Are You a Listener or a Reader? 

Some people understand better by listening, others by
reading. Which are you? Do you know? 

As management guru Peter Drucker points out in his book, 
“Management Challenges for the 21st Century,” “Very few people even 
know that there are readers and there are listeners, and that very few 
people are both. Even fewer know which of the two they themselves are.” 

Drucker illustrates the point with examples of recent U.S. Presidents: 
Eisenhower and Kennedy were readers. Eisenhower's staff made sure 
he was given questions from the press in writing before a briefing or 
conference. Kennedy, who knew he was a reader, assembled an 
admirable staff of brilliant writers such as Arthur Schlesinger and 
Bill Moyers, who wrote to him before discussing the memos in person. 

Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson were 
listeners. FDR and Truman enjoyed oral give-and-take and were 
good at it. Lyndon Johnson, with years as a gifted parliamentarian, 
was – indeed, had to be – an excellent listener to deal with the 
nuances of congressional processes. 

Some unfortunate results? Apparently, Eisenhower felt he 
had to do as his predecessors had done – to receive oral briefings 
from senior officials instead of reading executive summaries 
such as those prepared by his former military staff. However, 
according to Drucker, this didn't work well, and “Eisenhower . . . 
never even heard the question the journalists asked. And he was 
not even an extreme case of a nonlistener.” Further, “A few years 
later Lyndon Johnson destroyed his Presidency, in large measure, 
by know knowing that he – unlike Eisenhower – was a listener.” 
(Johnson kept on the Kennedy staff who wrote memos and papers, 
and “He never, apparently, got one word of what they wrote.” 

How to manage these crucial differences? Do both. If you are 
going to have a crucial business conversation with others, prepare 
key points in writing as well as delivering them orally. Ideas need 
not always be written in detail. A few points and short examples 
will usually suffice. 

From time to time I meet for an hour with a smart professional 
man to discuss organizational matters. I quickly learned that it 
was best for me to have a list of points to discuss that he can carry 
away. Otherwise much of what I share with him is forgotten. 
Our meetings are very casual, and the bullet points I bring with me 
also help to keep us on topic. 

If you determine that you are primarily a reader, you can request 
that members who are going to meet for discussion prepare and 
distribute their “talking points” prior to the meeting. Also, if there are 
detailed reference papers they are drawing from, ask that they copy 
and distribute those as well. At a meeting itself, request a flip chart 
or whiteboard so that you can SEE the ideas as well as hear them. 

Finally, if you are primarily a listener, you will normally understand 
well when spoken to. However, you may not remember everything
later on. Listeners are proud of and like to trust their memories, 
and they often dislike taking notes. Listeners: Begin to take 
at least a few notes during important meetings or discussions. 
It's a good discipline worth developing.