10 Listening
I remind myself every morning:
Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.
So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
Larry King
Hearing is listening to what is said. Listening is hearing what isn’t said.
Simon Sinek
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Jimi Hendrix
What does it mean to be truly listening? We hear the words but do we understand what the other person is trying to say? Maybe we don’t even hear the words and are present in body only.
Listening is a skill. While most of us have the ability to hear, there are many different types of listeners and ways to listen. To be effective as a professional, to become a true leader, to be the person others are drawn to, to be able to make decisions based on information, we have to recognize the different types of listening and strive to become better listeners.
Ueland (1998) writes
We should all know this: that listening, not talking, is the gifted and great role, and the imaginative role. And the true listener is much more believed, magnetic than the talker, and he is more effective and learns more and does more good. And so try listening. Listen to your wife, your husband, your father, your mother, your children, your friends, to those who love you and those who don’t, to those who bore you, to your enemies. It will work a small miracle. And perhaps a great one.
Listening is not just for the benefit of the recipient or the sender of a message, it is important for the story itself.
Christian and Griffiths (2017) describe a study at the University of Victoria that investigated what happened when the listener to a personal story got distracted. The question was not whether the listener’s comprehension of the story was impacted by the distraction, but what would happen to the story itself. With poor feedback, they discovered, the story falls apart. Narrators who talked to distracted listeners told their stories more poorly, in particular near the dramatic conclusion. The story endings were choppy, abrupt, or circular, retelling the ending more than once.
Christian and Griffiths (2017) conclude
In fact, it’s now clear that the cause and effect are often the reverse: a poor listener destroys the tale.
This phenomenon is due to backchanneling, the person speaking is receiving queues and short messages from the listener without losing ones turn to speak. A nod, “uh-uh”, eye contact, are such backchannel communications. A distracted listener also backchannels by looking at their phone, having side conversations, eyes drifting away, etc. If your talk falls flat, you can now blame the audience’s backchanneling.
10.1 Types of Listening
Discriminative Listening
We are born with this listening skill. It allows us to determine intent of what is said without understanding the words. Listening to a conversation in a foreign language exercises our discriminative listening skills. Tone, volume, inflection of voice, along with nonverbal cues such as body language and facial expression help us make sense of what we hear.
Developing discriminative listening skills helps you read the room and read between the lines.
Suppose I ask a student after lecture whether it was a good one. One student shifts nervously in their chair, looks at the floor, says “Yes” in a soft voice, and then eyes the door. What they are really saying is “Um, not so much. I am trying to get out of here.” Another student makes eye contact, eyebrows raised, smiles, and says with a firm voice “Absolutely.”
Informational Listening
You engage in this form of listening in the process of learning. The conversation is not so much a two-way exchange, but a teacher delivering information that you want to learn. You are highly engaged to understand the concepts and need to apply critical thinking. Having empathy for the speaker is not as important; you are interested in getting the content, not the emotional context behind the content.
Passive Listening
If you are a passive listener, you hear the words and maybe recognize the main points, but little gets through to you. You are present in the conversation in body only, nodding along, giving the appearance of being engaged.
Passive listening is disrespectful and counterproductive. It is also incredibly common. The passive listener cannot wait for the conversation to be over and make their escape.
Selective (Biased) Listening
A selective listener pays attention only to what they want to hear, filtering out everything else. Their attitudes have been settled and they are not open to views that are unaligned with their own. A biased listener is not in tune with what the speaker wishes to communicate. If the other person claims that you are not getting their point, you might be a selective listener.
During a semi-annual performance review, I was meeting 1:1 with each employee to discuss the last six months, review their self assessment, the 360-degree assessment from their peers, and my assessment as supervisor. Then we would discuss areas of focus for the near future.
When reviewing an employees’ accomplishments there were 20+ things they excelled at. They hit it out of the park. There was one area where they could improve.
The one/only thing the employee took away from the conversation was that they needed to improve. They entered the performance conversation anxious and stressed, filtering out any of the positive comments, looking only for negative information.
In this case the selective listener paid attention only to what they did not want to hear, the comments perceived as negative.
Attentive Listening
The attentive listener pays attention to every word. They are able to repeat back to you everything that was said. But they might not have truly understood it, focusing too much on the literal words to miss the underlying meaning, emotions, and message.
Active Listening
An active listener is a participant in the conversation. They pay attention to what is being said and engage with the message. An active listener responds when it is their time to speak, asks questions, and offers insight. Whether they agree or disagree with the speaker, they are receptive to their words.
