understand the present and then move forward into the future. Let’s listen to Dave and how he does that.

Dave Stachowiak (00:26:19):

Hi, Oscar it’s Dave Stachowiak – Host of the Coaching for Leaders Podcast.

One of the things that I do before a conference is I review notes from the last interaction or conversation. In my case, I’m facilitating conversations with leaders in helping them to develop their leadership skills. So I am often going back and reading their leadership vision, which they do as part of our programme. I’m also reading things that they have asked us and asked me to do in past sessions.

Things they’ve asked for coaching on, so I can be watching for those things and observing those things or observing the absence of them when we actually get into the live conversation.

And the other thing that I do is I close all of my program’s email, any other app that isn’t relevant to the discussion at hand and usually that’s just zoom and whatever app I’m taking notes in, which is typically the App drafts, which I use on my Mac.

The other nice hack that I’ve discovered in recent years is I use an iPhone and apple has this wonderful do not disturb feature on iPhones and I was hesitant to use it at first because I would forget to turn it off, do not disturb as great, but then you don’t get any phone calls at all other than people on your list.

One of the things I discovered is there’s a little button on the control panel on the iPhone. And if you push and hold on that button and option comes up and says, uh, you can enable, do not disturb just until the end of the next meeting on your calendar. And I use that all the time when I’m going into sessions with our academy members, just to turn on, do not disturb for that period of time. And then when the meeting ends, it automatically comes off, do not disturb. that’s been super helpful to me

When I’m actually in a session. Then I have one of the things I’ve found that’s been helpful is to not turn off my own camera, because I want to be on video with everyone else.

There is an option in Zoom to click where you don’t see yourself on screen. And I found like most people that I tend to get distracted by, what’s going on in the background? How do I look if I have that on when I can, and the logistics allows for it. I turn that off just for me.

I only see the faces of the participants on screen and that way I don’t get caught up in how I look or my, my own facial expressions.

Oscar Trimboli (00:28:36):

Although Dave is in Southern California and Stefan Utrecht in the Netherlands, they both gave the same tip. If your software allows it, turn the button to remove your face from the display and switch it to off. This will make a huge difference to where your attention is focused without physical environment in place, the meeting purpose, how we manage our electronic distractions. Just a quick little reminder about using the technology,

Use the technology – Don’t let the technology use you.

We now need to dial our mindset and bring our presence to the few minutes before you click and log into the video conference. Next we’ll hear from Dr. Romi who reinforces exactly what Dave has just explained about having your video on, but making sure you can’t see yourself, the purpose of having your video on and how it creates connection for all the other participants.

Dr Romie Mushtaq (00:29:50):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/060/

Hello, Oscar. This is Dr Romie Mushtaq your Homie- Dr. Romie from Florida in the United States and Episode 60 called to listening to yourself.

Here are my tips for listening before a video conference. So number one, the tip is get your subconscious and conscious mind set straight and in a place to focus on listening.

The first step to understand is when you’re getting on a zoom call, turn on your video and be present because the more senses somebody can pass you through the better turn on your camera. So the person that you’re conversing with can see you, and you can see them be conscious that you are here to listen.

Oscar Trimboli (00:30:32):

Listening is situational, it’s relational, and it’s contextual.

We’ve discussed getting ready for the intimate and the interactive meeting. Yet if you’re listening context is the broadcast more than 20 people, possibly 200, 2,000 20,000, who better to ask about how to listen than the head of programming for the global phenomenon event known as South by SouthWest SXSW

Hugh Forrest (00:30:59):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/046/

Hey Oscar – This is Hugh Forrest from south by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and episode 46, where we discussed, listen to your audience.

My three tips for listing on video conferences are number one as with any in real life conference, spend some time studying the schedule and the speakers before the event begins, come up with a brief game plan of what you hope to achieve by participating in this video conference and how you hope to achieve it.

Number Two, allocate and devote a specific amount of undistracted time for the video conference. Even if it is just a short amount of undistracted time, by contrast you, aren’t going to get much out of the event. If you just run the content as background audio, while you are doing something else,

Number Three, as a subset of that time allocation, I encourage you to keep notes about what is said during the portion of the conference that you are listening to. Keeping notes will force you to pay more attention to this video conference and get more solid takeaways from the event.

 

Oscar Trimboli (00:32:07):

Thanks, Hugh – Decades of experience in building events with over 30,000 people who attend each year and a phenomenal listening mindset,

Hugh and he’s team takes six weeks to analyse conference feedback. What an amazing mindset towards listening.

