Chapter Six
You’re Not Listening!
Case Studies: Fran Lebowitz • George Bernard Shaw • Daniel Kahneman • Satya Nadella, Microsoft • Elon Musk, Tesla • The 1992 Presidential Debate
The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.1
Fran Lebowitz
Breathes there a man or woman who has not accused or been accused by their significant other of not listening? Doubtful. Although humorist Fran Lebowitz summed up the problem with her customary caustic wit, the offense is usually far worse than merely waiting one’s turn to speak.
Not listening ranks high among the causes of failure in all human communication. The breakdown goes beyond interpersonal relationships to include social, business, political, and international exchanges. At its most elementary, think of a time you were in a restaurant, and you gave your waiter explicit instructions to exclude garlic, bacon, and butter from your meal. The waiter said, “Got it!” and rushed off. But when your meal arrived, it was reeking of garlic, littered with bacon, and swimming in butter. George Bernard Shaw, the witty Irish playwright and critic, is said to have described this type of exchange as:
The biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.2
The waiter, who acted without having listened, will suffer a return trip to the kitchen at best or a diminished tip at worst.
Raise the stakes to interpersonal relationships, where the consequence of not listening can be an argument at best or a severe strain on the relationship at worst. In business, the consequence can be failure to close the deal, gain approval, or get the investment.
■ How to Lose Your Audience ■
Try this exercise: stand up and ask a nearby colleague to ask you a long, rambling question on any subject. It can be about the weather, the news, or your business. Ask that person to keep their eyes fixed on you as they ramble. Shortly after they start, cross your arms, shift your weight, and settle back onto one hip. Watch what happens. Usually, the person’s ramble will start to sputter and slow down. Ask the person how your slouch felt to them, and they will very likely say that it felt that you weren’t listening.
I do this exercise with clients, and they tell me, “You weren’t interested,” “You were bored,” “You were being impatient,” or “You couldn’t care less.”
Why would any presenter risk showing such disrespect to an audience? After all, the goal of every presentation is to seek the audience’s approval, and so a presenter must, of necessity, be beholden to them. Eager to please, presenters often jump into an answer without having understood the question and appear guilty of the charge, “You’re not listening!”
If we accept that presenters have all the best intentions in their answers, we should look to another cause of the disconnect: the questions. The main reason presenters misunderstand questions goes back to the way questioners form them. People retain my services as a presentation coach for advice on how to provide answers, not how to pose questions. When people ask questions, they do what comes naturally—therein lies the problem.
■ How People Ask Questions ■
Having just taken in all the new information of your presentation, your audience’s minds are still in the process of digesting it when they pose their questions. Moreover, when any one questioner starts asking a question, they suddenly become aware that everyone in the room is watching and become self-consciously nervous. That person’s incompletely formed thoughts then come tumbling out in a long, random, nonlinear ramble, which may or may not even take the form of a question. This is the pervasive phenomenon you read about in Chapter Four that you must take into consideration when you are preparing your list of questions.
And then, there is one more factor affecting the formation of their words.
In his bestselling book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman described how the human mind functions in two innately different phases. Fast Thinking is the mind’s automatic response to a new task, and it comes rushing up in a flood of thoughts, all accompanied with disparate ideas, preconceptions, biases, and tangential or orthogonal associations—all bouncing around in the brain randomly. Fast Thinking is a close cousin of right hemisphere thinking, which controls nonlinear ideas. Slow Thinking involves deliberation and reasoning. Asking questions is not a deliberative process.3
All these factors are at play in an audience member’s mind as they pose a question and so, what they say comes tumbling out of their mouths in a convoluted word salad.
How People Ask Questions in Action
A clear and yet ironic example of rambling occurs in the most unlikely place: the quarterly corporate earnings call of publicly traded companies. Mind you, unlike most other audiences, the investment analysts who attend these calls are extremely well-informed and exceptionally thorough people. Because they follow and study the entire sector and spend endless hours becoming acquainted with the presenting company, they are quite familiar with the most minute details. And they have all those details at the tips of their tongues in the high-pressure moment when they take the floor to query a company’s chief executive.
Here’s how one analyst asked Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella a question during a quarterly earnings call:
Satya, a question for you. You did a really great job of talking to how well the expanded portfolio, really broad portfolio that Microsoft brings to the market has helped customers during a crisis period and a period that engendered a lot of change within the way organizations were operating. Can you talk to us a little bit about how much of that’s sort of assistance and how much of that you were able to actually take to revenues, if you will? How much of that is stuff that you could actually monetize today versus given the customer relationships, given the focus on the long term, you have to sort of let play out over time, and it’s about kind of expanding usage and expanding the relationships with customers that you expect to pay out over a longer period?
