Eric Maddox, a former special operations soldier and interrogator, collected intelligence that directly led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. He shared what he learned as a member of a Delta Force Special Operations team in Iraq, and through his over 2,700 interrogations, with attendees at Franklin Templeton’s RIA Investment Summit in Boston, Mass, during his presentation called Earning Trust Through Empathy-Based Listening.

An Interrogator’s Realization
When Maddox started interrogations, he realized he was not getting anything out of scared prisoners that had no reason to trust the enemy interrogator.

The prisoner felt he was not understood by the interrogator and that the interrogator did not want to understand him. Maddox realized the prisoner was right. That realization had him start to better put himself in the shoes of his prisoners to understand them better. That trust he began to build enabled him to gather intelligence that eventually led to a rope in the dirt where Saddam Hussein was hiding in the town of Ad-Dawr, Iraq on December 13, 2003.

Maddox learned a lot about listening through his interrogations.

Issues We Have With Listening
It turns out we have the ability to hear at a rate five times faster than the average person speaks. Even with this extra capability, Maddox shared, “We only listen to 25% of what we hear in a conversation.” In other words, our listening problem is primarily all our own problem.

He identified six reasons for our listening issues:
1. Immediate not biased distractions—an example might be if there is something in the room distracting us, like having the TV on.
2. Personal things in our lives—we might be thinking of what is going on in our world.
3. Lack of topic familiarity—like if someone uses a bunch of acronyms that are not understood.
4. Our biases— we might already perceive something a certain way.
5. Our goals/objectives—we might not discover at all if we have our own agenda.
6. What we are going to say next—this is the biggest issue listeners face, as they are focused on their own response rather than the conversation.

Maddox pointed out something else he learned. We are all the lead in our own movie and everyone else is the supporting actor. But for others, they are the lead in their own movie. “We all want to have a life that matters,” said Maddox.

Why do we need to know this? Imagine on a Monday morning, if you ask a co-worker how his weekend was and he replies, “It was a long weekend.” A good listener would not respond, “Me too. This weekend I had the longest weekend as we had to…” skipping right over the other person’s initial reply. The proper response would have been, “Why, what happened?”

Advice To Listen Better
If we all are the star of our own movie, Maddox recommends trying to be on their stage. He said it can take only three minutes to do. If done well, you can actually help be the director of their movie.

To focus improving our ability to listen, Maddox shared how he would look for ‘breadcrumbs.’ When he would hear something that he needed to understand better, he would ask questions and listen out of pure curiosity. This type of discovery would have even prisoners enjoying the conversations.

He encouraged the audience of financial advisors to improve by listening to the stage tug of war that often takes place. Then they should evaluate themselves. Even ask the closest person in your life, “Am I a good listener?”

If someone is valuable in your life, go to their stage. To do this, realize what distractions can be controlled. Maddox said if you can go from only listening at 25% to near 80%, you will get on their stage.

For those with a team, he recommended role play. Avoid the ego that holds one back from conducting this exercise. Maddox made his point saying, “It doesn’t feel weird for the Patriots to practice.”

If financial advisors can get out of their own way and listen better, they can make their value propositions more obvious to their prospects and clients so they gain trust; then they will be much more successful in those relationships.

Mike Byrnes is a national speaker and owner of Byrnes Consulting LLC. His firm provides consulting services to help advisors become even more successful. Need help with business planning, marketing strategy, business development, client service and management effectiveness? Read more at ByrnesConsulting.com and follow @ByrnesConsultin.