PE 16: You Won’t Listen Fully to this Podcast

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I know you’re not going to listen as well as you should to this podcast.

That’s because none of us listens as well as we could and should. I put listening in the category of exercise and healthy diet. Everyone knows how important it is, everyone knows generally how to do it properly, everyone knows they can do better, but how many work at it systematically? Do you?

I always start my classes with a listening test, which I also do in this episode. It’s very simple, but only 10-20% of people get it right the first time.

Now think about this: you knew you were going to be tested, you understood everything I said, you listened carefully, and still you probably got it wrong. And you’re probably a better than average listener, simply because you take the time to listen to podcasts all the way through!

You’ve probably heard most of this before, so why should you be listening to this podcast? Listening is one of the most important things you do in your work, and if it’s that hard even when you’re trying, imagine how much communication effectiveness you leave on the table.

So what? What does it cost your company, or society in general? What does it cost you?

Poor listening causes errors, frustration, miscommunication and many other forms of communication waste. On the plus side, there are benefits to improving your listening skills:

• The most obvious is that you will learn more. Besides taking in a higher percentage of what people tell you, you will also get them to open up more.
• You will become more popular and better liked, because people love to be heard.
• Want to be charismatic? Listen more. The whole idea of presence is that you are fully present.

So, what can we do to make ourselves better listeners? The first thing we need is a better understanding of why we’re so bad at it, first in general and then in particular circumstances.

What are the causes of poor listening?

Let’s look at some of the reasons that keep you from being a better listener.

You’ve lost the habit of full attention. As far as general listening skills, it’s not all your fault. There is so much that is clamoring for your attention that it’s hard to devote our full attention on something for very long—we might miss something important! Linda Stone calls it continuous partial attention. Our minds are a bit like that guy you talk to at a party who is constantly looking around to see if there’s someone more important or interesting that he can talk to, especially on your phone.

You think too fast—but not as fast as you think. The second problem is that you can process thoughts and ideas in your mind much faster than a person can talk. The average American English speaker produces 125 words a minute while the listener processes words at about 500 wpm, or four times as fast. That’s why you’re confident that you can multitask by half-listening to what the other person is saying and still carry on another conversation in your own head, such as what you’re going to do for lunch. The problem is that while you’re listening to yourself you can easily miss an unexpected turn in the conversation.

You think too much of yourself. You already know more about the topic than the other person, so what could you possibly learn from them? You may not particularly feel much like listening to the other person. You already know more than they do, you can’t learn from them, or maybe you don’t like them much.

You’re trying too hard. That’s right, sometimes it’s an excess rather than a lack of effort. You may not care about what’s important to them, but you know you need to listen to get what you’re after, so you listen selectively or simply to rebut what they’re saying rather than to understand. You’re listening so hard for what you think you need, that you may miss other nuggets, as our first exercise proved.

How to Improve Your Listening Effectiveness

Listening Attitude

One of the surest ways to improve your listening is to adjust your attitude. That’s because you already know how to employ the skills of listening, and you can usually listen very effectively when we have the right motivation.

Humility. Humility includes knowing that you can always learn something from every single person you talk to. It also means admitting when you don’t know something and being willing to ask “stupid” questions.

Acceptance. You don’t have to agree with what the other person is saying, but you have to accept their right to their point of view. When someone disagrees with us, our knee-jerk response is to reject it. What if we responded with curiosity instead, and tried to figure out why they think differently from us? We might learn something, and we would certainly foster a much more cooperative atmosphere.

Responsibility. Take responsibility for both sides of the conversation—at least 51%. What this means, is that you shouldn’t assume that you received the message or the meaning that they intended. You can ask them to clarify, or confirm what you think they meant.

Pump Some AIR into your listening

AIR stand for attention, interpretation, and response:

Attention is both physical and mental. Physically paying attention is one of the easiest things you can do to make an immediate improvement. You already know how to do it; simply face the other person squarely, look at them, and nod occasionally (at the right times, of course!). Also, get rid of distractions; if you have a screen anywhere within your field of view, you’re in trouble.  Act interested and you are more likely to be interested.

The mental part of paying attention is the real challenge, especially when you don’t see value in what the other is saying. The best hack I’ve found to do this is to assume you are going to have to report the conversation to someone else; it almost magically tunes your internal dialogue to what the other person is saying, so your thinking is helping rather than distracting.

Interpretation is where the 51+% rule comes in. You need to take responsibility for understanding the other person’s intended meaning. Try to figure out the main point or intent of their conversation, and listen for the structure of their logic.

Response is critical because you can be the best listener in the world and it won’t make a bit of difference to the other person if you don’t show them you’re listening. The lowest level of responsiveness is what’s called following skills, such as nodding your head and saying uh huh once in a while. The next level above that is reflecting skills, where you give back what you’re hearing, whether repeating or paraphrasing. But the highest level is giving them the respect of showing how what they said has affected your thinking.