Although this is not a tech guide, one thing I request, if it’s not initially displayed during a broadcast is to ask the moderator to activate closed captioning or transcription. Some organisations have this on by default, but the vast majority don’t

Because the captioning or transcription is slightly delayed. It helps me when I miss something that has just been said, whether it’s the content or whether it’s the context, whether it’s got to do with an accent I’m not familiar with, or it’s just delivered in a story, a structure or statistics that I’m not used to.

The close captioning really helps equally. It assists participants whose home language isn’t the language of the broadcast.

Something you don’t know about me is I’ve worked with technology and telecommunications for the last 30 years. And I’ve been helping organisations to make the most of video conferences. Oh, since 1996. That’s a long time ago.

That’s the first time I trained, installed marketed, delivered, – video conferencing software. Uh, during the last two decades though, I’ve seen the technology evolve from something that was for the elites and the expensive boardrooms for just a narrow group of people, to something that’s available for everybody everywhere, whether that’s geographically, by device, video conferencing is everywhere.

This guide isn’t focused on providing new technology tips. Yet it will reference information about how certain features in the software enhance the listening experience.

This is what Lindsay said from Calgary.

She said, wow, it’s truly an exceptional guide with SO MUCH insight, not just in how to listen, but to be effective as a host and even use some of the zoom features as listening tools,

The guides insightful, practical and incredibly tactical. It’s easy to understand everything a guide should be.

With that in place. I want to share a microphone tip and its impact on communication during a video conference.

Yishan Chan (00:34:53):

https://anchor.fm/talentstack/episodes/57–Deep-Listening-with-Oscar-Trimboli-ea458d

Hi Oscar. This is Yishan from Melbourne Australia. My tip for preparing before the session, in order to help your listeners engage in deep listening is to actually help your audience reduce listening fatigue by using a good quality microphone.

There’s a study by the university of Southern California and the Australian National University that found that audio quality influenced whether people believe what they hear and whether they trust the source of information. 

In the experiment. As soon as they reduced the audio quality, the information presented became difficult to process and therefore impacted how effective they were able to get their message across.

When you speak, all you hear is the sound of your natural voice. The sound that comes through to your audience is actually compressed by the video conferencing software to reduce bandwidth.

If my role in the session is to facilitate or present for extended periods of time, I switched microphones to the one that I’m using now, rather than the call centre style headset, which is the one that I’ve switched over to now. So you can compare the difference, healthy audience, reduce listening, fatigue, especially if they’re plugged in all day with a headset.

I was recently on a call where I was meeting a small group of people for the first time they looked like they had zoom fatigue and they kept very straight faces throughout the call. I didn’t know what to make out of their lack of body language. I couldn’t tell if they were actually listening or if what I was saying resonated with them. And unless they verbally acknowledged or rephrased what I was saying or asking probing questions, I had no idea. And it left me doubting myself after the session to avoid unintentionally having the same effect on somebody else.

I make a conscious effort to show my body language when I’m listening. If I agree with something I would nod, I would smile. I would even use hand gestures to acknowledge that I’m celebrating the wind that they were sharing with us. I find that I listen better if I keep my hands away from the mouse and I either hold my bottle of water and stay hydrated, or I get into my active listening pose, which is to sit upright and class my hands together with my elbows on the table.

Oscar Trimboli (00:37:49):

Thanks Yishan sounds like you’ve got a listening power pose that you adopt. I’m lucky to have a standing desk and all my video conference hosting is done standing up. That’s deliberate. It means when I’m in that position, I’m listening because I’m the host.

When I’m participating as a guest, I also stand up too

This highlights. One of the tips you can use to help the participants with fatigue and that’s create a break every 15 minutes introduced physical movement, waving with a full range of people’s arms. All as one of my Deep Listening Ambassadors from Memphis encourages, his groups to do is to YAAAWWNN as widely as possible.

The yawn he says creates laughter and it gets people resetting their listening mindsets and their listening batteries. Encourage your participants to walk around a room, take a glass of water, and then return and sit. All these physical activities will help or recharge the participants, listening batteries.

What’s the role of breathing?

No matter who I spoke to people said, thinking about my breathing. It sounds so simple to do yet. It’s difficult to practise consistently and I wanted to explore that a little further.

Initially, I spoke with foreign language interpreter, Christina, what struck me was that she mentioned in our interview in episode eight, that interpreters work in shifts. They don’t interpret for a full day or extended periods of time. Christina explained to me the breathing technique she uses before she commences the process of interpreting as well as how she uses her breath during the process of interpreting to sustain and maintain her concentration and attention.

What struck me the most about the original interview was that the role of her breathing is something that makes her world class in her profession because it’s an integrated practise that she does in her workplace. Let’s see from Christina.

 Christina Rostworowski da Costa (00:40:10):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/008/

Hi Oscar. This is Christina from Sao Paul Brazil and Episode 008 -when we discussed listening across languages and cultures.

My main tip is Listen like everybody’s watching

Listening like everybody’s watching is not about being self-conscious or feeling monitored, but rather about acting as if you were in the person’s presence to actually be there, be present, help your body prepare for deep listening, find a place where you’re not as easily distracted and make a conscientious effort to actually connect taking three deep breaths before starting usually does the trick for me.

Oscar Trimboli (00:40:50):

Let’s go deeper with that with free diving expert, James Nestor and Author of the book Breath, who explained the integration between breathing and listening. And he’ll step us through a very simple breathing exercise that anybody can do.

When we take those breaths. What, what signals is it sending to our nervous system?

James Nestor (00:41:15):

When we breathe in that’s associated with a sympathetic nervous response, which is the fight or flight response, don’t get worried and you need to keep breathing. We want balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic, but when we breathe out, that’s stimulating a parasympathetic response, which is the rest and relaxed response doing this one exercise.

You can breathe into a count of about three and breathe out to acount of about eight.

By doing that, you are shifting the balance of that sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system to be more parasympathetic, to be more restful and relaxing. That’s a great trick to do before going to sleep on a flight before you, you really want to be relaxed and you can do the opposite thing.

When you want some energy, you increase those the amount of time inhaling and, and decrease the amount of time exhaling. You’re going to get a bump of energy.

Oscar Trimboli (00:42:14):

Listening takes place in the modern part of the brain of those two differing breathing styles, which one do you think will support the preparation ?

James Nestor (00:42:26):

Seals use the Box Breathing, which gets you completely balanced. And they use this before. They’re going into some hardcore missions.

This is inhaling to a count of four, holding for a count of four exhaling for a count of four, holding for a count of four, just like a box that is going to put you in a state where you’re neither going to be amped up and, or too relaxed.

But I’ve found personally that that gets me in a very focused state. It balances the CO2 and the oxygen in your body and allows you to function with least stress.

It’s a really important point to make that if you can’t be able to listen to your own body, you’re not going to be able to truly listen to what someone else is is saying. You’re not gonna be able to receive all of that information and breathing is this wonderful anchor this way of quickly listening to your body so that you can be a conduit to, to other knowledge out there in the world.

Oscar Trimboli (00:43:30):

I’ll let you into little secret when I’m tuning my breathing and I listening. One of my favourite rituals is to play music that matches the energy of the people I’m about to meet with often. It’s something like Easy from Groove Armarda – Weightless from Marconi Union, or Remember the name by Fort Minor.

Each has a unique tempo, and I’m deliberate in trying to tune into the beats per minute. In those songs, aligning that to my breathing, the quicker, the tempo, the more energy I need to bring to a group, the slower, the tempo, the more important my presence will make. It’s a simple formula for me, although not always applied evenly.

When I’m speaking in a broadcast mode, I’ll use higher beats per minute. Remember my name by Fort Minor. And if it’s a one-on-one conversation, an intimate conversation, Weightless by Marconi Union is probably the one I pick

We’re about to take off and log into the video conference.

So let’s review those tips around context and the dimensions of human motivation from Michael Henderson. Remember controlling belonging and developing

From Stefan the role of the physical environment and the impact that it has on your attention.

Justin Colson reminds us to have compassion for the speaker and ourselves from Dave Stachowiak , the importance of the agenda, the outcomes, and reviewing any material in advance of the meeting and his wonderful iPhone hack around do not disturb focus mode, depending on which version of your iPhone you’re using.

Dr. Romi makes the invitation to connect your conscious and subconscious and bring them together to focus your attention on listening.

Hugh Forrest provides clear advice about preparing before a broadcast and making sure you’re getting the most out of it by taking notes,

The wonderful research and tech tip from Yishan about the use of microphones and sound quality and the impact that they have on the perception of quality from the speaker and her comment about the physicality of listening. As she adopted her listening power pose.

From Christina in Brazil, how to adopt a mindset of listening like everybody is watching.

And then finally, James Nestor shares the integration of breathing and listening and particularly the box of breathing technique. Before you dial into a video conference.

Now, quick reminder, we’re putting together three episodes.

