How important is listening? In his best-selling book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell shares the results of an amazing study conducted by medical researcher Wendy Levinson which determined the likelihood of a surgeon being sued by a patient.
In the study, roughly half the doctors had never been sued. The other half had been sued at least twice. Levinson discovered the main difference between the two groups: The surgeons who had never been sued spent more than three extra minutes with each patient compared to the surgeons who had been sued.
So what exactly took place during those extra three minutes? The surgeons who had never been sued allowed time for questions and encouraged their patients to talk. They listened and showed that they cared.
