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 Which is more important being heard or hearing? If communication is not a one-way street then the latter makes sense.

Now let’s frame the question a little differently “Are you a good listener?

When was the last time you really listened without thinking about what you are going to respond to? Or When was the last time someone really listened to you?

Human psychology is tuned in a way to listen to our inner voice, and our heart, and rarely think of listening to others. Because of this, we would like to talk more and listen less.

But what does a good listener means? I asked this question to a couple of my friends and what I got was a strange stare. That was a surprise for me and I thought of extending the same question to the audience which is outside of my immediate circle. As the number of stares increased, I decided to add one more question to the survey “ What is a bad listener”.

That was a game-changer for the survey suddenly people started answering a lot more for the second question.

Among the answers technology was one of the major culprits. I don’t disagree, it is one of the main culprits. With mobile phones, smartwatches, and other smart devices plus the number of notifications on all these devices, we all are constantly distracted and end up being in the bad listener category.

But what/who is a good listening/listener

It’s not about turning the buddha mode on and holding the peace. It’s quite the opposite you facilitate the clarity of other persons’ thoughts, and through that process, you will solidify your own understanding. During this process, you end up asking the right questions.

I was talking to one of my friends who is a journalist he was saying “Anyone and any interview can be interesting as long as you remain curious and ask the right questions”. After that, I started looking at many of the interviews and realized that most of the interviewers came into the interview with a prejudiced mindset. The same is happening with us in all the meetings/conversations we listen to people with a prejudiced mindset. We categorize them based on the answers and approaches to those categories are predefined in our minds. This makes us bad listeners.

Why is it difficult to become a good listener? It is because our brains can think faster than how we talk and listen. The more you are well-versed in a particular area the chance of getting distracted is very high, we tend to read where the conversation is going towards or what the other person is going to say. There is no mantra or breathing technique for listening, there is only one way, ie listen to the speaker, control your inner noise and make yourself curious. The result will be an interesting conversation.

Same as any other skill listening is a skill that needs constant practice and polishing. If you don’t have the natural ability to listen then you have to work hard. “ practice will make you perfect”. The more people you listen to, the more aspects of humanity you will recognize eventually you will develop better instincts. It will help you in reading all those nonverbal communications. If you look at the great leaders they are not just good speakers but also good listeners and they could read what is not being said.

As humanity progress, this is one of the skills we are losing unknowingly. We all are in our small world which revolves around the smart gadgets we carry. We could do pretty much anything with a touch and a swipe. With all these, we are slowly building a small world of our own where we live and devise our own rules. These hard shells have made us bad listeners. In that small cocoon we are not used to listening instead we dictate how things should work in our world. Suddenly when we are being asked to listen to others it becomes a psychological shock.

Now a days with all the digital devices we always complain about the number of ads that show up on devices and the different ways by which companies pushed their products to us. But we can’t complain about that, because the world has become a group of non-listening dictators, and any company/product that is serving this community is a true reflection of the society. So we are getting what we deserve.

As Gandhiji once said, “be the change you wish to see in the world”. So let’s first break the dictatorship in you and start listening. Keep in mind “Talk less, listen more, and be curious”.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/the-lost-art-of-listening-780b1e8be59e

During the course of human civilization, we evolved a lot in terms of technologies, the way we build our houses, towns, buildings, etc.

When Dubai decided to build skyscrapers they didn’t think of transforming one of their old fortresses into skyscrapers nor did they make it on the top of an existing fort. Also, Burj khalifa is not the first skyscraper in downtown Dubai instead, they started building several others and as an epitome, they created Burj khalifa.

You might be wondering why I have started with this example/analogy. I believe keeping this example in mind will help you in connecting the things which I am going to discuss below.

When you analyze the retailers you will realize a pattern. Everyone is considering digitization/e-com/app as using their existing ecosystem. Remember when Dubai thought of building skyscrapers they didn’t build them on top of the existing buildings.

Retailers have to keep in mind that, earlier you used to bring the customers to your stores so that you can showcase your products. When they come into your stores you give them the best experience you can. But now the world has changed, now retailers are in the pockets of customers. They see and compare your products with many other retailers in the world. They can compare you with anyone of their choice.

There is no one size fits all strategy for digital transformation. But when you look at the successful retailers who have digitally transformed you will see some similarities to the first example I mentioned.

They never tried to force-fit digital into their existing fortress instead they approached digital as a new skyscraper and reused the materials they can from the old fortress. Those who tried to build a skyscraper over their old fortress are still limping, complaining, crying, and nailbiting.

Why retailers are doing this?

When you look at the retailers almost everyone is trying to build skyscrapers on top of their existing fortress. That made me think why is this happening?

So let’s go back in time, most of these big retailers started as small stores in a small community where they knew almost everyone. The customers also knew the store staff ( most of them were the owners of the shop).

From that small community store, they started growing and started opening stores in different communities throughout the country and eventually in different parts of the world. This journey was a natural transformation as they grow they started adding technologies that support the brick&mortar growth. As a customer, if I want something then I have to go to the nearest store to get the product, and if I have to return that I have to go to the store again. Customers didn’t find it difficult because there was a store in every community. This is when technology started changing, the internet and mobile became so common and approachable to almost everyone.