The first one today is focused on sequence, the sequence of a video conference, how to listen before, during, and after the video conference. Now we move from how to listen before the video conference.

And now we’ll focus on what you need to do during the video conference

Depending on your context and typically this is best done at the beginning of an intimate or interactive meeting. And when I say intimate, I just want to make the point. And it’s got nothing to do with the content being discussed more. The number of participants

In an intimate meeting make a point of making the implicit explicit.

Terry Gross is an award winning radio host. She’s been interviewing people in intimate mode for over three decades. Terry is the host of the radio show from WHYY and NPR called Fresh Air, which is an intimate interview for 45 minutes with their guest. It’s rare for Terry to do the interview with her guest face to face. Typically her interviews are remote and her guests are in a remote studio in another city, another country, or possibly their homes today. It’s more common for Terry’s interviews to be remote than ever face to face.

What you’re about to hear next is quite unusual. It’s Terry Gross being interviewed herself and she discusses how she makes the implicit explicit for her guest.

There are many parallels with her remote interview technique and video conferences. Let’s listen to Terry.

Terry Gross (00:48:17):

Sometimes. I think some, it might be easier when we’re not in the same space because people tend to judge each other by how they look. So that element of like, say the interviewer judging me or me judging them based on a haircut or a jacket is eliminated. And radio is pure sound. And when I interview somebody long distance, that’s pure sound too.

So there’s no nods or winks or nudges that we are doing to communicate with each other. Me and my guest, everything that the guest wants to communicate with me, they have to do through their voice and the words that they choose.

And also, since I’m not meeting the person in person, I tell them beforehand, just cuz they won’t be able to read it on my face.

That if I ask anything too personal, they should let me know and I’ll move on to something else. I want them to know that I trust them to draw the line between what’s public and what’s private.

And I don’t want to censor myself and presume to know where that line is. I’d rather that they just guide me that way. I’m free to ask anything, knowing that they’ll be confident in telling me, you know, that’s my line.

Oscar Trimboli (00:49:20):

A couple of things I take away from the interview with Terry

First, when you are having an intimate discussion with one or two others, decide if video is the right mode of communication, voice only can be just as powerful to increase communication effectiveness.

That’s why I’m doing a podcast.

Next Terry’s clear on the role of the host and the guest. Terry is deliberate to extinguish any perception of power differential between her and the guest interview participant.

This is done by Terry by adopting the role of the process owner explaining how it’s going to work rather than what they’re discussing, explaining that there is a line between the personal and the private during the conversation. And the guest is in control of where that line is drawn.

By declaring this at the beginning of the conversation, both participants are clear and despite the fact that one is in the role of the guest and one, the host, everybody knows how it’s going to work.

Workplace conversations that are intimate include discussions between you and your manager a job interview or a regular connection meeting may be with you. And one of your peers, maybe even a skip level with your manager’s manager

The term intimate is used to describe the number of participants one or two, not the actual content of the conversation, whether you are the meeting host or participant, either of you can ask or explain the process of the conversation as well as the agenda or the outcomes.

Now, typically this is done by the host or the person that’s called a meeting, but there’s no reason for the participant to share the process at the beginning as well in the workplace.

This very simple question is one that many people from my workshops say they use over and over again. And it has a massive impact. In fact, I have a client in the UK who’s quite famous for using this phrase in her industry and she credits it to being one of the major reasons why she continues to grow the organisation. She asks this simple question and I would suggest you pose this question either before the meeting around the meeting invite time or at the very beginning of the conversation.

And the question is “What would make this a great meeting?”

It creates a wonderful compass setting for the conversation and you can check in every 15 minutes and say, look at the beginning of the conversation, we said a great meeting would look like this how are we going against that?

Now the reason I recommend you use this question is that it helps you reduce the time in the meeting. What often happens is by using that check in question every 15 minutes in a one hour meeting, every 10 minutes in a 30 minute meeting, you WILL shorten the conversation because people will realise that they’ve made the progress they need to.

You can ask that question. “What would make this a great meeting?” during the intimate meetings and as the host, as well as the participant in an interactive meeting, if you’re the host and you’re hosting an interactive meeting, say four to 15 participants as the host, I recommend arrive early and ask the participants that question while others are arriving. So you’re starting a conversation straight away, and you’re getting a sense of getting the gravity of where the group’s at and where you want to take it with them.

Make sure there’s an intersection between what you want to achieve, what they wanna achieve and the purpose or the outcome of the meeting is

In the broadcast context this question can be asked, but ideally there posed as three questions on registration. When you register for the broadcast and the results should be collated summarised, put into themes and displayed to the participants and discussed in the first third of the broadcast.

