Oscar Trimboli:

G’day, I’m Oscar Trimboli and this is the Apple award-winning podcast, Deep Listening: Impact beyond words.

Good listeners focus on what’s said, and deep listeners notice what’s not said.

Each episode is designed to help you learn from hundreds of the world’s most diverse workplace listening professionals, including anthropologists, air traffic controllers, acoustic engineers, and actors.

Behavioral scientists and business executives, community organizers, conductors, deaf and blind leaders, foreign language interpreters, and body language experts. Judges, journalists, market researchers, medical professionals, memory champions, military leaders, movie makers, and musicians. You’ll learn from neurotypical and neurodiverse listeners, as well as neuroscientists and negotiators, palliative care nurses, and suicide counselors.

Whether you are in pairs, teams, groups, or listening across systems, whether you’re face-to-face, on the phone, or via video conference, you’ll learn the art and science of listening, and understand the importance of the neuroscience, and these three critical numbers:

125, 400, and 900.

You’ll also learn three is half of eight, zero is half of eight, and four is half of eight, when you listen across the five levels of listening, conscious of the four most common barriers that get in your way.

Each episode will provide you with practical, pragmatic, and actionable techniques to reduce the number of meetings you attend, and shorten the meetings you participate in.

The Deep Listening podcast is the most comprehensive resource for workplace listeners.

Along with the Deep Listening Ambassadors, we’re on a quest to create 100 million deep listeners in the workplace, one conversation at a time.

Episode 104, seven years in the making, or a lifetime, depending on the backstory.

Today’s episode, it’s a little different. It’s a milestone for me and the Deep Listening Ambassador Community.

In this episode, I invite you to explore how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication, the most comprehensive book about listening in the workplace.

It’s now available as an audiobook and eBook and paperback in partnership with Page Two, Macmillan Publishing, Twin Flames Studio, and Kelly Irving. How to Listen is now available in 23 countries for you to buy, and if you’ve already bought a copy, thank you.

What you’re about to hear next is the way we brought How to Listen to life, how it was inspired, researched, structured, critiqued, improved, and how people provided feedback along the way for the cover, the design, the stories, the statistics.

All of these held together by an amazing community of people who are all on a quest to create 100 million deep listeners.

In chapter five of the book, we discuss over 26 pages, the importance of listening to the backstory. There are two distinct perspectives of a backstory. What happens in terms of the actors, the events, the relationships, the backstory, and how each person views and explains their role relative to others, their backstory.

Your role as the listener is to listen to the backstory, their backstory, and their place in the backstory. Invite the speaker to explain more from behind the scenes. When you go behind the scenes, no one is making assumptions or inferences.

Participants won’t be jumping to conclusions about which information is absent from the past, or the purpose of the story. Or in the words of Simon Greer from Episode 95, Three Ways To Listen When You Fiercely Disagree.

Simon Greer:

It’s always dangerous when you’re asked like, “Take me back,” because I could go back to my parents came to the United States on a boat. They came from England in 1965 and to really understand me, you have to understand the part of the Jewish left that I grew up in. I grew up on the Upper West Side in New York City in Manhattan when it was still pretty working class, middle class, heavily Jewish left.

I went to a summer camp called Camp Kinderland, and when I say this to people, it was a Jewish communist summer camp, they’re like, “Oh, you mean liberal?”

No, no, no, no. No, I mean a Jewish communist summer camp. My bunk was named Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, after the civil rights workers and the music building was called Paul Robeson.

Oscar Trimboli:

Let’s start the backstory of how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication, the most comprehensive book about listening in the workplace.

It’s just before lunchtime, October 2015, I was finalizing a debrief with the chair of a board.

Frances was a client who’d been working with me for a couple of years and Frances explained that although we’d finished a three-hour board meeting in 90 minutes by showcasing how to listen to the UNSAID, she challenged me to listen carefully to what happens to the directors after this meeting.

Her words had great impact, great gravity. They were delivered with subtle and skillful force.

She said, “Oscar, water has power in all of its forms. Liquid, gas, solid. Whether it’s steam, ice, or a river, water has a way of maneuvering and adjusting its form and its shape in a way that makes it useful in all of its formats.”

Frances continued, she said, “Oscar, you need to help these directors with more ways than just your presence in a workshop. You need to write a book to help us.”

In 2015 in October, that’s where the idea for the second book, Deep Listening: Impact beyond words emerged.

By August 2017, it was published, and today we have 123 ratings and reviews. I’m very proud of the book. Many people commented on the size of the book.

A pocket guide, easy to access, meant to be read, easy to locate, easy to find the tips and techniques you want to use in the moment.

