my meta-learning from Gartner’s Symposia: the power of vulnerable listening

Gartner runs a bunch of great events each year, including IT Symposia in the autumn. I think I have attended more than 200 Gartner symposia and other events over the last 20 years. I just came back from Tokyo and Barcelona IT Symposia. (Please excuse the egotistical picture.) I had a total of about 50 great one-on-one client meetings, gave 5 presentations on the topics of simplification, growth and strategic predictions to maybe 2000 leaders, and had really interesting conversations with roughly 200 old and new colleagues. (Special shout outs to Sarah Watt Marty Resnick, Dave Micko, Liz P., Tori Paulman, Stephen Emmott, Bart Willemsen, Kazunari Konishi, Yuko Adachi, Vernon Thaver Hiroyuki KATAYAMA, Alicia Mullery, Galliopi Demetriou, Annie Hodgkins (Garcia), Alain Duminy, Dan Sommer, Frank Buytendijk, Andrew Rowsell-Jones, Tina Nunno.) I even got to sneak in a stand-up comedy performance in Tokyo. Although the primary reason my colleagues and I are there is to deliver value to clients, we also learn loads from these interactions. I always learn on two levels. First, I learn about the issues, opportunities, challenges, risks that organizations are dealing with right now. (No surprise - (Gen)AI is still the biggie.) But at a meta-level I also continue to refine my understanding of our tribal behaviours as humans, how we communicate, share, learn, laugh, and interact with each other. I was particularly struck this year by the differences in how people listen. If you can listen with a quiet centre, taking in and processing your counterpart’s language and paralanguage, using ‘theory of mind’ to discern their centre, their worldview, their hopes, dreams, fears, perspective – there is so much on offer in each interaction. On the other hand, if you listen and try to immediately fit what the other person is saying into your categories, your worldview, your biases – the learning is often so much less. Even worse if you listen defensively, seeing your counterpart’s words as a threat/ potential attack. Or try to outgun them by preparing your ‘even more impressive’ response whilst you are half-listening to them. Listening quietly, vulnerably and humbly is one of the most powerful tools we have available to us, and there is no limit to how good we can get at it, how powerfully we can quiet our selves, our egos when listening, how much meaning and learning there is available in every interaction. We don’t have to be weak to exercise this art. Even if we are super-assertive/ aggressive in other ways, even if we feel we are in a power game with our counterpart and need to send signals of strength, maintaining a humble, vulnerable approach to listening is powerful and has no downside. #unthink #unask #unlearn #listening #gartner #gartnersym.