It signals to the audience that as a host, you’ve heard them and your role modelling, listening by showing them what they’ve said.

Now, this creates an interesting magnet because people are starting to look for what they said that’s displayed during the broadcast meeting and it increases their engagement and focuses their attention.

As a result, you should adjust the content you present based on the responses to the three questions on registration for the broadcast meeting.

When you arrive, you have a decision to make about how you choose to listen.

When I interviewed John Corrigan, originally, he highlighted to me the way you can bring your attention and tune your listening into language and its impacts, particularly thinking about the patterns of your thinking and your assumptions.

John Corrigan (00:54:33):

https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/013/

This is John Corrigan from the Episode 13, about how to help notice when you’re listening for similarities and differences

Decide what’s the purpose of your listening and this way change over the course of the video conference.

First, I listen to learn which case I may take notes and strive to connect what I’m hearing to what I already know.

Second, I may listen to create change within myself, which case I will listen intently with open awareness.

And third, I may be listening to be there for another participant as they speak which case I will listen intently with a quiet mind.

Oscar Trimboli (00:55:13):

John is a skillful educator and a gifted communicator. I’m grateful that our paths have crossed.

When I arrive in a new context, a new environment, a new industry, a new project, a zone of competition, collaboration or conflict. I tune my listening during the video conference with John’s words, whispering in my ears

Right now, Oscar for this group in this moment, and the outcome in the agenda is listening for the similar or they’re different going to be most productive for them.

It’s not about which is right or wrong, but it’s adopting a listening orientation that helps the group progress like Michael Henderson. John Corrigan’s framework is independent of face to face or video conference conversations

Because you can listen four times faster than they can speak. You need to be conscious that you will be distracted during any discussion. So rather than seek to stop the distraction and give it unnecessary energy, be open and notice when the distractions arrive by noticing you will be able to dance with distraction and adjust your attention much quicker. It’s more fun to dance with distraction than it is to push against it.

Distractions can be so frustrating and I can hear the frustration in Ruth’s voice with this recording.

Ruth (00:56:52):

This is Ruth from Eugene, Oregon in the United States. And my question about listening during video meetings is what should I look at? I’ve noticed myself becoming distracted by elements related to video quality or images in the background and I’m wondering if you have suggestions for what I should look at so I can listen more deeply?

Oscar Trimboli (00:56:52):

Thanks, Ruth. I think there might be an assumption in your question. Let’s listen to an approach. You may not have considered this arrived at the end of a discussion I had with James Nestor and it’s about whether you listen with your eyes or your ears.

James Nestor (00:57:37):

Something I do when whenever I’m on an interview is I always close my eyes, which is what I’ve been doing this entire interview as well.

It’s a good thing. You don’t have the camera on. You’d see a weird guy with his eyes closed because I’ve found that removing that sense removing vision can allow me to fall so much more easily into what someone’s saying into what I’m saying into what I’m feeling I’ve noticed.

I’m not a visual person. I’m much more a, a musical person. I’m much more into sound than I am into sight. I’ve found that I can much more easily process and respond to questions.

If my eyes are closed. And I’m able to sort of roam between that conscious and subconscious place and try to pull out these little factoids. I thought I had forgotten.

I found that that’s so much easier if you just remove that sense of vision, especially a laptop filled with 20 different browser windows. I mean, that’s, that would be my nightmare.

Oscar Trimboli (00:58:39):

There are two approaches when it comes to listening, how you hear, how you experience sound? The auditory and visual

James has described a primary listening preference for auditory. He’s comfortable when it’s sound only and no visual

Equally Terry Gross, who we listened to earlier sends all the signals that she’s also an auditory listener. She loves to conduct her interview by herself in the quiet, usually with the lights turned down low and both Terry and James Love listening to music, which is another hint about how they might attend to listening.

Ruth, I’m curious if closing your eyes would be something you might be comfortable experimenting with someone you trust, probably in a small meeting, an intimate meeting where you’ve known them for a while. Yet I suspect you’re a visual listener, a visual listeners place, great emphasis on body language in their listening. And you mentioning that that was another hint to me that maybe your primary listening orientation is visual.

I sense that the original question may also have been in the context of an interactive, rather than an intimate meeting.

I recommend that if you are a participant in these interactive meetings and you’re not sure where to look, you’re probably in gallery view. So switch gallery view to active speaker view, it will reduce the visual surface area for you, and you can focus exclusively on the current speaker yet, even when looking at the active speaker for an extended period of time, it will drain your listening batteries and, and your attention will wander, and your distractions will make their way in.