Yet, readers also provided me with additional feedback beyond the online reviews. They asked me to write a more thorough, more comprehensive, more complete book about listening in the workplace.

One email changed my mind though.

The email arrived in my inbox in July 2020.

The email said, “What you contribute to the world around listening is compelling. You owe it to us, the Deep Listening Ambassador Community, you owe it to yourself to write a more substantial and thorough book about listening. The weight and importance of this concept needs to be available in the world beyond just your podcast, and those lucky enough to work with you in corporate engagements.”

The Deep Listening: Impact beyond words book was designed within an inch of its life. I made a choice about that design decision to make the book very small, because I wanted a book that would be read, not a dust collecting shelf trophy. The book, its size and the playing cards, it appeals to a specific mindset.

Yet, because of the publishing industry’s traditions, and over 150 years of book publishing, readers have been trained to think that books should be between 250 and 400 pages, in a very specific format, because that’s the way the industry’s worked.

It made me reflect, “Why am I trying to swim against the tide? Why am I making it all about me and my design principles?”

Back to the email. The email continued, “If you truly believe in the power of listening, listen to me. Write a book worthy of the impact of the ideas.”

Another backstory for this book is from October 2021 and from my book’s dedication which says, “To my father, who lost the use of his tongue from his stroke and taught me how to listen without words.”

Understanding the backstory creates more meaning on the journey, and the difference between hearing and listening is action. I decided to act on the email that was sent to me.

It’s now October 2022 and I’m delighted to be releasing the most comprehensive book about listening in the workplace,

how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication

in paperback, eBook, and audio formats, 259 pages or seven hours and 26 minutes, if you want to listen to the audiobook. The audio book’s a little longer. I’ll explain more about that shortly.

You can visit www.oscartrimboli.com/howtolisten/?EP104 and you can order the book from your favorite retailer.

I’d like to introduce you to “how to listen” through three perspectives.

1. The foundational research,
2. the writing & the editing
3. and the release of the book.

The foundational research, listening to the spoken and unspoken struggles of workplace listeners, exploring perspectives from people that I know, which was about 20% of the research group, and 80% of people that I didn’t know and didn’t know anything about deep listening.

Next was the writing and the editing process. This spans everything from the title, the subtitle, the book cover, the design, the fonts, the structure, the chapters, the stories, the frameworks, and ultimately the sentences and words that make up the book.

Then finally, the release of the book. This involves editing, refining, distilling, and communicating in a productive way for the listeners. Gathering feedback from peers, experts in listening from other parts of the world, and feedback from the advance readers, who got to read the complete manuscript before it was bound in a book.

Let’s start first by looking at the research.

In August 2018, Nell Norman-Nott introduced me to Audience Instinct, a market research company founded by Heidi Martin.

As a result, the journey of two years of research, testing and validation commenced with the foundational questions of the listening quiz emerging from these research groups.

Phase one of the research was conducted, in Heidi’s words, “Coded dataset of 1,430 responses, including demographic, key insights, and recommendations around three very specific questions.”

Let’s hear from Heidi and Nell as they explore the research from Episode 55 

Heidi Martin:

A beautifully simple piece of research. We’re looking to uncover what those barriers to listening were.

Three really simple, open ended questions which yielded very detailed and interesting results.

1. What do you struggle with as a listener?
2. What do you get frustrated with other people, and
3. what would you like to improve?

That was done across a representative sample across gender, it was representative across age group, which lets us slice the data by generation, and across location. A very robust sample.

Nell Norman-Nott:

It sounds like there’s always an aha moment in the research. What was the aha moment when you were looking through the data?

Heidi Martin:

The aha moment for me was, my goodness, the challenge starts much, much earlier. The challenge we need to solve is having people mentally available, and with the intent to listen, because they’re not.

Until we resolve that, doesn’t matter what you want to teach people when they’re in that room.

One of the better quotes, “I can see it when they’re not listening and they’ve drifted off. It’s physically obvious, or when they’re on their mobile phone.”

Flip it on the other side, 70% of people when we say, “What do you struggle with yourself?” “Attention, focus.” We like this one, “Letting my own thoughts get in the way and distract me. Being distracted with other work thoughts, quietening my own thoughts so I can retain what’s said.”

Oscar Trimboli:

One of the things we speculated in advance was, do men and women listen differently, and do the age groups listen differently?

Heidi Martin:

The most interesting thing to me was there aren’t massive differences between any of these cuts.

You think that there’s some sort of sensational thing we can pull out of here between gender and generations. That fundamental piece is still there in terms of focus and attention.

Oscar Trimboli:

By October 2018, the sample size had been finalized and reduced to 1,410.

