Now Listen Here!
A lawyer friend recently expressed his frustrations with attention-challenged listeners. Blame it on our education system, the internet, loud music or global warming– the truth is that many of your conversation team-members are often not completely with you. How to respond depends on two things: how much time you have to waste, and how important is your message.
If you have lots of time to waste, knock yourself out. If you don’t, but your message is not critical, learn to exit quickly yet gracefully. But when your listener needs to hear you, the onus is on you to connect.
On rare occasions you should call the listener on his rudeness. The effect is galvanizing– see the blog post below– just be sure it’s worth it, because there may be a price to pay.
More often than not, what you should do is pause long enough that the silence becomes the dominant feature in the room, look your listener straight in the eye and say something like “I’m not explaining myself well, am I?” The mentally-absent listener’s attention meter will go from 28.3% to 99.9%. Guaranteed. Then make your point, but make it well.