Listening
We are losing our listening.
Listening is the skill every other communication skill rests on, and almost nobody is taught it. Worse, almost everybody believes they're already good at it, which is the one belief that makes improvement impossible.
This is the talk that shows an audience what their listening is actually doing, and hands them the means to change it.
The talk
Julian opens with the uncomfortable evidence. Only one employee in 12 rates their leader a very good listener, which means that in most organisations the great majority of leaders are confident about something the people around them don't experience at all. That gap isn't a soft problem. Disengagement costs the world economy $8.8 trillion a year, and miscommunication costs American workers over a day a week, around $1.2 trillion. Put together, poor listening is one of the largest unexamined costs in business.
From there the talk becomes practical. Julian reveals the two secrets that transform listening and speaking completely, then explains the filters we all listen through and how to take control of them. He gives the audience listening positions they can move between on purpose, and a three-minute daily practice that rebuilds connection in a world designed to fracture it.
It ends where the money is: what happens to an organisation when its people start to feel heard.
What the audience leave with
- Why most people overestimate their own listening, and the havoc it wreaks on relationships at home and at work
- Two secrets that transform listening and speaking completely
- The filters that decide what you hear before you hear it
- Listening positions, and how to change them deliberately
- A three-minute daily practice that rebuilds connection
- What being genuinely heard does to engagement, loyalty and innovation
Who it suits
- Leadership conferences and executive offsites
- Whole-company events where one idea has to reach everybody
- Human resources, learning and development, and internal communications audiences
- Sales and customer-facing teams, whose work is all listening
- Healthcare, education and any sector where being heard is the service
What organisers say
“The highest-rated speech we have ever had in 25 events over 18 years.”
“He had the audience absolutely engaged from start to finish... I can't recommend you as a speaker enough.”
Sources
- Only one employee in 12 rates their leader a very good listener: LinkedIn, survey of 14,000 employees, 2020.
- Disengagement costs the world economy $8.8 trillion a year: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace, 2023.
- Miscommunication costs American workers over a day a week, around $1.2 trillion: The Harris Poll for Grammarly, State of Business Communication, 2021.