These responses became the ingredients for the four villains of listening.

Visit www.oscartrimboli.com/podcast/068, if you want to listen to the one hour episode where we deconstruct the four villains of listening.

The listening quiz is now up to version four. Over 21,000 people have now completed the assessment, in 154 countries and territories. Although Heidi said there isn’t a material difference in gender composition of listening barriers, there is a noticeable skew in the listening quiz database regarding gender interest in the topic of listening.

At 21,000 people completing the quiz, 63% of people in the database identify as female. That’s a bit of a skew.

Now, this dataset may be skewed by the way I share the quiz around the English speaking world.

Maybe I speak to more females than males in the workplace situations I find myself in. Maybe true. I decided to test the hypothesis. I could test it against data, and I could ask the question, are females more interested in understanding their listening performance and improvements compared to other genders?

Now, I’m not sure I have the complete answer, yet in chapter three, we explore some research by Jack Zenger and 4,306 participants, he found in his research, females proved to be significantly better listeners and demonstrated a significantly stronger preference for listening than males.

If you want to find out more, then check out Chapter 3 of the book.

A quick thanks and shout out to Tracy Hazard and Dr. Emily Yorkston. They introduced me to Melissa Pritchard and Barry Gibson from Evaluation Solutions. They are the people who’ve helped to code the foundational research into what the listening quiz is. We started that journey in December 2018.

We launched the quiz in March 2020. We had a lot of work to do. Thanks to Barry and Melissa who helped me throughout this process to make the model consistent, predictable, repeatable, and valid.

Their experience in running assessments all around the English-speaking world has made the quiz much better and I realize they’ve helped me to code how I listen.

The journey of coding how to listen started with the software in the assessment and forms the backbone of the listening quiz.

Listening happens before, during, and after a conversation, a team meeting, a workshop, an interview, or an event. The listening quiz was doing a great job of helping people understand their listening barriers before I even met them.

To help people like Frances out, how could this idea take many shapes and forms like water?

As a result, the quiz created a fun, accessible language, framework and archetypes for people to have fun and explore whether their listening barriers were about drama, interruption, being distracted, or being a problem solver.

There was a missing piece we covered off before and during the conversation.

Many workshop participants asked me to integrate what they learned during workshops into their daily workplace conversations and meetings.

They asked me to create a challenge, and this gave rise to the90-Dayy Challenge, as well as the deep listening practice cards.

The deep listening practice cards, 50 cards organized into the five levels of listening to help you navigate your way with some simple concepts and questions. Rarely are they bigger than eight words.

The cards allowed people to practice alone, in pairs, in groups, in workshops, face-to-face, or via video conference. I’m pleased to say the cards have been used by school principals, and prison guards, and bank tellers, and advertising agencies, accountants, actuaries, actors, ambulance officers, engineers, and environmentalists, just to name a few.

Yet, not everyone wants to practice with a card, and as a result, the90-Day Deep Listening Challenge emerged. Each week for 13 weeks, participants receive a tip, a technique, a video, an audio file, or an exercise to improve their listening.

Over 3,000 people have completed the challenge end to end and if you want to do that yourself, you can visit www.oscartrimboli.com/90days

Whether it’s in a workshop, whether it was the research, the 90 Day Challenge and the podcast series, we ask one question really consistently, and that question is, what do you struggle with when it comes to your listening?

This has created thousands of replies and they’ve all been captured, sorted, categorized, and it keeps us on track to make sure that the tools we create and the books we write answer these questions.

Answer them in a practical, pragmatic, and professional way. It helps us to spot emerging trends like we notice a lot of people are now complaining that connected watches are creating as many distractions as cell phones or mobile phones.

Listening to this feedback led to the creation of this, the Deep Listening podcast when many email newsletter subscribers asked for another way, another form to consume the content in a more accessible way. When they were driving, when they were exercising, when they were commuting, maybe even when they were flying.

They wanted to listen rather than read, and as a result, in August 2017, this podcast was launched and with over 100 of the world’s most diverse listening professionals interviewed, it’s created another way to stay in touch after the workshop.

Undertaking these discussions has radically altered my perspective on listening. It’s changed my mind about what poor listening is, what good listening is, what great listening is, what people say they struggle with and what they really struggle with.

It’s taught me the influence of listening filters from the perspective of gender, education, professional background, language, context, culture, and people’s upbringing. Ultimately, it’s taught me how little I know about listening.

Thanks to everyone who’s sent me a message or contacted me via podcast@oscartrimboli.com about suggestions for guests or topics.

