Rachel Shackleton of Green Key Personal Development On How To Listen Effectively To Succeed Personally And Professionally
An Interview With Doug Noll
Builds trust and respect — This point connects to the previous point as well as to point 3. Respect is something that we earn, it is not something that is given automatically, especially when we are leading others. Trust comes from respect. If I respect you I am more than likely going to trust you and your opinion. The foundation to trusting someone is effective listening and showing interest in what the other person is saying and perhaps even what he or she is not saying?
It’s hard to be a good listener. We are programmed to want to talk, and to share. It takes effort to stop and to listen. But anyone who has achieved great success will tell you that listening is such an important quality to have. What are some ways that influential people have learned to listen, to succeed both personally and professionally? As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rachel Shackleton.
Rachel Shackleton, founder of Green Key Personal Development and Green Key Health is a business trainer and corporate health specialist. Over 30 years training and development experience providing tailor made solutions in leadership, communication, customer excellence, and workplace wellbeing for clients including JTI, Sperasoft, Arctic7, Oracle and Sheraton Hotels.
Founder of a successful business in Russia that she sold after 16 years of operation to an international organisation before returning to the UK. She has been a guest on UK Health Radio, a presenter at the International Health Summit in Geneva, as well as being interviewed on the Rick Nuske Business Show.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
My childhood was spent growing up in West Yorkshire with 4 siblings. Our lives revolved around outdoor pursuits including playing cricket, football and rounders on the village green with other local kids, or fishing, horse riding and clay-pigeon shooting. In the potato picking season we would join other villagers to help the farmer bring in the potato harvest. I remember this fondly as we were all picked up in the trailer that was hitched up to the tractor, sitting on bales of straw we would share local news before setting to work to pick the potatoes. Lunch was again on the trailer eating our sandwiches and drinking tea. At the end of the day, the farmer would pay us all in a brown wage packet. My pocket money for the next few weeks!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Every day is a new opportunity to change your life and be who you want to be.” Demi Lovato
I love this quote as it sums up the power each one of us has. Decide who you want to be and manifest exactly that through positive thinking and effort while being kind to others. It is so easy to focus on the negative things, the challenges and problems, but no challenge or problem is without solution, it is simply a case of re-framing our perspective on the situation. How I work with this is to recognise the issue I am facing, address my emotions around this issue and then ask the question “What is the Universe trying to show or tell me? In other words, why now and what is the lesson to be learned that will help me grow. This approach applies equally to situations as to people. Any person that annoys you, disappoints or frustrates you, is simply holding up a mirror. Not easy to accept, but true!
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
The Power of the Herd. A nonpredatory approach to social intelligence, leadership and innovation by Linda Kohanov. This book talks about leadership including social intelligence through the behaviours of the equine herd. Horses are herd animals as are so many other animals, but infact so are humans. We need other people. Essentially we are social creatures who operate more effectively when included into a “tribe,” — the family, and team when considering the workplace. There are so many points in this book that resonated and when looking at some of them through the lens of my own horse of 24 years and how he interacts with his own kind and with humans, he taught me so much about my own emotional intelligence, leadership and personal characteristics that needed some work doing on them, not least trust in yourself as well as others, dealing with your own monkey and not dumping it on others, living as a free spirit and not in the shadow of others — being your true authentic self. Several of these things are work in progress, but he showed them very clearly to me. The key point about this book is that leadership does not require a predatory, dominant approach. Horses clearly demonstrate alternative approaches through collaboration, “consensual leadership” and freedom-techniques that are highly applicable to today’s world that is focused on “I” rather than “We”, dumbing down free-spirit, shareholder value which might even be described as greed, with profit at any cost.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Let’s begin with a definition of terms so that each of us and our readers are on the same page. What exactly does being a good listener mean?
Listening is the foundation to so many things in life, to enjoyment, appreciation understanding, as well as to giving and gaining respect and ultimately trust. Without the ability to truly listen we can only access others through our head — is it logical, does it make sense? Our heart is what truly makes the difference between listening to someone or not, triggering the relevant emotion — joy, laughter, sadness, empathy, anger and when felt we light up for the other person, which is what builds connection and rapport in that moment. Therefore, listening is being able to connect to someone through choosing to stop, to give full attention to truly hear on all levels what the other person is saying including their words, body language, tone of voice, as well as what is not said.
Why is effective listening such an important quality? Can you give a story or example to explain what you mean?
One of the examples that I use when working with a group during a workshop on communication skills, is the way that we use the phrase “How are you?” Very often when using this phrase are we are passing a colleague in the corridor or neighbor in the street and as we pass we ask the question “How are you?” What the other person answers is irrelevant because:
1. We have not stopped to give them the question like a gift of genuine interest
2. We don’t wait for their answer, therefore it is unlikely that you hear how and what they answer.
Based on this example, I ask the question — “Why did you ask how the person is if you don’t have the time to hear their answer and to acknowledge that answer?”
This is an example of how expected social phrases have become misused and meaningless. Very sad when we consider that perhaps we don’t care about our colleagues and fellow human beings enough to stop for a couple of minutes to show we care and show our interest by truly listening. Or is it simply that we don’t have time?
Listening to someone else is a gift that you give that person. My first boss used to say “Rachel, you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion!” This statement always brought a smile to my face as I knew he was right.
Listening also provides the opportunity to check our understanding. If you don’t listen in the first place, how do you know if you understood correctly? I believe so many misunderstandings can be attributed to poor listening, this ultimately means mistakes, time lost, and in some cases even frustration and annoyance. Using such phrases as, “If I understand you correctly, you………? or “Did I understand that……?” go a long way to demonstrating that we want to understand and that we have heard the other person correctly.
From your experience or perspective, what are some of the common barriers that hold someone back from being a good listener?
There can be many answers to this question. The most common barriers are either emotional, on the physical level such as noisy environment or mental issues that include how we perceive those around us. From my perspective some of the common barriers to listening are:
- Our list of things to do is perceived as overwhelming and therefore we think that we don’t have time to listen.
- We think we know what the other person is going to say and therefore switch off the need to listen.
- We are afraid of hearing information that we don’t want to hear or won’t know how to respond to appropriately.
- Emotions surrounding the topic of discussion that affect or even block our ability to listen, for example anger, irritation, annoyance, guilt and shame.
- Electronic devices. Mobile phones and other portable tools are a great support in so many ways, but in many instances they are taking over our lives. We are losing the ability to communicate effectively, and this includes listening to each other. How often is it that you go to a restaurant with a friend or partner and you look around to see a family sitting at another table, each one of the family members busy on a mobile device. There is no communication going on at the foundation level, therefore learning to share things that happened in the day, develop communication through listening and then to challenge each other is not happening in the family environment, or at best is limited. Meal-times, even as adults are such a wonderful opportunity to communicate, listen to and share with each other.
- Lack of respect for the other person.
- Ego dominance.
I could go on but will stop there as these are a good representation of common barriers to listening.
Can you please share a few practical techniques that have helped you become a more effective listener?
Someone once said to me, “Accept that what the other person is saying is true for them in that very moment.” This really opened my eyes to accepting that it does not matter that the person is upset, angry or annoyed as this is what is true for them. In his way, I don’t need to take their emotions on board, I simply need to listen by giving full attention to understand how they are feeling and why and to connect to their emotions through empathy. In this way I can be of service and help either simply by listening or helping them in resolving the issue.
Listening levels vary and using the right level of listening is critical to the outcome. We can be listening passively — in other words we are simply there, but our focus is on other things — to do list, children, shopping, whatever it might be. If we respond with head nodding and short words such as “Oh”, “Yes” “Dear me” etc. this just shows that we are listening responsively. Not much different to passive listening. We can also listen selectively — we choose what we want to hear. Invariably this is when we are in some kind of emotional argument or discussion and therefore we choose information that supports our own argument and the rest fades into a blur. Active listening, on the other hand means we focus on what is being said and do not reply until the other person has finished. Active listening is sufficient when there is no emotion involved. Listening with the head is enough. If emotion is present then we need to listen on an empathetic level — in other words we listen with both the head and heart.
If working in a role such as in a call centre supporting customer service, technical issues or similar, acknowledging the emotions of the customer first is critical to actually solving the problem they are calling about. Only once that customer feels they have been acknowledged on a human level can you then go ahead and resolve the issue. When doing it this way a suitable resolution will be found very quickly, the customer will be happy and so will the customer service agent. In this example, the level of listening is empathetic or empathic, listening with both head and heart. The result is that the other person feels valued and acknowledged as a human being first, in other words we connect to the person to ensure they are listening fully, before trying to resolve the issue they are calling about and only then the so-called technical issue is addressed.
Here is the central question of our discussion. What are five ways that listening effectively can help someone succeed personally and professionally? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
Listening overall enriches our lives. Included below are five ways listening can help someone succeed personally and professionally in no order of importance:
1 . Enhance relationships
Both in our personal and professional lives listening effectively has a direct impact on the quality of the relationships we develop. It builds a level of trust that enables others to share things that are close to their heart, while also allowing you to “see” when someone is not their normal self and therefore open up the conversation to understand what might be causing this and therefore how you might be able to help them. Often it is enough to simply listen and by doing this if there is a problem, they solve it themselves simply through talking and sharing with you. Listening with head and heart is what truly makes a difference between listening to someone or not. It is this that builds rapport in the moment and enables connection to that person.
