Better Listen - Patrick Thean (Entrepreneur, Author, Coach)

Patrick Thean is a truly inspiring guy. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has started and exited multiple companies but he is best known for helping companies accelerate their growth. Patrick is exceptional at getting executive teams and their department focused, aligned, accountable, and working smoothly as a team to achieve their objectives. In his Paper Napkin Wisdom, Patrick shares a piece of advice he offers his clients. He says: “To listen better, be truly curious. You might just learn something.” Patrick has found that most leadership books will tell you that listening is the key to being a better leader, but few will actually tell you how to listen better. When a client pressed Patrick to know what his secret to being such a good listener was, he couldn’t give an answer right away. When he really thought about it, he realized that it was because he pushed himself to be truly curious when he was talking to a client. When he’s approaching a situation, Patrick goes in wondering what he’s going to hear or learn that he’s never heard before, he’s truly curious. He used to tell his clients to ask more questions, but Patrick noticed that when he told them to be more curious, the questions would come naturally. If you’re actually curious, you’ll have no trouble formulating questions. Curiosity is different than just interest. Curiosity comes from a place of humility, of admitting that there is more for you to learn. Curiosity is an approach that works, not just in your professional life, but in your personal life as well. Patrick says that when you know someone really well, you tend to assume you know how you’re going to react. When you assume you know how someone’s going to react, it limits your opportunities to learn something new and can cause big misunderstandings. Patrick gives and example from his own family life. He shares how he and his wife thought their daughter didn’t want to go to a meeting with her mother because she was shy, but through being curious, he learned that it was not because she was shy but because she didn’t like the disruption to her schedule. Simply by being curious, he learned that this daughter was a process and plan oriented person who appreciated prior notice and didn’t really enjoy spontaneous additions to her day. He hadn’t known that before and one moment of curiosity rewarded him with a new level of understanding his daughter. The more you know a person, says Patrick, the more likely you are to assume you know what the other person is thinking. It’s his belief that these miscommunications that arise from such assumptions might be the reason you often see business partnerships break up at around 7 or 8 years in. Do you no longer get along with your partner because they’re suddenly a jerk to work with or because you each assume you know the other’s reasoning and motivations without asking? To be curious, says Patrick, you have to start with a belief that you’re going to learn something. That’s where it begins. Curiosity begins from a position of humility and wanting to understand, wanting to learn. For Patrick, it also starts from a place of caring. His caring leads to curiosity. Before his client approached him and asked about how he listened, Patrick hadn’t been consciously curious, it was something he did naturally. Now, being curious is something Patrick does actively. “Get curious,” he says. When he notices a miscommunication with someone, he asks himself if it was because he wasn’t curious. Was he distracted by something else? Was he in a rush? He makes a conscious effort, if he finds he’s not curious, to slow down. If you do that often enough, it becomes an automatic response and you can keep yourself present with the people you’re talking to. When you work with people you need to be effective, not efficient, says Patrick. In choosing effective over efficient, you will ultimately achieve more. Sometimes you have to slow down to go faster. As previous Paper Napkin Guests have said, people and being able to really connect with people are vital factors in the success of any company. The next time you find yourself talking to someone, try to approach them from a place of curiosity. It works well for Patrick, his clients, and he believes it will work well for you too. Listen to the entire conversation with Patrick here:

Get Patrick's Book Here: Rhythm: How to Achieve Breakthrough Execution and Accelerate Growth