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successfully drop fifty pounds that you are suddenly aware of all the people around you who could benefit from doing the same thing. Watching others, one of the first things you will be aware of is that listening while keeping your mouth shut and saying nothing is a whole lot smarter than not listening, speaking up and saying nothing. As opposed to really listening, a lot of people get totally hung up on frequently interjecting with comments and questions they mistakenly think make them look smart. This is seldom the case as, on the usually flawed assumption that they know what the speaker is going to say, instead of listening their focus shifts entirely to trying to formulate ‘smart’ questions. In addition to the sheer rudeness of their constant interruptions, such people usually only succeed in looking foolish. It all comes back to note-taking. Rather than constantly interrupting a speaker with self-serving questions, it is a whole lot smarter (and better table manners) to note down comments and questions and save them for later – if indeed the issues haven’t been covered by the time everyone gets to ask questions.
    A wonderful Mark Twain quote is: ‘There is nothing so annoying as having two people talking when you’re busy interrupting.’
    Interruptions when speaking are unfortunately a fact of life and we have to learn to live with them. I must confess, however, that when I am trying to express my thoughts to a group of people I find constant interruptions really exasperating. I have tremendous admiration for our CEO and president at Virgin Galactic George Whiteside’s uncanny ability to handle interruptions. Perhaps he learned the art in his previous position as chief of staff at NASA where he was accustomed to dealing with highly opinionated politicos much of the time, but one way or the other he is a master at it.
    If someone rudely interjects when George is speaking, it is a thing of beauty to watch. He will stop mid-sentence, smile and listen politely for as long as it takes them to get their point across. George will then acknowledge the person’s point of view or question and either respond there and then or say he will come back to it later before seamlessly resuming where he left off with his presentation. It can sometimes help to try and ward off interruptions by asking for questions to be held until the end, but George’s technique certainly beats any other approach – particularly the popular one of simply ploughing ahead at a higher volume while totally ignoring the interruption from the floor.
    THE UNSPOKEN WORD
    A really skilled listener not only takes in what has been said but will also hear what has not been said. One of the easier results of this can allow questions such as, ‘I was intrigued to note that you failed to make any mention of XYZ. Does this mean you don’t consider it relevant to your proposal?’ A more interesting spin on the unspoken word, however, can be recognising when someone is deliberately avoiding an issue that they should really be addressing. In a one-on-one chat with a mid-level manager, for example, if they painstakingly steer the subject away from any mention whatsoever of their divisional vice-president’s role in a failed initiative when they would seem to be a logical part of the dialogue, it may be enough to confirm concerns about there being a cover-up going on.
    An actual example of such a ‘deafening silence’ was to be seen in the UK Department for Transport’s bungled handling of Virgin Trains’ 2012 bid to retain the West Coast franchise. More on this later, but suffice it to say that in this context the government’s silence and disinclination to address cold hard numbers that showed our rival’s bid to be far riskier than the government believed and it set alarm bells ringing in my head that all was not well with the process.
    Similarly, paying close attention to not just what someone says but the way in which they say it can help you to