Listen. That is the wonderful sound of 10,000 people consciously listening. It’s also a really important sound for the future of your businesses and, indeed, for your getting the most out of the next three days.

Sadly, it’s not something we pay a lot of attention to, is it? We have four ways of communicating: reading, writing, speaking and listening. I present them here in equal weight, but that’s not the way we treat them in society or in education. It’s rather more like this isn’t it.

We would be scandalized if a child left school unable to read or write, and yet we expect children to pick up the crucial skills of speaking — playing this incredible instrument we all play, the human voice — and, even more so, listening. We expect them to pick this up intuitively. We hardly teach them; we don’t test them. Listening is a silent skill. Most people think it’s a fairly simple process, a line: “You speak, I listen.” No. It’s more complicated than that.

Speaking and listening are actually in a circular relationship. It’s a circle because the way I speak affects the way you listen, and the way you listen affects the way I speak. And, more than that, the way I speak affects the way you speak back to me, and the way I listen affects the way you listen to me. It’s dynamic, it’s a circle, and it’s going on all the time within. I have to say also, the context. And the context this week for you is going to be quite challenging a lot of the time because you’ll be in noisy rooms trying to hear each other, at cocktail receptions, in bars, wherever it is. The acoustics cannot be great, noise can get in the way, and you will have to concentrate if you’re going to listen well a lot of times this week.

Now, we pay far more attention, actually, to speaking than we do to listening. I have a TED Talk on speaking, and I have a TED Talk on listening. The Talk on speaking has been seen by five times as many people as the Talk on listening. I think that says something about our priorities.

So I’d like to focus on listening to bring these things back into balance for you. It’s so important in business because listening opens the doors to some wonderful benefits for business and also for you personally at home and with your families.

What are these things? It’s a pretty impressive list. If you want to learn, of course you have to listen. If you’re going to lead people and inspire them, then you need to understand them and listen to what it is that makes them tick. Innovation depends entirely on listening to people’s ideas and then utilizing them.

I think you all understand the art of persuasion, and that, in itself, is so much more powerful when you listen to the person in front of you and don’t ignore his or her particular needs.

What’s the most common complaint in relationships? Guys, it’s “He or she never listens to me,” isn’t it? Listening is a great way of building relationships, and I would say for you in the coming years, relationship is the heart of what you do. So listening is going to underpin that.

Conscious listening always creates understanding, and I would say, in our world today, a little more understanding would be a very good thing, don’t you agree?

Now, it’s not just us as individuals who are not listening; it’s your businesses as well. Your businesses are probably fantastic, but, I have to say, business in general is lousy at listening.

There was a big piece of research a few years ago, the Organizational Listening Project, which looked at a range of different businesses, and, unfortunately, this is what they found. [visual] Not a great report, is it? And, it’s important because, interestingly, what they also found was that the organizations that are better at listening have more of the stuff on the green side of this chart. They have better morale in their staff. They have greater staff and customer loyalty. They retain their customers and their staff better. They have higher productivity, and their reputation is better, all because they were listening better to their staff, to their customers, in general.

The organizations that were at the bottom of the listening charts had more of the red stuff: criticism, crisis, complaint. I think I know which side you would rather be on.

So, why is it that we don’t listen? What’s in the way of us listening? It seems simple: society and the way the world is working against us in a couple of important ways.

First of all, we’ve invented ways of recording things, such as writing. Did you know that writing was only invented around 4,000 years ago? We’ve been speaking complex language for possibly up to 100,000 years. So writing is a relatively recent skill, but it’s taken over, hasn’t it?

We use our fingers and our eyes so much to communicate now. Because of technology, we’ve invented audio recording and video recording. Now, can I give you a tip? For this week, at MDRT, everything you see for the next three days is going to be recorded and available to you afterward. You do not need to be taking photographs of screens and taking frantic notes. My suggestion to you is to be fully present in every conversation, in every session, and listen. You’ll get so much more out of it.

Another thing that’s in the way of our listening is technology, and, in particular, I would suggest social media. They give rise to what I call “personal broadcasting.” You know what that is? You know: “I’m on a train.” Who cares? Really? It’s this fantasy that there are thousands of people out there waiting to find out my every move. We all have that fond idea, but it’s not true, and broadcasting is outbound. There’s not much listening in those conversations.