2 . Builds trust and respect
This point connects to the previous point as well as to point 3. Respect is something that we earn, it is not something that is given automatically, especially when we are leading others. Trust comes from respect. If I respect you I am more than likely going to trust you and your opinion. The foundation to trusting someone is effective listening and showing interest in what the other person is saying and perhaps even what he or she is not saying?
3 . Enables difficult conversations
There are many reasons why we might need to have a difficult conversation. In a professional capacity, it might be due to decreased work performance, absenteeism, missing deadlines, conflict and so on. When colleagues, team members and friends have trust and respect for you and know that you will listen to what they have to say in answer to your inquiry, it is much easier to open up a difficult conversation with someone. This also works the other way around — when the person feels you will listen, they might be the initiator and open up the conversation with you, for example around family issues, menopause, mental or long-term illness. Families are no less complex, having open relationships within a family structure encourages those involved to address or raise difficult conversations.
4 . Widens our capability to hear on a deeper level
Like any skill, listening needs practice, the more we do, the greater the improvement and overall result. Not only that, it increases our awareness of so much more that is going on around — the birds singing, the contribution of each instrument in an orchestral piece of music, what someone is really saying by what they are not saying, but you pick up on their body language, subtle change in tone of voice, specific words chosen and so on. Increasing awareness also results in a deeper understanding of how you listen to others and how you can improve in this skill, especially with people who you might find difficult for one or other reason.
5 . Shows genuine interest and kindness
Listening is one of the best gifts you can give someone. What you are actually doing is showing a genuine interest in who they are, their circumstance and what they are telling you. Those to whom we are communicating only respond appropriately when firstly they are heard as a human being and not simply regarded as a number in the queue. My local post office is manned usually by ladies from the community who have been doing this job for a long time. They know their customers, certainly by appearance and often by name, and vice versa. They always take the time to inquire about that person, perhaps something about recent circumstances or family issues. Of course, it takes a little longer to serve each person, but there are seldom people in the queue waiting to be served who get upset, as they know it is their turn soon.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
In our troubled world, I think building community within villages, towns and cities has to be on top of my priority list. As a child I grew up with true community. All families looked out for the children of other families, we knew each other, took care of the elders in our local society and supported our farmers and other local businesses such as the butcher, green-grocer and village shop. What could be a greater gift to humanity than building communities once again that are tolerant of each other, where produce is grown and sold locally decreasing transport costs, supporting a cleaner environment as well as the local economy. A community in which we genuinely take an interest, share the riches from communal allotments and gardens and come together whether in a formal way, such as church, or informal manner in the local pub or restaurant or around the village green or central park for a locally organized event that everyone supports.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Eric Clapton because he has created some incredible music. He has suffered tragedy in his life through the loss of his son, which on some level appears that he has come to terms with, but losing a child irrelevant of the circumstances has to be one of the most difficult things to deal with in a lifetime for any parent. I would like to know how he used and continues to use his music to deal with this loss, continue to create and give joy to others.
How can our readers continue to follow your work online?
https://www.greenkeypersonaldevelopment.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelshackleton/
https://twitter.com/gkeydevelopment
https://www.instagram.com/green_key_development/
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewer: Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA was born nearly blind, crippled with club feet, partially deaf, and left-handed. He overcame all of these obstacles to become a successful civil trial lawyer. In 2000, he abandoned his law practice to become a peacemaker. His calling is to serve humanity, and he executes his calling at many levels. He is an award-winning author, teacher, and trainer. He is a highly experienced mediator. Doug’s work carries him from international work to helping people resolve deep interpersonal and ideological conflicts. Doug teaches his innovative de-escalation skill that calms any angry person in 90 seconds or less. With Laurel Kaufer, Doug founded Prison of Peace in 2009. The Prison of Peace project trains life and long terms incarcerated people to be powerful peacemakers and mediators. He has been deeply moved by inmates who have learned and applied deep, empathic listening skills, leadership skills, and problem-solving skills to reduce violence in their prison communities. Their dedication to learning, improving, and serving their communities motivates him to expand the principles of Prison of Peace so that every human wanting to learn the skills of peace may do so. Doug’s awards include California Lawyer Magazine Lawyer of the Year, Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year, Purpose Prize Fellow, International Academy of Mediators Syd Leezak Award of Excellence, National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals Neutral of the Year. His four books have won a number of awards and commendations. Doug’s podcast, Listen With Leaders, is now accepting guests. Click on this link to learn more and apply.
