Learning to Listen

This article and those listed below are part of Convene’s January/February 2024 issue. Find the turn-page versions of this and past issues at in our digital library. Illustrations by Ellen Weinstein

Sound expert Julian Treasure gave two TED Talks: “How to Speak so That People Want to Listen” and “5 Ways to Listen Better.” With more than 57 million views, the speaking better talk is the sixth-most-viewed TED Talk of all time — the listening better talk, on the other hand, has 80 percent fewer views.

It’s a striking data point. We think of speaking as a desirable skill to be honed but we tend to equate listening with more of a mechanical activity — but hearing and listening are not the same. And as Treasure says in his much-less-viewed talk, we are “losing our listening” in a louder and louder world competing for our attention.

If the business events industry is built on knowledge sharing, the loss of our collective ability to listen is a concern, particularly at conferences that seek to solve the world’s most pressing problems. We invest heavily in speakers, but how can we cultivate better listening behavior among our audiences?

Convene reached out to four listening experts — the president of the International Listening Association, a professor who teaches an undergrad listening course, the author of STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, and one of the world’s top experts on coaching — for their advice. Hear what they have to say in the stories below.