A visual reset technique. I would recommend is simply staring into the speaker’s eyes, the active speaker’s eyes on a video conference. Don’t do this face to face. It’s a little bit weird, but the visual technique while you’re in video conferences is to stare at the active speaker’s eyes long enough to notice their eye colour and that will create a reset fee concentration.

If you’re the meeting host, you play a crucial role too. The host should be mixing the modality of the video conference between every eight to 12 minutes.

This is the edges of workplace professional’s ability to hold their attention. Moving the group from an active speaker to the chat window, to a poll slide to a breakout room or, or possibly playing a video will create a significant enough context, which for the concentration and focus to reset and help your distractions to be reduced.

Continuing the theme of listening for body language and for energy. Let’s listen to Rachel and Bev and for bonus points, see if you can notice whether they’re auditory listeners or visual listeners based on their description of the situation.

Rachel (01:01:56):

This is Rachel from Vancouver, Canada. My biggest challenge with video calls is reading people’s energy or connecting with it, to pick up on all those lovely body language cues that are lost when you’re only seeing someone thumbnail on your screen.

I also feel that this is a challenge as a communicator who relies heavily on connecting via shared energy, or being able to read the room and connect in unspoken terms.

Bev Attfield (01:02:25):

This is Bev Attfield – My question is without some nonverbal visual cues that you have in face to face conversation, especially when participants have video turned off and sometimes poor audio connections. How do you ensure that you’ve really heard the other person?

Oscar Trimboli (01:02:41):

Thanks Bev, and to your question first, have you considered the reaction and the chat functions as a way to channel nonverbal feedback, non audio feedback to the speaker?

This functionality is a wonderful way to provide non-verbal encourages when you agree or not. You can use the chat. The opposite is true.

If you are playing the role of the host, make the implicit explicit and invite participants to signal their encouragement to the active speaker, either by use of the reaction buttons or the chat function.

As the host, you are creating the environment and curating a culture of the meeting.

You don’t have to accept limitations such as people having their video off. When you have other channels to signal your listening, Rachel, with your question, uh, reading group energy, when you are all in gallery view on thumbnails, I’m sensing you’ve got a visual listening orientation, Rachel.

As the host, Ask some energy based questions?

You can use the chat or, or bring people off mute and put them on audio. And you could ask questions.

                Like, what colour is the group feeling right now?

                What kind of drink would describe your energy?

                If this was a song, how would it feel right now?

Rachel, your primary listening, orientation being visual. I think that’s a breakthrough for you. And although it’s great to know this, and you can use it to your advantage, ask people to grab something possibly in arm’s length in that moment, while you are hosting the meeting and get them to hold up that object on the screen to signal where their energy is at now,

If they don’t have those objects, you can do a, a simple show of hands or fingers on a scale of one to five or one to 10 they can put a number of fingers up there. So you can get a gauge of the energy. If you’re going to monitor energy, do that consistently. And if you don’t have a lot of time, make sure you do it at the beginning and towards the end of the meeting and you can notice how the energy has changed as it increased numerically, or are people originally describing themselves as soda at the beginning and maybe champagne at the end

As you can see your imagination rather than your, your in person presence to read the energy. I think your imagination is the only thing that’s limiting you from collecting, sorting and theming nonverbal techniques to take the temperature of the group energy as you go along

When it comes to energy And this question for my is about what happens when somebody’s got too much energy and imposing themselves on the discussion. Here’s this question?

Aiden (01:05:44):

How do you expertly let a dominant voice know they’re taking too much air time on a virtual call and they’re not allowing others to participate or get their voice into the room?

Oscar Trimboli (01:05:54):

Aiden, this is the first role of the host.

A dominant voice imposing themselves in an unproductive way is the responsibility. First of the host, and it’s highly likely that they haven’t described or agreed a process for turn taking or communication protocol or time limit or alignment with agenda.

If you are the host, if you have created these protocols and the person is still being dominant, here’s four quick tips. I would give you

Firstly, elegantly interrupt. Don’t cut them off. Mid-sentence wait for them to finish their next complete sentence. Cutting them off. Mid-sentence feels like they haven’t been heard

When you do that. Ask a simple question, not to the dominant speaker, but to the group and ask the group. If they share this perspective with the dominant speaker and that will be a way to provide a mirror to the dominant speaker, whether the group shares this issue or not.