Feedback about the length of the episode or the format of the episode, and a genuine commitment to communicating about how to make it better for next time.

deep-diveLooking back, we made significant adjustments over five years based on your feedback. We got strong feedback that people didn’t want to hear the phrase deep listening in foreign languages to them. They wanted deep dive episodes about the five levels of listening and the four villains of listening rather than only the interview format. They wanted to hear more from me, especially in the context of answering your workplace questions.

My client assignments are the ultimate way to test whether the research and development work we’re doing around deep listening is useful. We continue to test small elements from research insights into webinars and workshops, so small sometimes, I don’t even realize I’m using them. But what we want to test is, do the framework improvements land or do they bounce back from the audience?

It’s another way to respectfully listen to the research and make sure that it’s useful for people when they use it.

Since we started the deep listening journey, our clients have trusted me with over 30,000 of their employees. Whether I’ve been working with them one on one in workshops, training or speaking, it’s always grounding for me to get firsthand, real time feedback from humans about how useful the stories, the statistics, the frameworks, the tools, and the techniques might be in their workplace.

That’s a very long way for me to say, starting first with the research, is a combination of the work that I do every day, plus a dedicated depth to extracting the understanding from 21,000 workplace listeners.

With this research in place and able to derive insights from it, let’s move to part two, the writing and editing.

One of my favorite writing quotes is from Arthur Plotnik. Arthur says, “You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you. Yet, we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”

Another way to say that is write like an author and edit like a reader.

I started this writing journey for the book with a very back to basics exercise.

It was a week long challenge [inaudible 00:25:03] by Kelly Irving.

Kelly asked, “Who are you actually writing for, Oscar? Listen deeply, build empathy, navigate a day in their life rather than yours. What car do they drive? What music do they listen to? What do they watch? Where does their workday start and what happens before they get to work and what happens when they get home from work? Do you understand your reader and your listener well enough to be able to say that?”

Kelly Irving:

In terms of what I want to get out of this meeting, I just want to talk you through where my thinking is going.

 I actually think we’re almost going back in a circle, which is not unusual. I actually used to write down exactly, you might not have seen it, but in the, a bit messy. But I wrote down your description, which I think is super, super useful because it was that thing that Amanda said, and who is this and what is their problem that we are trying to solve? Think that is what happens through and will probably still happen when we start writing.

Inch by inch, I think we’re getting close. When I look back at what you said, where I started going with the title was it’s about solving issues, so she feels pressured that she’s always having to solve problems for other people.

I’m going to go away, and digest this. I’m going to retweek some stuff on the proposal and jot a couple of thoughts down. I’m going to send it to you and I’m also going to send it to Trena and Amanda to get their thoughts, which is why I want to almost give them a document to where I think before we meet again is actually almost give them something. We could really use your input and advice here.

Oscar Trimboli:

Yet, the most powerful part of this exercise paradoxically for me, was the question Kelly posed,

“Who are you not writing for?”

For me, the who am I not writing for was couples, parents, personal relationships. Yet, this became ironic when I went to read an early reviewer piece of feedback because they said something that surprised me.

They said, “A book with a huge and also extremely necessary message nowadays. On reflection, although it’s focused on listening in the workplace, surely it suits every human relationship.”

Who is this book for, is part of the invitation section at the beginning of the book.

This book is for you, Rita.

Rather than reading what I wrote in the book for Rita, I want to go behind the scenes. I want to share with you what I wrote for Kelly as part of that early process of who are you writing for, Oscar? This is what I wrote in collaboration with Rita. I realized I didn’t know my reader well enough, so I went and spoke to Rita.

I asked her to keep a journal and this is what she wrote, and let me share.

Oh, my God. I want to die again, back-to-back meetings. I’m racing from one to the next. I’m so frustrated. I can’t believe that my team keeps sending me escalations. I’m out of freaking control. I’m so frustrated with the chair of the board. He came to me yesterday with a request. He could have solved it himself and I had to tell him what to do. It’s insane. Looking ahead in my calendar for today and tomorrow, there’s no shortage of meetings all over again.

When do I actually get time to get my job done?

The one I’m getting paid for. Instead, I feel like I’m cleaning up after my team. When do I get paid to think about something more than a day ahead?

A day ahead, ha ha ha, maybe a meeting ahead. When do I get paid to actually do the things I’m paid to do, to lead versus putting out fires every minute of the day? I can’t wait to get home. I can’t wait to jump in my car. I just want to chill out and listen to some tunes and unwind for the day.

Honestly, Oscar, I feel like a rat on a wheel.

There’s got to be a different way.

For bonus points, the chair came to me today and said, ‘We have a notice from our industry regulator,’ and now I’ve got to clean up something I didn’t even do.

