Learning to Communicate During a Quiet Pizza Night
Recently, I visited a local pizza place, Mozzeria, and the dining experience totally fits my old-person needs.
Mozzeria is owned and operated by staff who are deaf or hard of hearing and thus attracts diners who are the same. Because most of the other patrons were speaking with sign language, the restaurant was delightfully quiet. The quiet atmosphere even encouraged my kids to speak quietly—something I’d never seen before.
Because I don’t speak ASL, that curtailed the sometimes unavoidable mid-meal chit-chat with the server. She asked if everything was good with a simple thumbs up, and I responded with the same gesture. Efficient.
While I’d driven past Mozzeria many times, I had never been in until I saw it recently on the Netflix show Somebody Feed Phil. On the show, chef Christin White said that the food industry is challenging for a deaf person because, for example, she would need to teach people how to communicate with her, including that they needed to face her while speaking.
An example of that dynamic came up while we were at the restaurant. A server approached the host, but instead of interrupting, she waited several moments until the host was ready and physically turned toward her. After seeing this, I thought, “You have to verify that someone is prepared to receive your communication before talking. How great is that!”
It immediately brought to mind so many instances where communication goes wrong. For instance, one person misses the first few seconds—or minutes—of communication because the other person simply starts talking rather than confirming that their audience is listening. Or, one person acknowledges the other but is mentally stuck on whatever they were doing before being interrupted.
It was also a reminder of one of my favorite frameworks for interacting with others. In the book Language and the Pursuit of Leadership Excellence, authors Chalmers Brothers and Vinay Kumar argue that an effective request requires a committed listener. The authors write, “A committed listener is one who is present and aware, and is not actively engaged in something else. It’s your job as a committed speaker — if you’re making a non-trivial request — to get such a person in front of you.”
It’s not good enough that people hear your words; they need to be mentally, emotionally, and, in the case of sign language, physically ready to accept them.
At a very basic level, it’s asking a version of “Are you ready to listen?” before starting a conversation. That seems trite until you realize how many personal and professional conflicts arise from one party half-listening, making a half-considered commitment, or giving only enough focus to remember half of the information.
Of course, when you ask whether someone is ready to listen, you have to be ready to hear No in response. In our household, I find the most unproductive, conflict-filled conversations we have usually arise when one person declares they aren’t ready to listen and the other forges ahead.
In that light, hearing a No is fine. As Brothers and Kumar write, “The right conversation in the wrong mood is the wrong conversation.”