Listening

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.

--Albert Guinon (French playwright, 1863-1923)

Listening -- really listening -- is not an easy skill to master.

Take it from me: It took me years to master listening. And I still forget myself occasionally.

In journalism school, every one of my professors talked about the skills necessary for conducting a good interview. Every one of them said virtually the same thing: "Listen to the answers. Let your questions flow from the answers."

It isn't easy. In real life, we mostly talk at each other rather than to each other. While the other person is talking, we're too often trying to figure out what we're going to say next. Information is, perhaps, exchanged, but real communication isn't happening.

In journalism, especially in broadcasting, the tendency is to keep thinking ahead. Instead of really listening to the answer to the first question, we're preoccupied with trying to come up with the second question. "What am I going to say when he stops talking? I have to ask another question, or I'll look like an idiot."

Not so.

What I've rediscovered in the "What's Your Story?" series of half-hour interviews I've been doing for the Virginia Voice is that the questions will flow from the answers if I just relax and listen.

Usually I'll have some rough idea of where the conversation will go before we start recording. But a half-hour radio interview lasts a l-o-n-g time. My first inclination was to make a list of topics I wanted to cover. I thought about that for a while though and decided it might make for much more interesting broadcasts if I risked working without a net -- without a list of questions or topics or any written notes at all.

Let me give you just one example. One of the best programs I've done so far was with a woman who owns and runs a coffee emporium. I thought we'd spend a lot of time talking about coffee, it's history, it's place in our daily lives, and why we like it so much.

Sure, we talked about those things. But within the first three or four minutes of the interview, she mentioned that she'd spent a year of high school abroad, in The Netherlands. She'd loved it, learned so much, and keeps going back year after year. Suddenly, all my plans went out the window, and for the next 15 minutes we talked about that one year in her life and how much it had meant to her. She was passionate on the subject, and a passionate interview makes for really good radio.

The premise of "What's Your Story?" is that everybody has a story to tell. All you have to is ask.

But what I've learned, time and again, is that there's more to it.

Once you've asked, you have to listen.

What the person you're talking to says might surprise you, and the interview -- or conversation -- might head off in an unexpected direction.

And you'll often be pleasantly surprised. I promise.