My predecessor created some random plan for our business, and guess what? It could be illegal.

Wonderful, wonderful news, and I’ve got to clean it up. I’ve got to clean it up for someone who isn’t even here, who won’t be responsible for the consequences of their actions.

Now, I’ve got to spend time with lawyers, even though I’m a lawyer myself. I have to speak to our general counsel and I have to go outside the organization and find a competition regulator lawyer to help us out.

Otherwise, we’re going to face a huge fine.

I’m getting in the lift now. There’s no one left in the office.

It’s 13 minutes past seven in the night. It’s completely dark as I get to the car in the middle of winter and I’m the last one to leave.

It’s so freaking frustrating, Oscar. I’ve been the last one to leave three days in a row. So as I’m in the lift going down to the car park, I’ve got a moment to check a couple of text messages and clean up my WhatsApp.

While I’m in the lift, I realize I haven’t even considered dinner. I haven’t even called my husband all day. I’m going to go home and he’s going to be completely (beep) at me because it’s another day I’m late and I don’t really want to mess this up with him as well.

Time to play some chill music. Of course, I’ve got about a 15 minute ride home, and what I’m going to do is to try and decompress from today and hopefully set up for a better tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Rita continues to write, we’ve got that meeting with one of our big buyers, one of the largest retailers, and I’m not ready for that, and I’m pretty sure my team isn’t ready for that either.

I feel like I’m still a rat on a wheel and I’m frustrated because although it pays good money, I’m not loving it. If someone came along and offered me a smaller job with less money right now, I think I’d take it. This leadership stuff, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Home now.

I’m going to make some dinner, enjoy it with my husband, and then we’re going to go on a 5K run together.

Clear my head, that’s what we’re going to do. Running always seems to make it better.

Now the phone rings and it’s the chair.

“Yes, yes. I’m sorting it out with the legal team. I’m sorting it out with our external counsel. Yes, you’ll have a document tomorrow 9:00 AM. Yeah. Yeah. I realized that I didn’t create it, yet I’ve got to clean that out. Thanks.”

Wow.

What I mean is he was around when it happened. He approved it. Why can’t he sort it out?

Anyway, no, there’s the phone again.

Another one of my staff members the phone is ringing.

“Hi, Alice. Yes. It’s been a tough day for all of us. Yes, the regulator notice is not a good thing. No, you don’t have to worry about your job. You’ll be fine. The responsible officer of the organisation will be the only one required to appear, if there is a court case. It’s okay. I’ll need some documentation from you, so if you have a look through all your emails and think about any emails that a regulator might want to see, or more importantly, the regulator’s lawyers, will want our lawyers to see as well. By the way, Alice, how are you sleeping at the moment?”

She says, “Not too well.” I say, “Just relax. I’ve got you back. Let’s chat in the morning.”

This is a complete journal kept by Rita who I’ve anonymized to help contribute to the quest for 100 million deep listeners.

Look, I never got stuck writing this book because Rita’s story kept me fueled. I did get stuck editing this book though, and when I got stuck with editing, I’d either call Kelly or go back and read Rita’s journal.

I just want to say thank you to Rita.

After connecting with Rita in this really empathetic way that Kelly taught me, we then took about two months, about six meetings to discuss the way to think about a structure for the book.

Initially, we discussed a book in three parts and seven habits. Then we experimented with the concept of only seven habits and we realized seven habits had been well done.

Then we progressed to four parts and 14 chapters. I realized that Kelly and I were a bit inward focus. Rather than listening to the echo chamber between her and I, we decided to practice what I teach and ask the deep listening ambassador community.

Jeff:

I don’t think you’re intending it to be a sequel Oscar, [inaudible 00:35:44] it is another book, but even having the same word in the second title, unless it’s a series of it’s subtractive, it’s taking away a word and it almost feels like what kind of listening then. So yes, subtitle makes a lot of sense, but title, title perhaps is a little confusing to the

maybe those who know you more than anybody else. Maybe that’s the side of it is perhaps I’m too close to it to say…

Bec:

Kind never thought of it that way

Deep listing is just this little small consumable guide, and so when I’ve been thinking about this book, I feel like it’s kind of expansive and maybe even a prequel in some ways for people who need to take a step back from deep listing and start from the beginning.

Oscar Trimboli:

So you think I’m setting it up like Star Wars?

Bec:

Yeah.

Jeff:

Yoda story.

Bec:

Listen you will, Deeply

Oscar Trimboli:

All right, Jason.

Jason:

Yeah. I love your approach to this, Oscar. You were a listener for the title. That’s why you were completely detached from it. You wanted to separate just your own intuition to see what actually has an impact.