Also, there’s a thing called FOMO. Have you come across that? “Fear of missing out.” Somebody might be tagging me or tweeting about me, so I’d better check. This takes us away from being present to the people around us.

There’s a great book about this by another TED speaker, Professor Sherry Turkle from MIT. Sherry used to think technology was going to bring us all together as a global village, but now she believes that technology is actually dividing us in this way, taking us away from the people who are physically around us and creating lots of shallow relationships to replace a few deep ones that we used to have.

Now, it’s not just society and the world that are in the way of our listening. You and I share some habits that, if they get out of hand, also really degrade our ability to listen. I’ll give you two examples.

Here’s the first one. We all like looking good, don’t we? We all like being positively received, but if it gets out of hand, if it becomes the purpose of our communication, it can really affect the power of our listening, the consciousness and the effectiveness. It gives rise to some pretty unfortunate habits: For example, pretending to listen when you’re not really, or competitive speaking. Have you come across that? Do you know anybody who does this? “I’m going on holiday to Canada this year.” “Oh, yeah, I’ve been there seven times.”

Oh, that’s my little bit of joy killed there. You know the people who have to be bigger and better every time you open your mouth. That kind of listening, to look good, is uncomfortable to be around. And the other aspect of this that I would suggest you try to avoid is what I call “speechwriting.” That’s not actually listening. That is, “While all this inconvenient noise is going on in front of me, I am thinking about my next brilliant piece of dialogue.” This tends to give rise to the “anyway” non sequitur, which is degrading and upsetting for the person who was speaking.

So looking good can get in the way of our listening, and if there’s one thing we like more than looking good, it’s being right, isn’t it? We love being right. Now, what’s the easiest way to be right? It’s to make somebody else wrong, to judge them, to find fault. Being right can really interrupt communication and, in fact, interrupt what it often gives rise to.

Are there any interrupters in the audience? Come on, be honest. Let me give you a tip because interrupting upsets people. Take a deep breath every time you’re about speak. That’s all. Don’t count to 3; just take a nice deep breath. It’s good for you as well. And, as you’re breathing in, you might just realize that the person is still speaking. It works.

There’s a quote that says something very profound about being right, and I think it’s right: “You can either be right or be in a relationship.” I think there’s a lot of truth in that. So, let’s set aside “be right,” maybe, for the next few days.

On Wednesday, I’m going to be talking about speaking and listening in balance more. And I’ll be talking about the seven deadly sins of communication. I don’t have time to go through all seven right now, but I’ve picked two that I think would be particularly helpful for you to avoid this week.

Here’s the first one: It’s deadly sin No. 2, which is “condemning,” pretty much what I was talking about, which comes out of being right. You know the kind of people who always find fault? Their child comes home and says, “I got 95 percent on the test,” and their answer is “What happened to the other 5?” That kind of making wrong, finding fault, nothing ever being good enough is not a productive way to relate.

This week you are going to meet so many different people. It’s very easy to have preconceptions and judge people before you even give them a chance to explain who they are and what they’re about. Let’s have an agreement not to judge books by covers this week and to be interested in everybody we meet.

The second deadly sin that I’d like to share with you, which is actually No. 7, is “dogmatism,” or my way or the highway, confusing facts with opinions. They’re not the same. I grew up in a house where they were very confused, and it led to a lot of table thumping.

I’d love to live in a world where we offer opinions by request only. “Would you like my opinion on that? No? Oh, I had such a good opinion all ready to go.” But we don’t do that, do we? We just offer our opinions unbidden, and, often, argument is the result of that. Let’s be open to learn this week and perhaps let go of attachments to opinions. Make them challengeable for the week.

Listening is a great skill. It’s something that, if you can get good at it, will give you a competitive advantage over your competition, whatever you’re doing in business. So, what I’d like to do is go through some tips for listening better. Listening is a skill, even if it’s a dying skill, and the first thing to be aware of is that you’re doing something.

