Two Ears, One Mouth

I often look for advice that can cross over between different parts of my life. Often that turns out to be between singing in choirs and working in teams.

In both contexts, there is great emphasis placed on listening. Often we are told to listen more and to speak less. According to this, God gave us two ears but only one mouth for a good reason, so that we can use our ears more and our mouths less.

I can understand where the advice comes from. In both situations, the loudmouth who does not listen causes the most disruption. He (or occasional she) undermines the performance of the team. In the choir case, the overall sound becomes less blended and unified unless everyone else copies the tone and pitch of the dominant performer. In a work team, its diversity is undermined because valuable inputs are inevitably lost.

I accept this logic. But there is an opposite logic of equal value. What about the player who always listens but never speaks? While not disruptive, this player is contributing precisely nothing to the sound or to the team. Perhaps loudmouths get a bad press that they don’t always deserve.

In singing, specifically choral multi-part singing in small groups, the balance between producing sound and listening is complex and instructive. We usually have a conductor, who gives the tempo and other indications such as for volume, but we have to listen too in order to create a blended sound. By precisely matching vowel sounds and rhythm, a group can create a resonant sound far stronger and more pleasant than the sum of the parts of individual singers. Part of that comes from something called overtones, a feature of the wave physics of sound, in which the listeners hears not just the pitch but also suggestions of higher pitches at the same time. Individuals can make overtones – it is fun to try – but groups can do it far more powerfully.

But there is a fundamental problem with listening while singing, which is that you have to actually produce the sound before you hear the sound of others. If you listen and follow, you are by definition late, and being late eliminates precise rhythm and quality sound. Many singers actually do use this technique in choirs – they sit next to somebody strong and essentially copy their sound, slightly behind.

So, in a small group where there is no room for followers, everyone needs the courage to lead with their mouth and wait until what their ears tell them afterwards. The ears are helping in the background as you sing through a piece, helping the vowels and the blend, but there is no substitute for singing out, following the conductor and trusting your own sound.

There is another wrinkle to this, a trick the body plays on us. The only sound we don’t hear reliably is the one we make ourselves. If you doubt this, consider the last time you heard a recording of your own voice, perhaps playing an answerphone message. We don’t actually sound like we think we sound. So even if we listen carefully, we can only truly blend by using technique and experience, not simply by matching our own sound to that of others. The implication as singers is about a different kind of listening – not of sounds in the moment, but of feedback, from conductors, recordings and fellow singers.

I think all this technical stuff about choir singing has some relevance when working in small teams, especially in a meeting or workshop context. There, we have one mouth and two ears as well, and some of us are sometimes advised to use the mouth less and the ears more.

If this is you, take some comfort. Imagine the opposite, someone who always listened, but never spoke (or wrote, or decided, or acted). Organisations are full of such people, folk who do as they are told, stay out of the limelight, and parrot their leaders. Just like the singer who follows, these people are holding back the group, taking up valuable space, and preventing the magic of overtones, or whatever the equivalent would be in the work context. If you are being told to use your ears, take comfort that you don’t need to be told to use your mouth.

There is a company advertising on the NYC subway just now called the doers. I am not really sure what they do, but I like their attitude and their advertisements make me smile. An example is: “just think it, said no one ever”. Without doers, nothing gets done. If no one has the courage to take the lead in a workshop, no progress will be made.

But then, after taking comfort, heed the advice. The good singer knows that quality sound requires more than following the conductor and producing a note. Listening is required too, so that the vowels and volume and style of the others around us are understood and incorporated into our own effort. We can build on the sounds of others to synthesize a better result.

And, just like in singing, the one voice we hear in a distorted way is our own. So when someone tells us to use our ears they are giving us valuable feedback. Giving feedback is not easy and requires its own courage, so we have to respect it when we receive it, and treat it as a rare jewel. So do as they say, shut up for a while and listen. Ask others what they think, take in the atmosphere and the ideas of others, take stock. But then don’t just become a follower, but instead be a better leader.

All this applied in wider fields, such as in representative office. Am I making an argument for a twittering president? In a way yes, because twittering takes courage and gives clarity. It is better to have a communicating leader than an absent one. Of course, it is one thing to endorse a twittering president, and another entirely to endorse the one we have, or the content of his tweets.

He gets away with his behaviour for a couple of reasons. One is that indeed he does listen – to his base, and to his instinct for a popular position and the potential for re-election. The other is that the rest of his choir is made up of people using only their ears and not their mouths. The Republicans, with pitifully few honourable exceptions, have been reduced to a shameful silent rabble in the face of the demeaning of their country.

So look around you next time you are in a meeting, or even in a choir or other collaborative group for that matter. Who is using their ears, and who is using their mouth? Which group to you belong to? What would be better for the group, more ears or more mouth? After all, God did give us a mouth too, and not just to consume food and drink.