Now, if they do make sure you bring them in, so other voices can be heard. And if they don’t, you can reflect that back to the dominant speaker

Tip number two is to ask them to summarise that issue as if it’s a subject line in an email or, or one sentence or one breath.

The third tip I would give you is to ask them, uh, this question based on where we’re at with the agenda or the outcome of the meeting, could you join together what you’re saying with how we’re going to make progress

Tip number four, you may need to agree to discuss that in a one-on-one meeting outside of the video conference environment.

It’s ironic though, Aiden, the dominant or repetitive speaker do this because they feel like they haven’t been heard in the past by others.

Because this host has created a space without the protocols like can air a grievance, a long-held view, a long story because they feel they haven’t been acknowledged in the past.

From here, let’s move to note-taking during video conferences

The Deep Listening Research Respondent highlighted that the speaker thought the listener’s note taking signal better comprehension .

Research participants explained a range of note taking techniques, including taking notes from actions, only taking notes about themes, capturing graphical notes, simple diagrams, or taking detailed verbatim notes.

Note taking is an intrinsic part of many professions, whether that’s accounting, journalism, medicine, law, recruitment, or sales.

Note taking is part of the training in their fields and it’s often a quality signal to clients or patients about how much attention the professional is paying in that moment.

Occasionally these notes may become evidence in a legal dispute.

I recommend summarise throughout the conversation as well as towards the end. Um, a little bit of caution with note taking note, taking actually draws your attention and hijacks your listening, if you’re in the process of scribing, literally every word verbatim, you’re not a court stenographer capture the essence of what they’re saying.

The speakers speaking speed is much faster than your ability to capture word for word without losing your place, your comprehension, or what you want to achieve from the conversation.

A simple note taking technique, I recommend typically in the intimate setting and it needs to be appropriate to the context is to simply pause and say

                “What you said was important, do you mind pausing while I capture that?”

                “Do you mind pausing while I note that down now?”

This process creates an opportunity for the speaker as well as for the listener for the speaker, they have the opportunity to understand what they said has made a significant impact for the listener. It gives them the opportunity to catch up.

                A WORD OF WARNING.

If you’re in sales, if you use this technique too often or inappropriately, it’s perceived as false flattery.

If you are the listener, now you have time to focus exclusively on note taking rather than simultaneously listening and taking notes, whether you’re a copious note taker or someone who relies exclusively on your memory, it’s important to understand that the value of note taking is creating shared understanding. Sometimes this is manifest in a shared document and ultimately we want it to create common understanding.

Modern video conferencing software has closed captioning and transcription as part of the functionality. So the reality of you capturing word for word in a video conference is likely to be low because that function can be automated equally.

You can record the video conferences well, but I strongly recommend that you only do this when you have the express consent of all participants to create a recording in the meeting.

                Listening requires permission,so does recording.

Now when it comes to note taking during intimate meetings, I love this very simple technique from Dave who uses his keyboard in a clever way during intimate meetings to capture the essence of what’s said

Dave Stachowiak  (01:12:05):

During sessions is when I’m taking notes, I put pound signs in advance of anything I take digitally on notes that are action items that I need to do later. That way don’t get caught up in writing down too much detail. I’ve just learned to do that for myself after the session, then I can review those notes and then parse out the things that are action items. And that’s what I do afterwards is review the notes and record anything in our CRM system. That’s relevant for client communication and we use Pipedrive

Oscar Trimboli (01:12:34):

Now the # key, Dave referenced is the SHIFT and 3 key on most keyboards around the world. I love this technique because you can quickly identify the actions in the meeting, not just for the person capturing the note, but equally for the person in the meeting as well.

Modern workplace software allows you and others to create shared documents. And because the documents are shared, this will create common understanding throughout the course of the meeting.

Now you may be wondering how do you capture notes during a Broadcast meeting? I recommend an approach you may not have considered, which is the buddy approach during a Broadcast. If you are going to go to a Broadcast meeting with somebody else that you know, you may ask them in advance what they are trying to learn from the broadcast, and you tell them what you’re trying to learn from the broadcast.

You both create a shared document in which you listen for your own outcomes, as well as for the others. Now, remember you can listen for both because you’re listening speed is much faster than the speaker’s speaking speed. And when you get quickly distracted or bored from listening for your own outcome, then you can switch your attention and start to listen on behalf of your buddy. And funnily enough, when you listen on behalf of somebody else, your attention will become more focused and energised.