My definition of “listening,” or making meaning from sound is that you select things to pay attention to, and you make them mean something. That has a really powerful corollary, which is very unknown in the world, generally, and that is that your listening is unique. It’s as unique as your fingerprints, your irises, your voiceprint — absolutely unique. You’ve come on a different road to this room here today. It’s a grave mistake to assume that everyone listens like I do; they do not.

In this room there are 10,000 unique listenings, which create one big listening. You always speak into a listening. So, if you want to speak accurately, ask yourself, What’s the listening I’m speaking into? Just ask that question, and you will get good at spotting it. This is how you hit the bull’s-eye instead of missing the target altogether.

Now, there are four C’s of effective, conscious listening, which I’d like to share with you. They’re easy to remember because they are four C’s. First is Consciousness — you need to understand you’re doing something. It’s not hearing; hearing is automatic. You hear everything, but you listen to certain things. It’s a mental process, not a physical one. Next is Committed —listening is work. It takes effort to do it. Then, Compassionate because the best listening is seeking to understand the other person. And, finally, Curious, ferociously curious. Be like that this week, and you will get so much out of the next few days.

I want to share with you two exercises that I think might serve you this week. The first is a practice, really. You listen from a position, probably quite entrenched. I’ll give you some examples so that you can understand what I’m talking about.

Active listening, for example, is used in the therapeutic professions, and it means saying, “What I heard you say is … ” And then repeat exactly what they said. You wouldn’t have many friends if you did that all the time, but if you’re dealing with somebody who’s upset or has a complaint, it is a great way to calm people down and defuse complaints.

Passive listening, by contrast, would be like a Zen master by a stream, simply listening to the sound.

Critical listening is what you’ve been doing to me since I walked onto this stage. And it’s a very good form of listening, generally, although maybe we don’t want to take it home.

And maybe sometimes we want to move into empathic listening, feeling the other person’s feelings, leaving them feeling not just heard but understood as well.

And this week I do suggest that we be doggy, not catty — focused, focused listening. If you’re distracted by the baubles of technology and so forth, it can be very difficult.

The second exercise is RASA, the Sanskrit word for “juice,” which stands for receive, appreciate, summarize, ask. “Receive”: pay attention. “Appreciate”: little noises and nods. “Summarize”: the word “so,” a very useful word. “So I agree this.” “We’ve said that, so.” You’re closing doors in the corridor of a conversation. And “ask” questions.

Can I suggest to you a couple of new rules this week, which I think will help you get an enormous amount out of this? First of all, a magic phrase. You’re going to meet a lot of people this week, and I know the fear of walking into a room where everybody’s talking to everybody, and it seems like they know each other, and you don’t. Can we all agree that if somebody walks up to you when you’re in conversation with somebody and says, “May I join you?,” the answer is “Yes, of course.” Could you go with that? I’d like you all to signal your agreement to that by raising your hands and saying, “Aye.” If you’re up for that, say aye.

Audience: Aye.

Treasure: Fantastic, listen to that. So that means you can all approach anybody here in the next few days and say, “May I join you?” It’ll be cool.

Second, please don’t do this. [visual] I’ve been to many TEDs and standing in line was always the best way to meet people. But not any longer because everybody standing in line is doing this and not talking to each other. [visual] I get that you may have emails to deal with and texts and whatever. If you’re going to do those things, why not take yourself somewhere quiet and do that and then come back. But when you’re with people, be with people. Be with the people around you, not somebody far away through a device.

If we speak consciously and we listen consciously, there’s only one outcome, and that is understanding this week, and in the world, that listening is so important. So, I do urge you to become champions of listening. Take it back to your homes, to your businesses, and explain it and encourage people to do it, and show them how to do it because listening gives rise to three things, and they are quite important things: Your happiness, your effectiveness and your well-being are all dependent on how well you listen. So it just remains for me to wish you, this week and for the rest of your lives, happy listening.

Julian Treasure is a sound and communication expert. He travels the world training people to listen better and create healthier sound. The author of “How to Be Heard” and “Sound Business,” Treasure’s five TED talks have been watched more than 40 million times. He is regularly featured in the world’s media, including Time magazine, the Economist and the BBC. Treasure is also founder of the Sound Agency, which work with some of the world’s biggest brands to improve their sound.