We’ve all been there. You begin to say something in a conversation but get cut off or ignored, so you slowly trail off and stop speaking.
It’s incredibly frustrating – especially in a workplace setting, when not being heard could be detrimental to your career. The same goes for your personal life, too – we all want to feel acknowledged by our loved ones.
But how do you get people to really listen to you? Best-selling author and CEO René Rodriguez has all the answers.
In fact, his videos on simple hacks to get someone to listen to what you’re saying have gained well more than 24 million views on TikTok.
With some simple changes, he says you can transform the way you communicate and ensure that you have the attention of whoever you need.
The influence zone
We all know that light travels faster than sound, so what image are we projecting in a conversation?
René says: ‘Be keenly aware of your body language. Is it a body language of presence? Is it one that shows you are commanding attention? Are you smiling? Are you coming in with a scowl?’
He also explains that hand placement is critical. Your hands should be in what he describes as ‘the influence zone’ – between your belly button and your eyes.
Hand gestures command attention and aid memory retention, he says.
René references a study which analysed the most-viewed and least-viewed Ted Talks.
He says: ‘The bottom quartile had an average of 137,000 views, still a lot of views but they used 257 hand gestures.
‘The top quartile had an average of 4.8 million views with 468 hand gestures. So hand gestures have a massive impact from 137,000 to 4.8 million. That’s exponential.’
The bottom line – be animated with your hand movements people.
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Frame, Message, Tie-down
René tells Metro.co.uk that ‘you frame by context setting and telling a story’.
He says: ‘To help the people understand how we got here, put a frame around the situation.
‘If a story is relevant to a person, they’re listening because it’s coming from a point of value. That’s called a frame.’
If we don’t provide a frame for the conversation, the brain will make up a frame of reference because it’s the only way to understand what’s going on, René says.
So the frame is the most critical piece to help us understand meaning. It’s the way to open someone up to receiving the message.
An example of why framing is important:
A conversation without a frame would go something like this:
‘Can you come to the party?’
‘No.’
There’s no frame there, so an insecure person might say: ‘Oh they don’t like me.’
The same conversation with the frame would go something like this:
‘Can you come to the party?’
‘Unfortunately, no.’
The unfortunately becomes a frame and it tells you, ‘I wish I could’ve come but I can’t’. It’s like saying I’m sorry.
The last part is a tie-down – which is basically a summary.
René says: ‘It’s the part that’s most often missed. The tie-down summarises everything that was said and it’s a specific way of saying this is what it means to you.
‘A lot of times we omit that under the assumption that the person connects the dots for themselves.’
Predict, Pre-empt, Prevent
If you’re mindful and thoughtful, you can probably predict any potential points of resistance to what you’re saying, explains René.
As an example, he says: ‘If I’m about to deliver bad news to my team, let’s say we’re going to have to change our work hours (we used to be nine to five, now we’re going to go on to a rotating shift. Ouch.).
‘What can you predict? You can probably predict a lot of resistance and you can probably predict that those who have been here longer are going to want some sort of seniority.
‘So what can you do to pre-empt that? Maybe have some one-on-one conversations ahead of time to say “there’s this meeting, you might be upset by it, you and I can talk abut it afterwards.”
‘So I pre-empted their opposition to me in the meeting by being able to predict it I prevented it.’
René points out it’s about ‘a little thoughtfulness ahead of time of what kind of reaction you might get to doing something’ – because that will help people listen to you even when it’s not necessarily news they want to hear.
Pathos and logos
Pathos refers to using an emotional connection to engage the person you are trying to communicate with.
After establishing your authority by framing your point you can use an emotional connection to engage them further, says René.
But he adds that your point has to make logical sense, too.
Self-awareness
According to René, self-awareness is the number one most important thing people can adopt to get others to listen to them.
He says: ‘When you’re talking about leadership training, you start with self-awareness because imagine an unaware leader.
‘A person who tells a joke at the wrong time, that doesn’t show compassion when the team needs compassion, lacks empathy because they think they’re empathetic but they’re not.
‘It’s the first step of emotional intelligence. When you’re thinking about self-awareness, empathy follows this.’
René adds it’s important to ask yourself: ‘How am I feeling? What’s going on? How’s that affecting the world then how are other people feeling? Am I able to walk in their shoes for a minute?’
He says: ‘Understanding those two pieces there make you very powerful because then you can adjust how are you approaching something to best meet that person there.’
The LOVE method
René tells Metro.co.uk: ‘The LOVE method is based on the idea that we’ve lost the art of conversation. We don’t know how to have a conversation anymore.’
LOVE stands for listen, observe, validate and expand.
René explains the process, saying: ‘I’m going to listen to you and observe your body language, observe your tone of voice and the context for clues, then I’ll validate what’s going on and expand.’
But why is this necessary?
‘Most of the time we enter a conversation with an underlying agenda of “I want you to like me”. We all do that, it’s very human,’ he says.
‘But if we walk in with the agenda of I need to get you to like me, then I might be one-sided, I might be name dropping, I might show off and do things that are very about me – and then I’ve lost sight of you.
‘So what we tell people is stop trying to get people to like you, and start liking people.’
He adds: ‘I can’t process my agenda and hear you at the same time. If I just let go of my agenda and I’m fully there, it does so much to brain chemistry.
‘People like each other, and then all of a sudden if I’m letting you lead we discover these passion points. They’re leading and you’re listening and you’re constantly validating. Sometimes validation is as simple as “oh, interesting”.
‘So that piece is one of the biggest secret weapons to keep opening people up. They’re saying something and you’re feeding back a response.
‘It doesn’t have to be positive, it just has to be honest. If it’s an honest response then at least there’s a connection. It’s saying “you said something and you had an impact”. If I can show you you had an impact on me there’s a chance for more conversation.’
In summary:
To get people to listen to you, ensure that your hands are in the influence zone and you’re gesturing. This will command attention.
Begin speaking by framing your point with context, this gives your message more value and then say why it’s important to those who are listening.
You can hold people’s attention while you’re speaking by finding an emotional connection with them, but it’s important to make sure your point is also logical.
If there’s a chance your message could be frustrating or upsetting, predict that, take action to help avoid that and then you’ve prevented a negative outcome.
Finally, listen to who you are talking to, validate their response and expand on what they have said.
You’ll never be ignored again.
Amplify Your Influence by Rene Rodriguez, £11.99
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