I love that discipline and approach, but with that, making sure we could take step backs from the algorithm and see [the algorithm says listening is the key word.

Oscar Trimboli:

Erin’s got a very reflective look on her face.

Erin:

Because I’m trying to put myself in the perspective of someone who doesn’t know you. If I see that title, I’m like, “It’s clear. I know what it’s about and I’m intrigued because it suggests that there are steps for me to deepen my learning.”

To me, it sounds like the kind of book that and someone not attached to this community already, that they might actually be really intrigued by it.

Even though, there are other communication books out there, I was kind of struck by the clarity of that title and so just try to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t know anything that just kind of happens upon this book and I’d be like, “Do I like this? I’m intrigued. Let’s add it to my cart.”

Oscar Trimboli:

Eventually, the book structure landed like this, an invitation with eight chapters and a chapter at the end called Over to You: How to Sustain Your Listening.

In the book, we’ve integrated five levels of listening, some amazing well-researched stories, statistics from our researcher and from academic literature.

What I’m most proud of in the book is the invitation, which said, If you’re looking for a recommendation on how to use this book, try reading and practice one chapter per week rather than reading the book from cover to cover.

The power in this book is in practice and reflection.

This book is designed to be read and to be practiced.

Listening is a contact sport. When you apply and integrate these concepts into your workplace conversations, you’ll notice a sustained change.

Listening requires practice with others if you want to make progress.

At the end of each chapter, there is space for you to reflect on what you have read and to practice a three simple techniques in your workplace conversations that week. We called this section of the book how to listen this week.

Here’s an example from chapter three, how to listen this week.

Number one, adjust where you sit during group meetings. Experiment and sit in a different location during the week and notice how this influences your listening, whether that’s face-to-face, via video conference or on a phone.

Number two, in group meetings this week, keep account of the number of times people ask clarifying questions before answering the speaker’s questions compared to when they answered the question immediately.

Number three, with your trusted workplace listening buddy, practice note-taking during a discussion. Every two to three minutes capture one word, one phrase or one idea each.

PS, thinking about the workplace, a listening buddy you chose in chapter two, are you noticing more about how others are listening to you? Keep practicing with your workplace listening colleague and remember, listening is a contact sport.

Now the Deep Listening Ambassadors Community liberated me from a lot of agonizing about structures and stories and statistics and titles and book cover designs and font sizes.

Thoughtful, measured, careful, and care-filled, the Deep Listening ambassador community played a huge part in the journey toward this book.

Once we got the title and structure agreed, on how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication, we’ve realized we were on track to create the most comprehensive book about listening in the workplace.

Next, we needed to think about the book cover and its design. I didn’t realize how much was involved. Fonts, colors, white space, negative space, a reality that struck me, as the publisher said, “Most readers will never see the book cover in real life. They’ll see a thumbnail in their web browser while searching, Oscar.”

Despite the reality that readers and listeners will spend less than two seconds searching, noticing and looking at the book cover online, I still agonized over the use of capital letters in the title and then I realized, listening is lowercase. “how to listen” is in lowercase.

Speaking is probably uppercase sometimes all in capitals, which sometimes is how people speak. When it came to colors we explored gold and blue and green and even shades of red that looked like deep, dark red wine. We explored putting rabbits and deers.

We spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the use of brackets or parentheses to create a visual signal on the cover about listening. Eventually, we went back to Francis’ story. We settled on the water drop. Its impact is powerful. When you collect a lot of water drops together, it can become a pond, a river or a waterfall. Each has a major influence on its surrounding environment.

The water drop is something so short yet so subtle, can hijack your attention. I laugh at the moment because reviewing my notes, I evaluated 24 book cover designs before going out to the Deep Listening Ambassadors for their vote.

Next, we needed to think carefully about the interior design of the book and the use of spacing to allow for readers to reflect, to pause, to collect their thoughts. We were deliberate about the placement of open space versus dense text, and this created some interesting design trade-offs between the eBook and the paperback.

We created some very specific graphic designs and symbols at the start of each chapter to capture the essence of each chapter. An air balloon, a sunrise, a pencil sharpener, an orchestra conductor, a jigsaw puzzle, a pocket watch, a recipe book, chess pieces, a light globe, and the symbol for infinity.

Hey, just a quick note on the audiobook. It’s much longer than the paperback or the eBook format. The audiobook includes much more extensive interviews and has a range of voices to bring the stories in it to life.

Little did I fully understand the impacts of global supply chains, paper prices, and the logistics of book distribution. I certainly understand them now. I was rather naive going into this project about the multi-laid networks of wholesalers, retailers, freighters, warehouses, and distribution centers.

