I have recently finished reading Listening Well by William R. Miller. It's a short book that takes the reader through listening techniques. It's useful to the podcaster because so much of conducting an interview is listening, and so making a genuine connection.
When you're conducting an interview your mind is on a number of things - the goal of the interview, the questions you've written, the flow and the timing - but absolutely none of this is as important as listening.
Listening means asking follow-up questions, and deciding whether what you thought you wanted to know is as interesting as what you're finding out. According to William Miller, one good way to show that you're listening is providing a short summary of one of the points that your interview subject has made, and then having a guess at their emotional state.
"It must have been frustrating to have been taken off that project".
It's fine if you guess the emotional state wrong, the guest will correct you.
"I felt a sense of relief because the relationships within that organisation were more important to me than leading the project to fruition".
If you're canny you can pick up on a point that leads the conversation in the direction that you were wanting to go, without asking a question in the formal sense.
My other source of inspiration for listening techniques has been my mindfulness practice. It feels counterintuitive, but if you find your mind wandering during your guest's response then a quick grounding practice can bring you back to the moment.
Listening well is what turns an interview into a conversation and a genuine human connection.
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