And pausing has other benefits as well. Studies my colleagues and I conducted found that pausing led speakers to be perceived more positively. It not only gave the audience time to process what was said, it encouraged them to respond with short verbal indicators of agreement (e.g., “Yeah,” “Un-hunh,” or “Okay”), which led them to like the speaker more overall.

So rather than saying “um” or “uh,” take a second to pause. People will perceive us more positively and be more likely to follow our suggestions.

That’s why Salit’s training emphasizes slowing down and shutting up as the route to listening well. We learn this is another exercise, called “Amazing Silence,” where I’m paired with a top television executive about ten years my senior. The rules: One person has to reveal to the other something important to him. The other person, who must make eye contact the entire time, then responds—but he must wait fifteen seconds before uttering a word.

Two, take the time to listen before you do anything else. You will set the tone; it will be very difficult to reset it. If you start off by imposing your views on people, you’re not going to have what you most need when you most need it - namely, the commitment of the people you need to get the work done. Even if you’re right and you end up in exactly the same place as you thought you were going to end up, the experience of stopping and doing nothing but being a very good listener for as long as you can stand it is the most important thing to do. The whole act of talking to the top people is the first step towards gaining their commitment and understanding, which you must have if you don’t get it the first time. Until you get a consensus, that everyone agrees on - these are our priorities, and here’s who’s going to work on them, and here’s how our midcourse correction is going to be if we’re not right, and here are the things we can’t put off - take as long as you can stand to get that front end clear, committed, understood, communicated, massaged, and changed.” - Henry Schacht

4. A living agenda.

Develop a spacious, adaptable agenda so the participants can shape the meeting.

Again, our tendency is to make use of the precious in- person time of a meeting by filling up every minute, from the beginning to the end of the day, with formal session time, creating schedules that are hard to change when new information comes along. These agendas are often burdened by an unrealistic hope, an underestimation of how long conversations may actually take. Most conversations need at least 1.5 hours to adequately cover a basic orientation around the content, identify what is needed, and identify clear next steps. And that’s conservative.

Add an introduction round and you have a two- to three-hour conversation.

A meaningful full group conversation needs roughly five minutes per person. Underscheduling the amount of time a conversation needs means that energy will start to build up as people look for a way to release their thoughts and ideas into the group. Pair this with the power dynamics that often emerge—that some people feel really comfortable talking, and others don’t—and you have a frustrating waste of time on your

on your hands.

Folks are so used to not being heard. So used to not getting their needs met. When people feel heard, the time starts to expand as people move past expressing and start to be able to listen.

Humble questions are open-ended. They’re encouraging the other person to take control and take the conversation where they want it to go. These are questions that begin with phrases like “How did you...,” “What’s it like...,” “Tell me about...,” and “In what ways...” In her book You’re Not Listening, Kate Murphy describes a focus group moderator who was trying to understand why people go to the grocery store late at night. Instead of directly asking, “Why do you go to grocery stores late,” which can sound accusatory, she asked,

“Tell me about the last time you went to the store after 11:00 p.m.” A shy, unassuming woman who had said little up to that point raised her hand and responded, “I had just smoked a joint and was looking for a ménage à trois—me, Ben, and Jerry.