3 practical ways to improve your listening during a video conference

In April 2008, after an exhaustive budget-setting meeting across three continents and 18 people, my manager challenged me at the end of the meeting.

She said, "If you could code how you listen, you could change the world."

I only thought a little about the comment, then two weeks later, when someone else from the say budget meeting asked me to audit their listening during their next team meeting.

During that meeting, I started coding how people were listening, and this began my journey towards 100 million deep listeners in the workplace.

Although you might know me as someone passionate about workplace listening, you may not know that I worked with technology and telecommunications since 1987.

Since 1996, I have helped organizations maximize video conferencing. During the last two decades, video technology has evolved from expensive boardrooms for just a few to being available everywhere on every device.

I have seen and heard much about the intersection of listening and technology.

In 2008, coding how to listen was complex, expensive, and disjointed. Sixteen years later, the technology is cost-effective, simpler, ubiquitous, and better integrated.

Three tips from The Ultimate Guide for Listening on a Zoom Video Conference – Host Version

1. Listening happens before, during and after the video conference – how can you create a bigger impact before the meeting?
2. A good host gets everyone to listen to the active speaker, and a great host gets everyone to listen to each other.
3. Notice the ratio of speaking to listening taking place during the meeting.

Noticing the speak-to-listen ratio may seem impossible if you are leading the meeting.

Measuring and monitoring the speak-to-listen ratio is much easier than you think.

Here is a summary of tools and technology that may help. Some of these options are free, some integrated, and some may require additional licenses or payments.

These providers operate in various contexts including;

• One-to-one meetings
• Group meetings whether team meetings or project meetings
• Business sales conversations

My clients say, "Knowing that the talk-to-listen ratio is being measured changes their behaviour during those meetings."

The next question I am asked is

what is the correct talk-to-listen ratio?

This varies based on the meeting type, the time sequence within the meeting, the length of the relationship, the project's lifecycle, the number of participants, the purpose of the conversation and the outcome.

Gong.IO provides compelling research comparing high-performing sellers and their talk-to-listen ratio over 25,537 calls. Below is a visualization of the calls over time. The blue represents when the seller speaks, and the blank space represents listening.

The analysis revealed that the highest converting talk-to-listen ratio on B2B sales calls is approximately 43:57

It would be simplistic to say that a ratio of 43:57 is ALWAYS the best way to listen during a conversation. This ratio will vary whether speaking to someone for the first time or the fifth time.

Great listeners are flexible and adjust what, how and when they listen depending on the purpose of the conversation.

When you consider a conversation over time, in thirds, it's more likely in the context of selling that there is more listening in the first third of the call compared to the final third of the call, where you are confirming actions, owners, and milestones.

Below is a brief summary of the providers from the table and some additional information about them that couldn't be squeezed into the rows.

Cyrano.AI is one of the most sophisticated listening providers, and its language analysis integrates real-time conversations and written communication, including email. It analyses your speaking style and recommends matching and increasing your communication effectiveness based on their priorities. Its distinguishing capability is the measurement commitment based on the language in the conversation.

Equal Time is one of the few offerings that works across multiple video conferencing software. Labelling participants with multiple categories allows you to increase your awareness across different cohorts and contexts.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central This CRM creates deep integrations with Microsoft products, including Teams and Viva. This allows for collecting and sharing conversational insights across meetings and participants.

Salesforce can integrate across multiple phone systems. Integrating their CRM systems provides rich insights, with the additional dimension of competitor analysis and the capacity to provide in-call coaching.

Zoom provides in-meeting insights and post-meeting analytics. It provides an additional element of insight by noticing the variety of questions used during the conversation.

Do you have techniques, tools or technology for in-call or in-meetings you use to notice how you and others listen?

Fran Cormack, ICF ACC Vikki Morris Brian Holder Elizabeth Geor Toby Sinclair John Oulton Charlie Pidcock Silvana Kozlovic Geraldine Kan Martin Mackay Tom Rischbieth Elizabeth Hristoforidis Thomas Gudman Jaquie Scammell Rob Squires Natalie Harvey Kerri-Anne Loring Paul Connell Renee Garner Roger Marshall Stuart Callaghan Michael Stelzer George Dionisopoulos MSyI, M.ISMI®, MIEAust, M.ISRM Erin Sinclair Sia Papageorgiou FRSA, FCSCE, SCMP Josh Faulks Adelle Richards Gaurav Arora, MCC (ICF)