The Forgotten Art of Listening

Listening is something I'm really passionate about. Throughout my working career I've constantly found myself re-discovering the importance of listening. I've also noticed how very few people do it well.

A Rare Skill

As the Ethics Manager at Fonterra, I was basically paid to listen. I always knew it was important, but that's not to say it came easily to me. What I found out was that being listened to meant a lot to people. As time went by, I found that my colleagues were coming to me to talk about things which were not to do with ethics and ethical behaviour. They really wanted to talk about issues ranging from their careers to handling difficult situations at work. I realised how often in the workplace we are not listened to.

Self-Discovered Solutions

Instead, whenever we need to talk something through, our colleagues or managers feel inclined to solve the problem for us rather than listening and guiding us to solve our problem for ourselves. I've been guilty of the same thing. An area I worked hard on was figuring out what were the best questions to ask. I had to learn to give people space.

Improve Relationships

Not only is it good to be able to listen well - listening can also be great for one's career. Check out the takeaway box below: 'Benefits of being a good listener'.

Indepth Article

Click through to find out more about how to listen and do it well. This article is based on one I wrote with Ron Pol and Clinical Psychologist Pauline Griffiths which was published in 'Law Talk' in 2005;

The article is written for the professional work context but it can easily be applied to other situations.

Tell us your views

Do you have any suggestions about how to improve listening skills? Good books on listening we should read? When I was researching the topic I was surprised to find there weren't many good ones on the topic. Any reflections about the journeys in listening you have taken? We would love to hear all about them. E-mail us at: feedback@professionelle.co.nz

Hearing versus listening

Problems in communication are the most frequently cited specific complaint by couples seeking therapy, with up to 90% of distressed couples citing these difficulties as a major issue in the relationship (source: Brief Therapy for Couples, W Kim Halford (Guilford Press, 2001)). Key to successful relationships, both at home and in the workplace, is the art of listening, sometimes confused with 'hearing' what people say.

'Hearing' describes the physiological sensory processes by which auditory sensations are received by the ears and transmitted to the brain. 'Listening', on the other hand, refers to a more complex psychological procedure involving interpreting and understanding the significance of the sensory experience.

Hearing is the beginning of the listening process. It is non-selective and involuntary; whereas choosing to listen is a purposeful activity.

This means that you can hear what another person is saying, and even repeat it word for word without really listening to them. Listening is the ability to interpret the meaning the other person is trying to convey, sometimes regardless of (and occasionally even contrary to) the words used. Listening involves more than just interpreting the meaning of words; it involves interpreting the tone, the body language and, often, interpreting what is not being said.

What makes a good workplace listener?

My definition of a good workplace listener is someone with whom you can have a rigorous exchange of ideas. A good workplace listener is aware of your organisational reality. What distinguishes a great workplace listener from the rest of us is that they have the ability to encourage us to think through complex work related issues and thus help us come up with workable solutions.

The art of attending

To be a good workplace listener, you actually need to be someone who people want to talk to. We all know people who think they are great listeners, but in reality are very poor at it. One of the most basic things you can do is work on your ability to attend to what is being said. This way you can make people feel they can truly talk to you and you will listen.

More than half of most communication is non verbal, through our gestures, facial expressions, eyes and posture. Non verbal communication may emphasize, repeat, substitute for, regulate or contradict accompanying verbal communication.

In one experiment on the importance of non-verbal communications, it was found that students who were listened to by an impassive listener rated him as cold and aloof. However, when the same 'listener' moved and made some non-verbal gestures in response to the speaker, the same listener was described as warm, casual, friendly and natural.

Some of the basics of attentive listening:

1. Make sure you are in the right psychological space to listen. There is nothing wrong with telling your colleagues who may want to talk to you that you are not in the right space at that particular moment. People respect honesty. However, if you want them to come back and talk with you, then schedule a time when you can have a good conversation.
2. When you are in the psychological space to listen, make sure you communicate this physically. Work on a posture of involvement. Lean forward; be relaxed and alert.
3. Respond to the speaker, not to distractions. Looking at your computer, taking phone calls, or looking at the person walking past your office is not only rude, it also interferes with listening.
4. Keep environmental distractions to a minimum. The attentive listener will remove physical barriers to foster better communications and observe body language. This is an important part of listening, which can't be done well when there's a big desk in the way.
5. Maintaining eye contact, even when people show emotion, is one of the most effective listening skills in many societies. Maintaining appropriate and culturally sensitive eye contact and being aware of emotionally charged environments shows that you are interested and helps you notice what is not said.
6. Use 'minimal encouragers' (such as ok, yes, uh-ha, right, really) to let the speaker know that you are interested (or at least still awake), and maintain the flow of what they have to say
7. Summarizing what was said. If you find using 'minimal encouragers' a bit contrived, this one is a great way to show you are listening and interested. It is also a great way to check that you understand the issues at hand. Often, just by summarizing what was said, people often quickly recognize the issue at hand and find the solution for themselves!

The art of questioning

This is really the core skill of a good workplace listener. I have met a few of them, and tried my best to become one. These people know exactly what the right question is, the question that will get to the heart of any problem. When asked the right questions, many of us find that the answers to our issues are painfully obvious.

So how do you go about asking the right questions?

A great way to find good questions is by thinking of yourself as an interviewer who is about to write a story. This way, you really need to focus on the questions that will help you get the 'juicy bits':

• Use as many open questions as you can think of to find out the facts - Where? When? Why? And How? One thing I learnt the hard way is that no matter how good I thought I was in getting the facts, I often neglected to ask at least one important question.
• Find out who is involved or affected by the issue - remember to look beyond the obvious stakeholders such as managers and staff to see others, like shareholders and customers. This can bring out a very different picture.
• What have they already thought of in terms of resolving the issue? Can you help them think of other ways? What are the consequences of these alternatives and how might they affect the various stakeholders?
• Tolerate silence in the conversation; give yourself time to reflect on what you've heard (ie listen) - "the beginning of wisdom is silence - the second stage is listening".
• Paraphrase (concisely; not parrot) - to ensure you understand
• Don't offer solutions too quickly - this is the BIG challenge of listening; help people solve their own problems for themselves. This way, they are most likely to own the solutions.

How good a listener are you?

A little self reflection can go a long way. A very quick exercise you can do for yourself is to think of a great listener you know and then to write down what it is about him or her that makes them great at it. Then, think of a poor listener and write down what makes them so ineffective.

You've probably guessed it by now. With your quick list of what distinguishes great listeners from poor ones, you can rate yourself and see which qualities you already have, and which you still lack.

If you choose to do something about it, you can always focus on improving the key area that needs improving (for example, avoiding giving solutions...). Come up with one or two strategies to try and improve that aspect of your listening. After a while, ask a close colleague to give you feedback. Simple, but it works!

© Professionelle Ltd 2007