From workshop to workplace: embedding client listening capability

Welcome to The Happy Client!

Written by our Director, Anna Lake, this monthly newsletter shares insights, ideas and inspiration to help you build stronger client relationships and create move value for your business. If you're not already subscribed, click here to never miss an issue! When firms look to increase client listening capability from within, they often look to training. Before they embark on a learning journey, they have a choice. - they can train interviewers to ask questions, or they can train them to listen. Whilst client listening needs both, the focus and the starting points for both of these learning journeys is very different. Question-first training focuses on question sets, frameworks and consistency. Listening-first training requires a different approach, as much of the work needs to be done from within the individual themselves.  We believe listening-first approach delivers great insight and is the focus of this month’s Happy Client. 

Training internal teams to listen not only increases the capacity of your programme, it develops an important skill which can be applied outside a client interview context. Training your teams to listen can be transformative, but only if the learning continues after the workshop ends. Learning to listen doesn’t happen in a stand-alone training day.  It is about what occurs when what has been shared on the day has been observed, experienced and reflected upon outside of it. 

Listening is a capability that grows through reinforcement, reflection and practice; especially in the in between- moments where people apply, stretch and embed what they’ve learned. That’s exactly where inter-sessional activities come in; they give participants an opportunity to play!

Our view is that learning to listen is a journey, with skills developing and becoming embedded over time.

Why listening skills need ongoing development

Even the best listening workshop can only the starting point. People might leave feeling energised and motivated (which is a great way to encourage momentum!), but genuine behavioural change requires ongoing development through small, repeated actions that keep the learning alive.

This is where inter -sessional activities are essential. Short, focused exercises help people:

• revisit key concepts

• deepen their -self-awareness

• practise techniques in low pressure- moments

• build confidence gradually

• turn new learning into new behaviours

Ongoing development doesn’t need to feel heavy. It’s homework – but it isn’t! In fact, the most impactful activities are often the smallest.

Change happens in the ‘in between-’ moments

The real shift doesn’t happen in the training session, it happens in the days and weeks between. Inter-sessional activities support this type of change. They act as bridges between learning and doing.

These activities might include:

• A 2-minute reflection after a client call (“When did I listen well? When did I rush? What would I try differently next time?”)

• A micro challenge- for the week (“Ask one additional open question in every client conversation.”)

• A ‘notice and name’ exercise (“Pay attention to when your assumptions show up. Write down one example.”)

• Peer listening exercises (Colleagues practise asking questions and reflecting back what they heard.)

• Short reflection prompts (A simple way to build awareness without overwhelming busy teams.)

These take minutes, but these minutes build a reflective muscle and they compound. Importantly, they help people stay connected to the learning between sessions. They help skill become habits, and good habits have a positive impact on culture.

How to maximise the impact (and investment) of your listening training

If you want listening training to spark real, sustainable change, you need a structure that extends far beyond the workshop itself. Even if you opt for high-impact workshops that focus on questioning, it is what happens afterwards where the value is felt. That’s why all our listening training (and our other courses) include these activities as standard. 

Contracting is important – those undertaking the training need to commit to the work between the learning, and their managers need to give them the space and time to do so.

Listening training is the catalyst, intersessional activities are the accelerant-. They make learning stick. And when organisations treat listening as a continual practice rather than a one off event, teams grow more confident, client insight becomes more -meaningful and your client experience truly shifts.

If you’d like to know more about our approach to client listening training, please do let me know.