This can be extended, if people aren’t attending the same broadcast event, as you, you could ask somebody else that you know, inside or outside your organisation, who might be interested in the topic, what they would like to learn from the event. And you can take notes on your behalf as well as taking notes on their behalf.

Now, when you run an event for 30,000 people, I think you’ve got a great perspective on how to take notes. And South By SouthWest SXSW by Southwest has tens of thousands of people every year and head of programming. Hugh Forrest has got a great tip.

Hugh Forrest (01:14:39):

I encourage you to keep notes about what is said during the portion of the conference that you are listening to.

Keeping notes will force you to pay more attention to this video conference and get more solid takeaways from the event

Oscar Trimboli (01:14:51):

During the video conference, ask what will make this a great meeting for you notice, are you listening for the similar or the different? Are you listening for the familiar or the distinct? Do you listen with your eyes or do you listen with your ears? And do you have an agreed process or protocol for communicating both how people take turns and the way you’ll take notes,

We’ve created an amazing 105 page guide. It’s a step by step approach to sequence role and meeting size. The Ultimate Guide for Listening on a Video Conference, 

                Now let’s talk about AFTER the video conference

The difference between hearing and listening is action.

The difference between hearing and listening is action.

Now don’t worry. I didn’t say that a second time by mistake.

Now don’t worry. I didn’t make a mistake.

I just want you to notice that you can hear lots of information, but to change that into impact, you need to take action and signalling action means you are listening.

A lack of action will reduce the impact of any meeting in any conversation. Noting a different action from the one initially requested in a meeting will require additional rework and that will impact the project team. It will impact your team. It will impact the group, all the other participants, the quality of what you are trying to create.

Take care to listen to the agreed action rather than what was initially discussed, because they’re rarely the same after the meeting communicate a summary of the agreed actions and timelines and consistently communicate when the actions have progressed, not just when they’ve been completed Actions, they should be debated, decided, and documented as they happen rather than at the tail end of the meeting.

I recommend you summarise at approximately 75% mark of the allocated time of the meeting rather than near the end

At the 75% mark, the host should confirm the summary of actions, not the owner in the timing, just the top line action. And the purpose of this is to listen for what’s unsaid or missing actions and allow the group to reflect on anything else they haven’t considered

At the 75% mark, the group can discuss rather than rush through anything in their decision making and action taking that hasn’t been agreed if the meeting is being recorded, ensure the recording is sent to the participants rather than sending a recording to third parties who are not present.

Ask one of the participants to create a contextualised summary for them so they can hear what was discussed and agreed in the context of their department divisional project

For a broadcast meeting, assemble and review all the event, questions and feedback and post event surveys communicate the insights and actions you are taking as frequently as possible to those in the audience.

In our next episode, where we unpack the Ultimate Guide to Listening on a Video Conference, , we’re going to spend time distinguishing the role of listening as a host and listening as a guest and how they show up really differently. As a host, you hold a lot of energy for the group in interactive meetings and broadcast meetings. And as a guest, you have different characteristics of your listening. The following episode, we’ll discuss intimate interactive and broadcast meetings in more defined detail than before, during and after the conversation. If you’d like to access the transcript of this episode. In fact, any episode, because we have a number of references to other interviews in previous podcasts,

if you visit https://www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/101/

You can find all the transcripts on all previous episodes there as well.

Now coming up, we’ve got a few questions that the group has posed, which will answer in the next episode. And here they are.

Christina (01:19:54):

I do have a question for you. Do you feel that we will be able to achieve the same level of deep listening in the digital environment as we are able to train ourselves and achieve in real life, is it actually possible to transfer all the skill sets required and the same level of presence, the same level of engagement that we have and experience in one-on-one conversations? How do you feel about that?

Hugh (01:20:29):

Oscar? A question I have for you, what makes a virtual event, a virtual experience? In other words, how do you take that virtual event at video conference to the next level? Look forward to hearing from your answer,

Oscar Trimboli (01:20:43):

If like them, you’ve got any questions about how to listen on a video conference or how to listen in the workplace. If you’ve got any questions in regards to listening, just email podcast@oscartrimboli.com and we will answer your questions in the subsequent episodes.

What an amazing ride putting together 105 page guide is packed of value. And I’ve really enjoyed the process of listening to the deep listening ambassadors community and all those involved in the research. I know this document will create enormous value for you with something that this community tells me that they’re consistently struggling with

I’m Oscar Trimboli and along with the Deep Listening Ambassadors, we’re on a quest to create a Hundred Million Deep Listeners in the world and you have given us the greatest gift of all you’ve listened to us.

Thanks for listening.