Along with this, a new wave of retailers started emerging who were telling the customers that “you don’t have to come to the store we will reside in your pocket or home, you watch/buy at the comfort of your home”.

The old brick&motor retailers didn’t take it seriously they laughed at it. “Blockbuster” was one among them, when Netflix started they might have laughed at it. But soon they became part of the history.

That was an eye-opener for many others they started realizing that they have to do something to onboard this bus. Many of them started digitizing their business but they approached it as if like building a skyscraper on top of the current forts/pyramid. This didn’t work out and many fortresses have fallen.

The reason for the failure was they all approached digital as an addition to their existing brick&motor technology and processes. When they extended their existing brick and motor technology to the pockets of customers it ended up like “Modifying an old Toyota corolla to look like a Tesla”. The moment customers pushed the pedal they started realizing its the same old petrol engine under the hood.

What should the retailers do?

Retailers have to understand that they are not just a shop which is inside a mall or a part of the community but with the technological changes, they also have to exist in the pockets, wrist, cars & homes of customers. When you move from mall to wrist of a customer you have to be nimble, agile, and quick.

The best way to adapt to this is to reverse your thinking. Right now many of these retailers are building a small digital extension of their old technology & processes and putting it in customers’ pockets as a website or app.

This is the same as modifying the Corolla to make it look like a Tesla. So reverse the thinking and put a digital-first strategy (Not just in your marketing campaigns or leadership talks). Redesign your landscape and processes to match with the new world then slowly modernize the old fortress in the meantime slowly correct the basics to adapt to the world of skyscrapers and start building the skyscraper using the knowledge you acquired over the period of time. You have to understand that “In order to offer flexible service the business itself has to be flexible”

If not,

“The old fortress which you have will soon become part of history and will be remembered as a lost town of glory”.

The choice is yours and only you can decide how you want to be remembered in history and the future.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/digitization-doesnt-mean-building-a-skyscraper-on-top-of-an-old-pyramid-cfd48f6fc04

Let me open up with a weird question. 

“You are going out to watch a live match in the stadium how can you make sure that match is live. How and why do you believe that it‘s live?”

Now you might be thinking it’s not a weird question instead it is a stupid one. But keep in mind every brilliant idea seems to be stupid at the first point.

Now come back to the question why do you believe it is live. 

The answer is very simple “You saw it with your naked eyes and you realized that it is happening as you see it, so it’s live”.

So what about when you look up and thank God for the final minute penalty save or a goal. When you do that you will see the stars in the sky.

Is that also live.

Another stupid question right, “Of course it is “.

Here is the twist. I would say “Of course not “

Why?

“Because of the finite speed of light, when you gaze up into the night sky, you are looking into the past.”

Let me make it clear.

When you look at the stars we are actually seeing the light which started from the star’s light years ago. The brightest star in the night sky Sirius is 8.6 light-years away. That means the light hitting your eye tonight has been traveling for 8.6 years

NGC4845 Galaxy is one of the distant objects we could track it is 65 million light-years away. This means the light we see right now is 65 million years old.

Imagine NGC4845 galaxy as a picture and if you could zoom in then what you will be seeing now will be the look of NGC4845 galaxy 65 million years back. We don’t even know what is the current status of that galaxy because we don’t have a mechanism to travel faster than light and see what is happening there.

Let’s reverse the situation, imagine there is life in NGC4845 galaxy which is like 65 million light-years away, and if they are looking at earth what will they be seeing. They will of course see the light from the earth which is 65 million years ago. If they have the technology to zoom in then they could see dinosaurs getting extinct and not us.

They could see this only if they have technology beyond human reach. Imagine we try to zoom into NGC4845 galaxy using the current technology we can’t even see the planets which are orbiting the biggest star in that galaxy. You cant zoom in that far because by the time you reach that far there won’t be any photons that get reflected from a planet or a Trex so we can’t see it.

The next question is, “Is this theoretically possible?”

“Yes it is”, that is why I said they can see us if they have technology beyond human reach.

In quantum physics, there is something called “Gravitational telescope”. It’s a proposed theory for studying exoplanets using an effect that occurs around massive celestial bodies where the gravity of the objects is strong enough to bend spacetime. An object viewed through this bent of spacetime will appear closer and larger than how you see in the ordinary telescope that is made by us.

We have the sun which is a large celestial body with substantial gravitational pull. If we point this camera towards the sun then we can zoom into exoplanets and see images in detail.

For us, there is a limitation because if we have to see the exoplanets that are clear then we will have to place the telescope at a point 14 times away from the distance between Sun and Pluto plus it has to be 20 times wider than earth.

That is why I said “theoretically possible” but might not be possible for us now, We are yet to reach outside the solar system.

I guess now we are clear “what we see in the sky is the past”

Now let’s add a fun fact to this, there is a list in the wiki which shows the brightest start in the night sky. If you sort the table on that page with distance and find the number closest to your age. That light has actually started traveling when you were born. ie “when you see it tonight you will see the light at the time of your birth”.

https://bivekrenuji.medium.com/we-see-the-past-in-the-sky-c74e6ab994be

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash