I admittedly am always leary of the motivational speaker at industry conferences. During the opening session of the Pioneer Equipment Dealers Assn.’s Convention this week in Fargo, N.D., Eric Maddox took the stage for a presentation entitled, “Mission Black List: The Capturing of Saddam Hussein.”

I had no doubt it would be an interesting story that would have the audience’s rapt attention. But what would the “take-home” value be?

My skepticism quickly disappeared. Maddox kept everyone’s attention, but he also broke down how interrogating prisoners in Iraq is similar to selling ag equipment … or talking to your spouse or uncle at Thanksgiving, for that matter.

At the heart of it, interrogations are conversations. He referred to the act of interrogating as picking up the bread crumbs or finding the clues. When push comes to shove, the people he was interrogating just wanted someone to listen to them … truly listen.

Isn’t that what we all want? But data shows most of us only listen to about 25% of what we hear, says Maddox.

Whether you are interrogating a prisoner or engaging with a potential customer, the other party’s response is the same. Maddox says the person is weighing whether the questioner is making this about his/her goals and the ensuing value proposition, or are they there trying to help me?

He uses the analogy that we are all the stars of our own movies and everyone else is just supporting characters. But … and it’s a big but … everyone else is also simultaneously the star of their own movie, and you are just a supporting character. No one wants to be on anyone else’s stage.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re all selfish in this way. You need to work to not make a conversation about yourself. And as Maddox pointed out, we all know people who always manage to turn your story into something about them. Think about that certain someone asking you about your weekend. And then within seconds, you’re instead hearing all about their weekend, including every last detail about raking the leaves and mowing the lawn one last time for the season, but of course the mower was out of gas, so they had to make a trip to the gas station first.

Maddox says there are 6 listening distraction categories. No. 1 is the least harmful and No. 6 is the most. These are the different ways we are distracted from listening during a conversation. By being aware of the types of distractions we’re prone to, we can put ourselves in the best position to listen by limiting as many of them as possible.

1. Immediate non-biased distractions. These are things in your immediate area that can be distracting, noise from the hallway, the temperature of the room, etc.
2. Personal non-biased distractions. These are things happening in your personal life, maybe a sick family member or a child who is struggling in school.
3. Lack of topic familiarity. You don’t have a firm understanding of what is being talked about. Maybe the person is using jargon you don’t know and acronyms you’re not familiar with.
4. Biases to the person. You have a preconceived notion about the person — they’ve got opinions, you know them and you know you don’t want to listen to their story.
5. Thinking about your own objectives, goals and agenda.
6. Thinking about what you’re going to say next in the conversation. Progressing a step ahead means you’re missing what the person is saying and not picking up on the bread crumbs they are leaving that help you build trust.

It’s not easy to work through all 6 of the distractions, but if you focus on the other person, by the time you get to the two critical ones — numbers 5 and 6 — you may have already built trust with the other person, learn more and solve the problem. When you are truly listening, you are not just hearing someone’s stories, but you are gaining insights into who they are and what they need. Through Maddox’s work, he was able to uncover that a number of insurgents got dragged into things by someone else. They didn’t want to be there. The one man who ultimately led Delta Force to the one person who knew where Saddam Hussein was, just wanted to go fishing with his dad again.

In some cases that might be finding Saddam Hussein (fishing was the clue they needed). In more relatable cases, it might be finding out that a customer can’t buy right now, but in 9 months they will be ready for the purchase.