A well-known relationship coach once invited me to observe an exclusive session he was conducting for 30 couples. He made jokes that helped break the ice and ease the group into interacting freely with him and each other. Then, he began his session.

Coach: What do you think is the biggest challenge we face in any relationship, and more specifically in husband-wife relationships?

Person 1: Compatibility.

Person 2: Lack of understanding.

Person 3: Missing the connection/spark.

Coach: All three are valid points, but let us focus on lack of understanding because I think we can do something about it.  What do you think is the cause for this lack of understanding?

Person 4: Lack of proper communication, probably?

Coach: Fairly obvious, right? So, what do you think we can do to communicate better?

Person 5: Try to explain ourselves in a manner that the other person understands?

Coach: I am sure everyone feels that they do so, right?

The audience echoed the sentiment.

After listening to some more answers, and not getting what he was looking for, the coach decided to spill the beans on the secret sauce.

Coach: Friends, in my observation, we can communicate better- if we listen intently and intentionally.

The coach then asked everyone to close their eyes.

“Those of you who think you are good listeners, please raise your hands.

Be honest with yourself. Also, do not try to see who else has raised his hand… especially your spouse,” he said.

He counted the number of hands that were not raised, which was easier. Just 10. The other 50 believed they were good listeners. He made a mental note of the number.

During the course of the session, everyone was given a sheet of paper with a set of questions. One of them was whether they thought of their spouses as good listeners. The response was just the reverse. Only nine people thought their spouses were good listeners.

When I realised the disconnect, I was baffled. I asked the coach what this meant. He smiled. “This is what I have seen universally. People think of themselves as far better listeners than they usually are. Also, in relationships, what you think is irrelevant. What matters is how you make the other person feel. For example, a stand-up comedian might think he has just cracked the funniest joke, but if the audience doesn’t laugh, it means nothing.”

That set me thinking about Shiv, a close friend, who recently went through a rough patch when both his mother and his wife were diagnosed with critical illnesses. When I met him, I asked him how he had been. He took his time responding, but once he started, he poured his heart out. He highlighted that he had had all kinds of reactions from his friends. “I know people were coming from a place of love, and they really wanted to help me, but most of what they were trying to communicate, did not really help. Some talked of the philosophy and importance of suffering in human life, others told me of people they knew who had suffered from similar diseases, and many went ahead and talked about people who had died! I mean, come on, that is the last thing I needed to know. Besides, people love giving medical advice like they are super specialists. Some reacted very emotionally - why is this happening to you, you are such a nice person, your family folks are so good! Why is God being so brutal?” What he said next surprised me. “You were the first person to ask me how I was feeling and you actually listened, and honestly this, in some ways, was the most helpful conversation, because it helped me open up about all that is going on in my head.”

Let me add a personal experience here. Most of you know that I trained to be a life coach during CY 2020/ 2021. One of the crucial aspects of this training was to become an active and non-judgemental listener. Those of us who did this course realised that listening is far tougher than it sounds. When you think deeper, you realise the potential reasons - we start thinking about what we will say next while the person is still speaking; we get distracted in our own thoughts (human attention span is now estimated to be only 8 seconds); or we start analysing why the person is saying what he is saying. Even if we do the physical part of listening well, what we make out of it gets coloured by our world view and stereotypes, affecting our understanding and, often, making it different from what the speaker was trying to convey.

Apart from personal situations, listening plays a key role in business as well. In business meetings, I have often seen that better listeners are able to pick up words that the counterparty has mentioned, and use them to take the conversation to another level. We met a company that we all thought of as a financial services company. However, when we listened to them explaining their business, we realised that they view the company as a technology company. When we positioned them as a technology company in the IPO discussion, they were very happy that we understood the business, while others had not really got it!

In fact, some of the best business leaders are very good listeners. Their ability to listen helps them build connections, with both employees and customers, and take better decisions. Richard Branson summed it up well when he said: "Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak." Steve Jobs who was not a natural listener, became much better at it later, and gained therefrom.  Former Apple CEO John Sculley said, “Young Steve Jobs was not as good at listening as the Steve Jobs that came back years later,” noting that it opened him up to new ways of thinking. Of course, listening skills are only one of the many skills that lead to success. To put it mathematically, it is neither a necessary condition nor a sufficient condition to do well, but has a non-trivial positive impact.

In her book You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, journalist Kate Murphy says that society is facing ‘a crisis of connection’, primarily because they are listening less. She says people are mistaken when they think that talking less makes them good listeners. According to her, listening is not a passive activity; it is interactive. It involves asking open-ended questions, reflecting on what is being said, and allowing the speaker to feel safe and understood.

Murphy also analyses cultural tendencies that discourage listening. In Western societies especially, people are rewarded for being able to make themselves heard, not for listening to others. Being assertive and loud are considered positive traits, while listening is seen as a sign of weakness. She challenges this idea, and says that listening requires strength, intelligence, and significant emotional maturity. She emphasizes that true listening actually challenges our assumptions and might even uncover truths we don’t want to acknowledge. But, as a result, it also allows for deeper understanding and connections. Listening is a form of empathy in action, she says.

In this age of distraction and disagreement, the world needs more understanding. And understanding begins with listening. Whether in our personal relationships, our workplaces, or our civic discourse, the ability to listen—to really listen—may be one of the most powerful tools we have to heal, connect, and grow. The good news is that listening is a skill that can be cultivated with practice and intention. The key is to be curious rather than judgmental, and to approach conversations with a genuine desire to understand each other.

Knowing that listening is our inherent superpower, what do you think you need to do to become better at it?