Photo of “The Woz” used under a Flickr Creative Commons license. I’m sure the gentleman holding the mic is an excellent interviewer.

My mind goes to a butchered interview with Deepak Chopra, a flubbed talk with Mark Messier and a missed opportunity with Michael Stipe. I’m sure you have your own examples.

There’s one constant with all these conversational catastrophes: The interviewer isn’t listening. He or she is just reading from a list of questions and checking off items — regardless of how the respondent answers.

Whether it’s a television interview or a copywriting client, the discussion should have a natural evolution. You have to be willing to really listen and go where the interview is taking you. That’s how you find the “good stuff.”

I briefly mentioned this in my newsletter post, but what does it mean to “really listen” and allow an interview to evolve organically?

Photo used with permission from stock.xchng

I come from a decade-long career as a professional newspaper, magazine and dot-com journalist. I’ve also taken workshops and training courses on advanced interview techniques. In essence, the methodology is pretty simple: Be totally present with the “explorer” (interview subject). Track with their expressed thoughts, behaviors and visible emotions (rather than being inside your own head or referencing your own ego). Never interrupt and never offer “your take.” Just ask the best possible question from where they leave off based on an “order of operations,” of sorts, for what’s most important to question.

It’s really just the Socratic Method on steroids, but it profoundly influences the quality of the answers I receive (both as a copywriter and in everyday conversations).

Let’s connect this back to the copywriting work I do every day:

A few months back I interviewed an entire staff for in-depth company profiles. Many of these employees had similar job descriptions, so I really had to dig deeper to uncover what made each of them exceptional.

That’s where listening and asking great questions becomes so essential.

I simply entered those interviews from a place of nonjudgment, caring, acceptance and trusting each employee to be his or her “own best expert.” That is to say, I was totally “nondirective” in my approach. When you come without assumptions or an agenda, you’re then in a position to be truly excited and curious about what the person might say and ask the very best possible next question based upon where the interview subject leaves off.

At the personal growth and training center where I took my classes, they call it “being in the attitude.”

Near the conclusion of one of the company profile interviews, I asked, for a bit of extra color, what the employee liked to do away from work. She said she liked to knit.

I could have dismissed that as a “boring” answer and moved on. But I didn’t have a predetermined path. If she wanted to talk about knitting, then why not see where it might go? So, I simply asked, “What do you like to knit?”

She responded by saying that when she encounters people out in the world who are going through difficult times or illness, she knits them a shawl and prays for them as she’s knitting. She then brings it to the person hoping it will be a source of cheer and warmth.

That poignant answer allowed me to really convey the depth of this employee who was so much more than a company title — someone who in her free time enjoyed literally wrapping needy recipients in heartfelt prayers for well-being.

The same principles apply whether I’m listening during the process of ghostwriting, developing Web copy or business blog copywriting. It’s that ability to “go deeper” during interviews that ultimately makes clients shine.

I didn’t get to hear what Deepak would have said about the nature of reality … or how “The Captain” willed his way to so many Cups … or what Stipe was thinking when he wrote that song. But at least I know I that when interviewing my clients or talking to those I love, I won’t miss “the good stuff.”