"Listen to customers" but you still don’t get it

I find this advice obsolete in today's environment

Listening is an exercise

(Whatever your role may be)

Listening gathers only surface-level insights.
Then shapes your solution accordingly.

Your struggle begins with: endless meetings, constant email exchanges, discussing surprises, and mounting stress from poor outcomes

For me, I go beyond listening—I sniff around, searching for breadcrumbs across the board to truly understand what’s going on:

1. Engage with audience to understand their environment.
2. Combine data to analyze trends and context.
3. Visualize user thoughts, workflow, actions by diagrams.
4. Reflect on my map & ask to uncover blind spots.
5. Identify patterns to uncover challenges / opportunities.

I tell people who I work with that the best way to listen is to build your understanding:
 
- Empathize
- Make sense of data
- Observe and reflect
- Analyze and synthesize

Practice understanding to get a 360° view, revealing hidden causes, risks, and priorities to inform your solutions.

The better you understand the problem, the greater you deliver the right solution.

Do you have a process for truly listening to people in business?

Thanks for reading.

Ahmed

P.S. I'm building a business strategy tool that uses real-time trends to help companies like yours discover new opportunities and stay ahead—based on your industry, size, and region.

It also provides a clear roadmap, required resources, and actionable steps.
Interested? Just reply or reach out.