Listening
Content, emotion, intent
Hear what is being communicated as well as what is being said.
The shape
- Content
- Emotion
- Intent
Why that order
Content tells you what was said, emotion tells you about their experience of it, and intent tells you what the communication is trying to achieve. Answering only the content is how a reasonable reply lands badly.
A worked example
- Content
- We have changed the deadline three times.
- Emotion
- Frustration.
- Intent
- They want predictability.
- Response
- It sounds like the repeated changes are making planning difficult, and you need a more stable commitment.
What usually goes wrong
Believing you can know somebody's emotion or intent with certainty. Both are hypotheses. Treat them as hypotheses and check the ones that matter.
Practise it
Knowing the shape is about ten minutes of work. Running it while somebody senior is looking at you is a different thing, and that is what these are for.
Mostly serves Connection, and reaches into Presence and Message.
A framework tells you what shape the answer takes. It cannot tell you whether shape is what you are short of, and for most people it is not. Which one is yours, and whether a framework is the right instrument at all, is what a Discovery Call is for.
Take the AssessmentOr read the whole glossary first.