Nadella heard the question inside the analyst’s long ramble and distilled it in his answer:
Overall, the perspective we take, the approach we take is really to be there for our customers at their time of most acute need. So, we don’t go in there with the mindset of what does it mean for our revenue. I mean this thing that I’d always say, which is when our customers do well, we’ll do well on a long-term basis. That’s at the core of our business model. That’s the core of how we approach it.4
During a Tesla quarterly earnings call, another analyst who possesses the requisite degree of meticulous knowledge and familiarity about the electric vehicle and clean energy company, asked CEO Elon Musk a question this way:
I don’t want to ask a mundane question, but I think it’s important because one of your stakeholders are shareholders right now, and so far, we’ve had a couple of pushouts in production. Is there a way that you can update us when you get to that 3,000 number or 4,000 number per week? I mean, you’re active on Twitter. Can you just let us know because we are going to have a big vacuum here, and there’s a lot of news flow out there that makes volatility into the slot, it makes it hard for people to own, even though you have a lot of believers out there. And so even though we’re being myopic right now, I think it’s very important to get those kinds of updates. And so, I think that’s my question. Can you give us an update when you get to 3,000 and 4,000 per week on the Model 3?
Musk heard the question inside the ramble and distilled it in his answer:
[A]t most, any information that we provide would be a week or two in advance of what will become public knowledge just due to vehicle registrations and shipments that are tracked very carefully.
But then Musk added:
This is an old maxim of investing, you should not be focused on short-term things, you should be focused on long-term things. We have no interest in satisfying the desires of day traders. I couldn’t care less. Please sell our stock and don’t buy it.5
Tesla’s shares fell eight percent after what Financial Times called that “bizarre” earnings call, but they quickly recovered and eventually went on to soar to stratospheric heights.6
Not many presenters can get away with Musk’s bravado, but not many presenters listen as well as he and Nadella did. For those who do not, the consequences can be disastrous.
Such a fate befell President George H. W. Bush when he ran for re-election in 1992.
(Video 10) Famous Debate Moment: Bush, Sr. Checks His Watch in 1992 https://youtu.be/hBrW2Pz9Iiw
As the incumbent, President Bush agreed to debate his challengers, Bill Clinton, the then-governor of Arkansas, and H. Ross Perot, the billionaire businessman. All three men assembled in the Robbins Field House at University of Richmond in Virginia to engage in the first-ever town hall format in which ordinary citizens were able to question the candidates directly. One of them was a 26-year-old woman named Marisa (Hall) Summers.
When ABC Television’s Carole Simpson, the debate moderator, called on Marisa, a runner came up with a hand microphone and held it up as Marisa asked:
How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives?
As she was asking her question, President Bush looked at his wristwatch (see Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1 President George H. W. Bush Looking at His Watch During a Presidential Debate
Marisa continued:
…And if it hasn’t, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what’s ailing them?
When Bush began his answer, he said:
Well, I think the national debt affects everybody. Obviously, it has a lot to do with interest rates. It has…
Simpson interjected:
She’s saying, “you personally.”
Her microphone still live, Marisa said:
You, on a personal basis, how has it affected you?
She said, “You, personally.” Bush, said “everybody.” He wasn’t listening.
Simpson tried to help:
Has it affected you personally?
Stopped in his tracks, Bush tried to recover:
Well, I’m sure it has. I love my grandchildren. I want to think that…
Marisa’s soft voice, amplified by the live microphone, rose above the exchange to resound through the Robbins Field House public address system, out along a vast network of cables to television transmitters, across the United States into millions of television receivers and into banks of videotape recorders that captured her next word for posterity:
How?
The word stopped Bush again. He blinked, then trying to respond, he said:
I want to think that they’re going to be able to afford an education. I think that that’s an important part of being a parent. If the question—maybe I—get it wrong. Are you suggesting that if somebody has means that the national debt doesn’t affect them?
Three times, and he still didn’t have it. The young woman tried to clarify again, her voice rising ever so slightly:
Well, what I’m saying is…
Bush finally gave up, saying:
I’m not sure I get—help me with the question, and I’ll try to answer it.
After four attempts, Bush finally admitted that he didn’t understand her question. The young woman tried to help by elaborating:
Well, I’ve had friends that have been laid off from jobs.
Despite a fretful expression on his face, the president tried to sound attentive:
Yeah.
The young woman continued:
I know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes, their car payment. I have personal problems with the national debt. But how has it affected you, and if you have no experience in it, how can you help us, if you don’t know what we’re feeling?