Active listening creates a positive, productive environment for relationships to grow in. Being present, offering affirmation in body language and our words, mirroring or paraphrasing, and showing curiosity through thoughtful questions is empowering and validating to the listener.
We learn a lot more by active listening than listening for one’s turn to speak.
“Waiting to Speak” Listening
The opposite of active listening is listening for one’s turn to speak. The listener already knows what they are going to say, they are just looking for an opportunity to inject it into the conversation. This listener is focused on their own point and not on the speaker’s perspective.
The toxic form of waiting to speak is to interrupt the speaker to make one’s point. With or without interruption, waiting to speak makes the speaker feel unheard, it is disrespectful. Practicing it with interruption ramps up the rudeness score.
Waiting-to-speak listening is very common. Studies have shown that it takes the human brain about 0.6 seconds to formulate a response to information. Analyzing many conversations it was found that the average gap between people talking was 0.2 seconds. This is only possible if the response is ready before the other person is done talking.
Empathetic Listening
The empathetic listener is an active listener; they are paying attention to the emotions behind the words. What is the speaker truly trying to tell me? By bringing empathy to the conversation, the listener recognizes that the speaker has a unique viewpoint and unique experiences that are justified and that inform the meaning of the message.
Critical Listening
Critical listening takes place when you need to analyze complex information and analyze possible solutions to problems. During critical thinking you evaluate what is being said and compare the information to the big picture and everything you know.
Tips to Improve Active Listening Skills
Eye contact
Face the speaker and make eye contact, but without staring. Too much eye contact can be intimidating and aggressive. Try breaking eye contact every few seconds, looking to the right or left of the speaker. Looking down can seem like you want to end the conversation.
Posture
Make sure your posture is open, not defensive (crossed arms or legs) or aggressive, see Section 8.2. Leaning forward shows you are attentive, leaning into the conversation.
Nonverbal cues
Look for (“listen to”) nonverbal signals from the speaker, body language, gestures, tone of voice.
Do not interrupt
Interrupting someone signals that you cannot wait for them to finish what they are trying to say, that their contribution is not important, and what you have to say is more important. Let the other person finish.
Pauses are very effective; you do not have to jump right in after someone finishes, it gives you time to process, and often the speaker will continue. You might be surprised what will be said next—the best part is yet to come.
Do not try to solve a problem
Listening is often about just listening. The conversation is not necessarily about you finding a solution for something or someone. The process of articulating what is on our mind often helps us to find a solution ourselves.
I worked closely for many years with a brilliant, albeit quirky, software engineer. We developed a lot of code together. At night or over the weekend I would have an idea and the next day would walk into his office to present it. He would actively listen and in the process of saying things out loud I would realize that what I thought was a brilliant idea was completely nonsense and unworkable.
If it had not been for the opportunity to bounce off ideas, I would have stormed into implementing dead end solutions for hours or days.
If you believe you have a solution, ask first if they want to hear it.
Keep focus
If you are struggling to stay focused on the conversation, try to repeat or paraphrase what you heard. You can first do that in your own head. You can also check in explicitly with the speaker and paraphrase what you just heard. It gives them an opportunity to let you know whether the conversation is on target and it lets them know that they are being heard.
A good way of paraphrasing is to start a sentence with “What I am hearing is…” or “It sounds like you are saying …” or “Tell me if I have this right, ….”.
Do not look at your watch. If the conversation has to stay within a time limit, set a timer that allows you to wrap up the conversation. Let the speaker know that you are using a timer because you cannot afford to go over and you also want to make sure that you have a chance to fully listen and respond if necessary.
Do not judge
Actively focus on listening what is being said. Do not react emotionally or try to anticipate what will be said next. Reserve judgment and do not jump to conclusions.
Remove distractions
You can make it a point to remove distractions, such as visibly silencing and putting away your phone at the beginning of the conversation or shutting off a computer screen.
Nothing says “I do not have time for this” and “This is not important” than constantly glancing at a phone or screen.
An executive I worked with had a habit of placing his phone in plain sight during video calls. Rather than muting the phone he jumped at the opportunity to let the phone interrupt the meeting, take a call or respond to a text message with camera on and audio muted.
It was the perfect instrument to tell everyone in the video meeting that they do not matter and that pretty much everything else is more important.
Remove barriers
Active listening is more difficult if you are separated by a massive desk or conference table. Office desks tend to be imposing barriers, exaggerated by monitors, phones, trophies, family pictures, piles of paperwork, and whatever else adorns them. The person in front of the desk and behind the desk do not come to the conversation as equals—just compare their chairs.
If you have the opportunity, move the conversation to a smaller table where speaker and listener sit as equals.