The Three Levels of Listening
Internal, focused, global — know which level you're on and deliberately move up.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
A coaching model that splits listening into three distinct levels: Level 1 is internal listening (your attention is on your own thoughts), Level 2 is focused listening (attention anchored fully on the other person), and Level 3 is global or environmental listening (taking in the room, the vibe, and the speaker's body signals). The practical skill is noticing which level you're on and consciously redirecting your attention outward.
Origin
This is the Co-Active coaching model from the Co-Active Training Institute (coactive.com), which Helfand explicitly credits along with Henry Kimsey-House. Helfand trained as a Co-Active coach and uses it; she is not the originator. John Cutler nominated her as one of the best listeners he has ever worked with, which prompted the question.
Core principles
- 01Listening is a muscle to build and always work on — not a fixed trait.
- 02Attention has a direction; you can feel whether yours is pointed inward or outward.
- 03Body signals and the environment are information, not noise.
- 04Naming what you notice — a wince, a hand on the neck, a flushed face — is itself a listening act.
How to run it
- 1
Notice Level 1 — internal listening
Catch yourself listening to your own internal monologue: what you'll say next, what you'll have for lunch. This is Level 1, and it is where most poor listening lives.
Watch out Level 1 is not a moral failing — Helfand admits she is sometimes not a good listener either. The skill is catching it, not never doing it.
- 2
Redirect to Level 2 — focused listening
Consciously push your attention outward and anchor it on the other person. If you notice you're looking down, reconnect and look at them. This is a trainable coaching skill, not charisma.
- 3
Open into Level 3 — global/environmental listening
Take in the vibe and feel of the room and the wider field. If a marching band walks in behind the person, you name it rather than ignoring it. Level 3 includes reading the environment as data.
- 4
Read and name body signals
Watch for the sudden hand to the neck, the face turning red, the look away. Treat these as a kind of listening — then ask about what you noticed, rather than letting it pass.
Pro tip Asking about the signal ('I noticed you touched your neck when you said that') is often what unlocks the real conversation.
In the wild
Trained as a Co-Active coach, Helfand deliberately redirects attention from her own inner monologue out to the speaker, reads body language mid-conversation, and surfaces what she notices — for instance, if someone touches their neck or their face flushes while discussing one specific topic.
→ John Cutler named her one of the best listeners he's ever worked with — and she credits the trained skill, not natural talent.
Common mistakes
Treating good listening as an innate personality trait
Helfand's answer is that she was trained. Framing listening as a trait means you never build it; framing it as a muscle means you can deliberately practise the redirect from Level 1 to Level 2.
Ignoring the environment and the body
Pretending you didn't see the wince, the flush, or the marching band means discarding real information the other person is transmitting. Level 3 says name it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Managers, coaches, product people and interviewers who want to systematically improve how much signal they get from one-to-one conversations.
Not ideal for
Asynchronous or written-only communication, where there are no body signals or environment to read.
From the transcript
“listening is a muscle to build and to always work on you got to put your attention out focus on the other person”
“level three is like Global listening Environmental Listening”
“co-active training institute coactive domcom is my coactive coaching training so I learned it from them Henry kimsey house”
From the episode
The art and wisdom of changing teams
Heidi Helfand (author of Dynamic Reteaming)