Listening is an art.
Dare I say it is a lost art?
Most people don’t
know how to listen. They respond with:
- Directives
- Opinions
- Tangential concepts
- Personal reflections
- Minimizing statements
- Leading statements
- No response at all
If the listener’s ego becomes involved, responses typically
include:
- Defense
- Excuses
- Counter blame
- Comparison to previous experiences negating the listener’s experience
- Reference to a supportive army of others who would think differently
Without the talker stating his intended focus and/or
the listener requesting this focus, the listener often doesn’t know the intention
of the talker. (Sometimes the talker
doesn’t know his own purpose).
As a result, the listener has no idea where to focus his
ear and/or how to angle his response.
The listener doesn’t even know if an angle of response is being sought
or there is simply a desire for mirrored reflection or imagined
empathy if in similar shoes.
If the talker shares more than a few sentences, the listener
will often jump in with a response based on his perspective of importance to
the conversation with respect to what has been heard.
Example: “The woman at work Charlotte talks all the time about how she thinks her
boyfriend is cheating on her.”
Without focused intention, some responses might
include, “Just tell her to get rid of
him.” “You guys should stop gossiping
and focus on what you’re supposed to do anyway.” “Don’t let her rub off on you.” “She must
have low self esteem.” “Who cares.”
As you can see, there are many possible focuses and angles
of response by the listener. The talker
will inevitably feel frustration toward the listener if the point the talker
was trying to make was that: s/he didn’t
want to listen to these types of her colleague’s statements anymore. Perhaps the talker was looking for imagined
reflection of her own experience to colleague’s story (embarrassment due to
association, frustration with regurgitation, boredom, exploration of her own
ideas regarding the colleague’s insecurities, curiosity about how to influence
the colleague to leave her boyfriend and/or if she should have an opinion at
all. Perhaps the talker was looking for guidance
on how to communicate to the colleague that she didn’t want to be involved in
this type of communication dynamic. Without
focused intention, the talker and listener lose connection and possibly even
create friction if the art of listening is not cultivated.
Not only do the above responses interfere with good
listening and feeling heard resulting in lack of connection, other variables
should be considered for the art of listening as well. While there is a talking and listening
exchange, people should not:
- Have the TV and/or background radio turned on
- Be performing other tasks such as washing the dishes or typing on the internet
- Be looking at facebook or on the phone
- Be in a rush to get somewhere unless time frame for talk has been pre-agreed upon
Remember that face to face communication, possible eye
contact, tone of voice and facial expressions are also important aspects in the art of listening in both the talker and the listener.
When people get to know each other better, and
conversational focus is understood, complex responses to a talker might
include:
- Language weaves of previous similar content examples
- Response questions
- Exceptions to “the rule” (if a negative viewpoint)
- Supportive references in agreement of “the rule”
- Reminders of what has worked and or been done in the past
- Imagined possible outcome scenarios……and much more.
Keep in mind however, that the talker may not want to
digress in his/her internal mental imagery by language tree-branching to
different or related content from what is being shared. Therefore when doing so, it is important to
ask.
Using the above simple example, more complex
responses from the listener might include but are not limited to:
Language weave: “Cindy used to often talk negatively about
her husband too. How did that go? Did it bother you? What was different? Did she stop talking about it? What else did you guys focus on? Does it seem to you like your colleagues
have a tendency to talk about their relationship issues? Can you respond to Charlotte in a similar way
to Cindy? Doesn’t Charlotte talk to Jack
and Henry about the same thing?
Response questions:
What about Charlotte’s talk bothers you? What are you looking for in my
response to your share?
Exceptions to “the rule:” Does she talk about other things? Last week it sounded like you guys were
connecting when you were discussing politics and going dancing yeah?
Agreement to “the rule:” “Yeah.
You’ve been mentioning this now for 6 months. Do you think she’ll do anything about
it?
Imagined possible outcome scenarios: “Do you still
want to be friends with her?” “Do you think she’ll ever stop?” “What about her talking about her boyfriend
cheating bothers you? “
The talker often just wants to feel heard. Feeling heard is typically not experienced
when the response is, “oh. I see.” Or
“Ahh.” As mentioned, sometimes, she wants
perspective opportunities, empathy and or questions asked.
It is not uncommon for a listener to feel like, “I don’t
care about Charlotte and what does this have to do with me? How dumb etc.
Therefore, the listener will not entertain engagement with respect to
the content.
Keep in mind that we do not all share the same interests
of focus, nor are we affected by the same things. If we care about the person with whom we are
sharing communication, it is important to suspend the self for a short period
of time, to listen and to make an effort to engage. If you are a listener, be conscious of the
extent to which you respond with the above variables.
For Skype and/or in person communication sessions, contact Lily Kotila by email or phone:
(619) 750 2218 (United States)
(619) 822 2072 (International)
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