Just before my dad had a stroke, I signed the publishing contract and within a week the project was paused.

My priorities had changed. My dad, as a result of his stroke, he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t talk and he couldn’t swallow. He’d lost the use of his tongue.

Although it was very hard for my dad, it was a gift for me to be in his presence, day after day, for eight weeks in hospitals where I learned to listen without words.

My dad changed my perspective on listening to myself and listening to the others, the healthcare professionals in the middle of a Covid lockdown as well as my dad.

Look, 12 months later, my dad is back at home. He needs a little extra support and he’s doing his best

Today, he’s able to walk, talk, swallow.

Now, he’s not back to his pre-stroke life, but he is much better than he was 12 months ago.

Thanks to everybody, my clients have been so supportive, my suppliers.

All of you in the Deep Listening ambassador community who had sent me messages of support and chocolate during that time too, and one lovely thoughtful person had sent me a subscription for a month to cheese.

I got a box of cheese every week and I just couldn’t get through it all.

Now if I have to choose between cheese and chocolate, I’ll always pick cheese. My wife was very happy with the chocolate.

Thanks to everyone for their support during this difficult time for my dad.

Now, late 2021 and early 2022 is summertime in Australia and while everybody was on holiday or vacation, depending on which hemisphere you are in the world, I was glued to my chair and I was doing three things.

I was writing, I was writing, and I was writing.

I reconciled quickly the number of writing meetings I scheduled with myself during this period of time, 330 meetings including meetings with my editor and the publishers.

Spotify became my friend and specifically Marconi Union and its eight minute instrumental song called Weightless.

It was played on repeat. This was done in bursts of three 24 minutes would earn me the opportunity either to get out of my chair and make a cup of tea or take our dog, Kilimanjaro, or Kili for short, for a walk around.

More often than not, I had the opposite of writer’s block because between research, data stories, statistics, interviews, Deep Listening ambassador insights, academic papers, I had too much information.

In fact, Kelly told me, “Oscar, you’ve got enough information for three more books.” Shaping it into something worth reading and listening to, that became my focus.

Kelly was more direct and brutal than I was. She was very specific about what to cutout and how to distil the essence of how to listen.

In January 2022, it was already time to share the manuscript with peer reviewers. Peer reviewers are people who understand what you’re writing about to check to make sure that you haven’t missed any significant parts of the literature to ensure that you’re creating a great experience.

Thanks to Professor Avi Kluger from the Organizational Behavior Division of the School of Business at Hebrew University in Israel.

Thank you to Jane Adshead Grant from England, the author of three books on the topic of workplace listening.

Thank you to Katherine Tulpa, the long-term leader of the European Association of Coaching.

Finally, thank you to Dr. Paul Lawrence, a lecturer across Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia, with dozens of scholarly articles and books on the topic of listening and systemic change.

Each in their own way was specific, direct, empathetic, sometimes brutal with their feedback.

The result was a much better book for you, the reader, the listener. It taught me a powerful lesson.

The more I read about listening, the less I know. By Easter, the manuscript was taking shape and we had enough information to commence the process of a layout, proofing advance reader. PDF copies were set for distribution.

Layouts needed to be considered from the perspective of print and digital.

This was a difficult concept for me to relate to.

My preference is to listen to a book first and then if I enjoy it, I’ll buy a paper copy of the book and make lots of highlights, attach sticky notes, and then even make handwritten reflections in the book.

During the process of proofing, I was lucky enough to have a printer in our family, my nephew Andy, who would receive up to five versions of proof copies over 40 days and nearly 300 pages, which he’d bind and deliver back to me.

When it comes to proofing, I realized that reading out aloud I found more errors than simply reading to myself.

Second, when I got to proof version three, four, and five, I would read the bound manuscript in reverse order, last chapter first, because I realized I lost energy by the time I got to the middle of the book and wasn’t giving the back half of the book the time it deserved.

Just a quick note, a proof of 300 pages roughly takes a full day of concentration and focused effort because of the cross-referencing you need to hold when it comes to considering references across chapters and the thread that will make a big difference for the readers.

I want to acknowledge two amazing research analysts who help find stories along this listening journey as well.

To Anit and to Thomas, each in their unique way helped me and challenged me to explore listening through centuries, cultures, and countries.

Part three, the release of the book.

As the advanced feedback arrived in my inbox, I felt like I was unwrapping a gift every day. Reading their reflections and endorsements gave me a completely different perspective when I realized how others experience the book.

Here are a few examples of the advanced reader feedback.

This is from Nicole at Lego, “When it comes to designing a strategy, a campaign, or liberating an idea, the most overlooked step is listening. This book is a timely reminder of the impact that listening can have on taking a group and their performance to the next level.”

