At the ALE conference I did a lightning talk. On my first slide I quoted this from Jerry Weinberg's
Quality Software Management Volume 1: Systems Thinking:
As consultants, we've found that the quickest and surest way to classify organizations into similar patterns is by the way people think and communicate.
On the second slide I quoted Jerry again (from the same book):
No other observation skill may be more important to software engineering than precision listening.
I was reminded of this a moment ago when someone cold-called me. I honestly don't remember what the person's name was or what they were selling. What I do remember is how the conversation started:
Hello, Jon Jagger speaking.
Hello, can I speak to Jon Jagger please.
Do you recognise this pattern? This response is pure waste. It does nothing but waste my time. After this response the one thing I know for sure is that they're not listening to me. And if they're not listening to me why should I listen to them?
unfortunatly we spend years in school to learn how to read, write (and sometimes talk)
ReplyDeletewe don't learn how to listen.