Photo: Micaela Heck / Angelica Alzona
Many of us have spent a lot of time in isolation during the pandemic, so this week we’re relearning the art of deep conversation with the help of user researcher and author Ximena Vengoechea.
Ximena honed her listening skills while doing user research for companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest, and now shares it in her new book. Listen like you mean it: Recovering the lost art of true connection. Hear Ximena share some brilliant tips on how to ask the right questions to encourage a more interesting conversation, be a more open-minded and empathetic listener, and how to end a conversation gracefully when necessary.
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Highlights from this week’s episode
From the Ximena Vengoechea interview
What a good listening mindset actually looks like:
I’m talking about a listening mindset that has three core components. That brings qualities like humility, curiosity and empathy. And humility really means coming in with an open mind and being ready to hear what someone has to say, being willing to learn from them what is different than coming in … with assumptions or preconceived notions or opinions, that we want to convey. So it really means to flip the switch and say, “I am here to learn from you” instead of “I am here to teach you”. And it is curiosity that lets you go deeper, because that’s how you really get to know and understand another person. What’s your perspective? Why do you think these things? … and then it’s almost like a funnel. You start broadly with humility and start openly and you gradually get a little deeper with curiosity. And at some point you come across empathy, which in my opinion is the third quality of the listening mentality that really makes it possible to really get to know someone because they are talking about emotions and their emotional experiences. And that doesn’t mean we have to share the exact situation someone is going through in order to empathize with them. If someone is going through a divorce, you’ve never seen it before, that’s fine. But you can empathize with the feeling, oh, wow, you are mourning the end of your life.
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How to ask the right questions in a conversation:
[A] In conversations, we often don’t really pay attention to the kinds of questions we’re asking. And so we can inadvertently ask questions that don’t really help the conversation. Questions that can end with a yes or no result in a yes or no answer or a single word answer. And these begin with “do”, “is” and “are”, as opposed to more open questions that begin with “how” or “what”. So even to ask someone, ‘Are you mad at me?’ Will produce a very different reaction than “Hey, how are you feeling right now?” One of them leads someone down a certain path and the other just leaves them very open. So in general, at least at the beginning of the conversation, we want to try to ask more open-ended questions so that we can guide the other person, you know where they want to go.
When you remember the other person’s needs in conversation:
So we could aim to get to know someone or learn something about someone. And these questions can be used to accomplish that goal. But we also need to keep track of what is happening for the other person. Are they starting to offer smaller and smaller answers? Are they running out of breath because we keep asking them questions and they somehow give us sales answers? I think paying attention to these clues can be a sign for us to maybe sit back a little or offer something from our own perspective. I think it’s important in a conversation. There are two sides. There is the listening page. There is a speaking side. They want there to be give and take. And the other thing I can say can especially help with that instinct to figure out what the other person needs in this conversation. Because if we ask all of the questions, it probably comes from our own need … we want them to be comfortable. We want to get to know them to a certain extent. But the other also has a need. So you really want to make room for both needs in conversation. And that needs a bit of balance.
To learn more of Ximena’s advice on the art of deeper conversation, we encourage you to listen to the full episode.
Episode transcript