Bush still seemed puzzled, so Simpson intervened again:
I think she means more the recession, the economic problems today the country faces rather than the deficit.
Now clearer, the president launched into his answer:
Well, listen, you ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear and see what I see and read, the mail I read and touch, the people that I touch from time to time. I was in the Lomax AME Church. It’s a Black church just outside of Washington, D.C. And I read in the bulletin about teenage pregnancies, about the difficulties that families are having to make ends meet. I talk to parents. I mean, you’ve got to care. Everybody cares if people aren’t doing well.
His voice rising defensively, he continued:
But I don’t think it’s fair to say, “You haven’t had cancer. Therefore, you don’t know what it’s like.” I don’t think it’s fair to say, you know, whatever it is, that if you haven’t been hit by it personally. But everybody’s affected by the debt because of the tremendous interest that goes into paying on that debt; everything’s more expensive. Everything comes out of your pocket and my pocket. So, it’s that.
But I think in terms of the recession, of course you feel it when you’re President of the United States. And that’s why I’m trying to do something about it by stimulating the export, vesting more, better education systems.
Thank you. I’m glad to clarify it.7
But he didn’t clarify it. Bush’s long, circuitous route to answer Marisa’s question created the distinct impression that he wasn’t listening or that he was completely out of touch. To a nation mired in an economic downturn, the question was right on target. It was also to become the point of no return for the president, as the public opinion polls showed (see Figure 6.2).
Figure 6.2 1992 Presidential Election Public Opinion Polls
The official start of the 1992 presidential campaign was on August 14, at the end of the Republican National Convention (RNC)—when the candidates of both major parties were officially confirmed. On that day, Clinton held a 17-point lead over Bush. Among the reasons for the large gap, was that the Democratic National Convention preceded the RNC by a month, and the media exposure gave Clinton a ratings “bounce.” (That is why the major political parties alternate which convention goes first every four years.)
Then, on August 21, after a week of media exposure for the RNC, Bush got his own ratings bounce and closed Clinton’s lead to 14 points. Over the next several weeks, Bush’s numbers held steady. During that same period, Perot, who had dropped out of the race in July, decided to reenter the race in October. These factors caused Clinton’s numbers to drop precipitously to half of where they had been in August. The campaign became a horse race.
But then on October 15, Marisa asked her fateful question. The very next day, the poll numbers for Bush and Clinton began to diverge and continued in opposite directions until Clinton’s victory in November.
As decisive and as devastating were the consequences of the “wristwatch moment,” they were even worse: Yes, he did look at his watch as she asked her question and sent the message that he wasn’t listening, but after he did, he had another 55 seconds in which to formulate a better response. That interval was occupied by Perot’s answer. The young woman’ addressed her question to all three men, and Perot answered first.
In the next chapter, you’ll see that Perot not only heard the question, but he also answered it thoroughly. So did Clinton. But let’s pause here and take a deeper look at the dynamics of the president’s exchange with the young woman.
■ Ready, Fire, Aim ■
Bush’s fumbled answer, which set in motion an avalanche that brought down the house of the forty-first presidency, was a classic example of the critical blunder: “Ready, Fire, Aim!” Bush pulled the trigger before he had the target in his sights.
Earlier in this chapter, you read how presenters, with all good intentions to satisfy an audience, jump into an answer without having understood a convoluted question. However, there is another factor impelling that jump, a quality which, in every other aspect of business—except Q&A—is a strength: being results driven.
You, like everyone else in business, spend most of your time on your job (and, most likely, the rest of your waking hours) ready to pounce on problems and find solutions. As a result, whenever you get a question, you are primed to provide an answer instantly. But that hair-trigger response heightens the chance of providing a wrong answer.
Television and radio broadcasters understand hair triggers. They employ a seven-second delay in live programs to monitor and edit objectionable material. Think of the wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl or an excited blurt of profanity during a live Academy Awards acceptance speech.
Hair-trigger answers are old habits, as unproductive as procrastination. Old habits die hard but die they must because each of them—one more extension of the metaphor—backfires. Replace them as you would any bad habit, with positive action: listen.
In the next chapter, you will learn to do that with Active Listening and see how both Perot and Clinton demonstrated that skill. You will also learn how close Bush came to understanding the question. In the succeeding chapters, you will learn how to answer properly, and by Chapter Thirteen, you will learn how the president might have responded differently.
This delay in providing you with prescriptive instruction about answers is intentional. It is specifically designed to drive a wedge between the audience’s question and your answer. When you learn just what to do in that gap, you will be able to avoid the all-too-common fault that cost George H. W. Bush the election and can cost you the closing of your deal.