I recently came across a great TedxCreativeCoast talk by Celeste Headlee entitled How to Have a Good Conversation.

She has ten rules that she lays out for making good conversation:

1. Don’t multi task.
2. Don’t pontificate
3. Use open ended questions
4. Go with the flow
5. If you don’t know, say so.
6. Dont equate your experience to theirs
7. Try not to repeat yourself
8. Stay out of the weeds
9. LISTEN
10. Be brief

In her presentation she does a wonderful job describing each rule and how it applies to good conversation. But I do think that the arborist can take much stock in this advice, as it applies to conversations with both the trees we care for and the clients we service.

Let us consider arboriculture as a conversation with trees. In many ways it is. We want to know if the tree is healthy or weak, we want to be simple and open ended in our approach to tree care, where the optimal result is growth (or support), after all. Risk assessments, soil samples, resistograph readings, root collar excavations, trunk injections, aerial inspections, dynamic rigging situations; all of these aspects of arboriculture are in some way a conversation with trees. What do they feel? How do they move? Are they thriving and why? The response comes in a different language: response growth, decay, whole-tree failure, flower and fruit production, wilting, chlorosis, necrosis, pest activity, fungal fruiting bodies, etc. This is the language of trees.

For the climbing arborists, I love rule 1 (don’t multi task) and rule 4 (go with the flow). It is important during any aerial operations that we commit to the here and the now. Focus leads to a safer work environment. Put your cell phone away, forget about your problems outside of work, put the distractions away and commit to the now. As far as rule 4, many times unique trees will show us how they need to be worked, climbed and rigged. Go with the flow. It’s the old adage revisited: Plan the work and work the plan. If things need to be readjusted because of some structural issues you found higher in the crown, or a big piece of brush hangs up on the lowering line, remain as a smooth operator should and flow with it. This will make you a better teammate and a better leader, attacking things as they arise rather than balling up because you had the wrong impression.

In the video Celeste Headlee quotes Stephan Covey as saying “most of us don’t listen with the intent to understand, we listen to reply.”

I feel as though that can potentially be a real danger with arboriculture, losing our ability to truly listen and understand the trees we work in. It is hard to avoid the efficiency of utilizing a script that works, have a response waiting, or a formula, some sort of auto-reply system because automation is the key to productivity (profit?). True in a sense and beneficial for sure in some applications, but the mundane script takes away from truly engaging in a meaningful conversation. A conversation that matters, where people grow. We can learn a lot about trees (and people) by being better listeners.

Of course, we can always be better conversationalists for the clients we serve. My mind wanders back to a wonderful conversation I had with the famous sales arborist Stephan Zimmerman from Limbwalker in Kentucky. He reminded us about how important it is that we listen to our people, and figure out what that pain is we need to ease for our clients. After all, most sales calls typically transpire as a conversation about trees. But there is something deeper too, and if we listen better, I think we can understand better. In this sense I believe Headlees’ ten rules can be highly beneficial for having better conversations in general about trees and people’s relationship to those trees.

It’s pretty ironic too, to think of the tree itself is the ultimate conversationist, the most engaged listener, such a selfless being. Some sunlight and water, and a nice place to be, and a tree could talk for maybe a few hundred years…