70/30 rule or as I like to call it “shut up and listen" - How we can better listen to our communities

Ok first of all sorry this is a short one. Daughters been sick and that has taken all my energy but did spark this thought process. If any one has young children they know the only way to learn what they are after is to do alot of listening, talking at them is not going to land very well.

The 70/30 rule describes the amount of time that ideally should be spend actively listening to someone you want to learn more about vs speaking to the person. I use speaking but this can include chatting in comments or even the amount of blogs that tell vs. asks the community and how much responses there are.

The aim of these conversations is to better understand the person and how we can make their lives easier, hard to do if we talk the entire time!

Conversely if we don't talk at all the other person can feel like we are unengaged or we don't ask enough probing questions to learn more.

Ideally you want to walk away knowing:
What are they trying to do ?
What is preventing/slowing them from getting their this done (blockers)
What would help make their life easier/quicker (gains)
They know how we can remove their blockers and help them achieve their gains.

So I guess the big takeaway is next time your trying to better understand someone note down how much your are talking and how much your are letting them talk, try to move it to 70/30 and see how much more you can learn (or you might already be doing it perfect!)