This one from Zoe at Google, “A powerful way to reimagine leadership. This book made me realize how much more we can use listening to build high performance workplace cultures.”

From Naysla at American Express, “The most powerful leadership tool I have come across through my personal and professional life has been the power of listening. Truly listening to create the most remarkable connection, whether it’s with my family, colleagues, customers, or the community. I love how Oscar provides valuable insights into how we can continue to strengthen our communication through improving our listening approach in a very practical, yet meaningful way.”

From Steven at Korn Ferry, “A potent yet overlooked leadership competency. A pragmatic addition to an executive’s library.”

From Rochelle at Deloitte, “Three decades of deeply listening to business leaders, Oscar’s book thoughtfully unpacks the skill, the strategy, and the practice of deep listening. His framework of five levels of listening provides a practical guide to be a better listener, one conversation at a time.”

From Maria at Sanofi, “I’m amazed on how listening is deconstructed to simple, actionable concepts that help my ear to see better.”

From Susan at TEDx Sydney, “I will return to How to Listen regularly, as I seek to improve and build upon my ability to truly listen. Give yourself the time to internalize Trimboli’s valuable insights and the space to practice the helpful exercises and example, a valuable resource for anybody looking to become a better listener.”

Finally, from Michael Bungay Stanier, author of the multimillion best selling book, The Coaching Habit, “When Oscar has something to say about listening, listen. He’s the best in the world.”

Thank you to the Deep Listening ambassador community. These endorsements are a credit to them and their hard work as much as it is for me.

Now, publishing systems became fascinating for me, and when you’re creating a book globally, you need to fill in lots of forms and they ask you questions about the International Standard Book number, ISBN.

Which book formats? Audio, eBook, paperback, hardback?

How many page numbers?

What’s the title?

What’s the subtitle?

Which language is it in?

What’s the summary?

What’s the cover?

Look, within a week of us completing these forms with the publishers, I started to get email messages from publicity companies all wanting to help me promote this book, How to Listen. A wide range of messages would answer my inbox.

The less personal, “Dear author. The more personal, Dear Oscar. It was clear to me who took five minutes to do some basic personalization and most people didn’t.

Not much listening going on in these publicity companies.

By now, our manuscript is close to final from the author’s perspective.

Yet, from the publisher’s perspective, they need to put their crack team of proofreaders onto this, and they were the next people to review the book.

They reviewed every comma, every semi-colon, every space, every adjective, noun, verb, story, statistic. It was all inspected with a fresh set of eyes. Finally, for me, it was a sigh relief to get the manuscript moved into their publishing software.

Next commence the process of creating the audiobook.

The audio book has been a collaboration of my past work, combined with a number of voice actors, my voice and recordings from the Deep Listening podcast series.

In spite of low flying airplanes , neighbors and road crews with chainsaws and the unexpected worrying of computer hard discs and CPUs, 15 hours of recording was distilled into seven hours and 26 minutes, or 446 minutes later. The audio book recording was complete.

PS, I didn’t realize how many audio book formats are out there beyond Audible.

There’s Google and there’s Apple, and there’s Spotify, and there’s Libro, and there’s Scribd. There are so many out there.

how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication is the most comprehensive book about listening in the workplace, and it’s now available.

What can you expect inside?

You can expect stories, research, insights, practical ways to practice and improve listening each week.

Stories from the Amazon, stories from Austria and Australia and China and New York. From doctors, from Japanese patients, from orchestras and Swedish snipers, and the essence of listening.

These crucial three numbers, 125, 400 and 900 along with the five levels of listening and the four villains.

You’ll discover what you can learn from the deaf and deaf interpreters, what they can teach us about listening.

Ultimately, do you listen for similarities or differences?

Finally, you’ll understand how to listen with an orientation that is okay to realize that four is half of eight, yet comfortable with three being half of eight and zero being half of eight, as well, when you move from hearing what’s said to listening to what’s not said and ultimately helping you to listen to what is meant.

how to listen: discover the hidden key to better communication, the most comprehensive book in the workplace, is now available. I invite you to buy it now. If you’ve bought it already, thank you. I’m really grateful. I’m curious if you’ve been following the guidance at the end of every chapter to make sure you practice that chapter every week. If you have read the book, please leave an honest review.

I’m curious what you’ll take away from the book.

Please send me an email and let me know, podcast@oscartrimboli.com

I’m Oscar Trimboli, and along with the Deep Listening Ambassador Community, we’re on a quest to create 100 million deep listeners in the world, and you have given us the greatest gift of all,

You’ve listened to us.

Thanks for listening.