I've sat in meetings in China where I didn't understand a single word. But I left knowing exactly what had happened.
Like most people, I'm not a natural listener. When you want to make an impression or lead from the front, the impulse is to talk. I understand that impulse. I've spent a lifetime fighting it and I'm sure I can still do better.
Working in China showed me the power of listening rather than talking - not through discipline, but through circumstance. When you don't understand the language, you have nothing left but everything else.
And all across Asia, the words are never the most important form of communication. The message arrives in the shake of the head. The folding of the arms. The shift in the chair. Who checks the room before answering. Or looks nervously at the boss. Which name lands, and which one doesn't.
That's the critical information. It's usually better information than the words.
I've walked out of meetings having said nothing and understood everything. More than once I've offered my thoughts on what happened to Mandarin-speaking friends who sat in the same room, and surprised them. They heard the words. I watched the body language.
Here's what I had wrong for years. I thought listening was something everyone was taught at primary school. Sit still, twiddle your thumbs, stay quiet, pay attention. It isn't that simple. Culture decides who speaks first, who is expected to answer, how long a pause is allowed to run, and whether silence means agreement, refusal or respect. In the west, an uncomfortable silence is a gap to fill. In China it's usually what wasn't said that matters most.
Tom Verghese wrote this month about listening as a form of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) rather than a personal virtue. He's right.
Most Westerners in Asia think they're listening.
They're actually waiting for their turn to speak.
PS — Tom's piece, with guest writer Lucy Butters, is excellent. Click here to read it in full. More from me at linkedin.com/in/davidthomas-asia
