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Saturday, August 23, 2008

Communicating-Part Five -Listening




We are born with two ears but only one mouth. Coincidence?

Just how important are listening skills to effective communicating? There are some who maintain that effective listening requires the larger share of listening and talking. All too often we open our mouths to speak to our companion in spite of the fact that we really did not hear what was just said to us. We are so busy in formulating our own thoughts that the other person’s speech is drowned out. In such cases we are talking at one another instead of with each other.

The main problem is that men and women speak in separate dialects, as someone put it. In fact, I have heard the word genderlect to describe how wide the divide between the genders really is. That being the case the ability to actively listen is critical to understanding what the other person is saying. Think of the popular image of having a session with a psychologist where you lie on a couch while the professional sits behind you. As you talk he, or she repeats what you say and asks you how you feel, rather than imposing their own opinion.

I know people who are really good at the active listening thing. Usually they are very calm and they get you to do most of the talking. To be honest I find them to be a little bit irritating, but the fact is that often I realise that they are helpful.

Those people who are the most helpful seem to have the following attributes in common:

They actually look at me when I am speaking, and they make eye contact with me. This is a little disconcerting because it makes me realise that here is a person who is interested enough to hear my every word, so therefore I should not be wasting his time with nonsense.
They will actually allow me to complete my thought process. Sometimes I have trouble in completing my sentence and they help me find the words. This is the complete opposite of those annoying television or radio hosts who seem to invite guests on their programmes just so that the host gets to inflict his own opinions, often cutting off in mid-sentence the words of the guest. I just hate that when it happens, and it is a sure way to get me to switch off. I want to yell at the tv “you idiot, let your guest finish. I didn’t tune in for your opinion.”
The other thing that I like is their choice of words as I am speaking. It’s not something that I have thought much about until now, but techniques like repeating a sentence or a thought to be sure I have been understood is reassuring, as is to say things like “Really! Tell me more.”
There is nothing more deflating than to be talking to a person who is receiving you like a stone wall. That’s called talking to yourself. However, if the person to whom you are speaking has the time and the interest to care and displays this in his body language, such as through your facial reactions, you will be encouraged, and I believe, the responsibility grows to keep your presentation and your thoughts brief and interesting. When I am trying to be a good listener I find that when the speaker has finished his thread I often have a feeling of being tired.
Finally, we are bombarded daily with information overload, and to cope we need to learn to block out the unnecessary. Unfortunately, a lot of information that we should let through also gets blocked as the screening process is difficult. Just as with our computers we receive a lot of spam, so do our ears and eyes. Driving is made all that more difficult because people think they can sell us things by using billboards, as though we don’t have enough to read with all the traffic signs.

Being a good listener is definitely an acquired skill, one which is very much appreciated. The other half of being a good listener, of course, is what do you do with all that information you have just taken on board. This is where most people come off the railings.

Next week I will look at how you might best be helpful in your feedback.


Copyright © 2008 Eugene Carmichael

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