Last week, I wrote about the challenges of listening, a task that comprises nearly half of our waking hours, exceeding the time devoted to any of the other forms of communication, including speaking, reading, and writing. I noted in that blog that our brains process much more quickly than people can talk, a problem often resulting in a wandering mind. Given that we devote so much time to listening, we would be well advised to do it better: we need to understand the process and improve our skills so that we can become more effective in our work and personal relationships.
First, it is important to know that listening isn’t a one-step activity; it is a process that involves a sequence of five steps:
- Selecting: choosing one sound (i.e., a speaker’s voice) over others when faced with competing stimuli
- Attending: taking an additional step of focusing attention on the selected message or sound
- Understanding: making sense of messages to enable us to interpret meaning
- Remembering: recalling information conveyed
- Responding: generating feedback and letting others know that you have received and understood their message
We often fall apart in the first few steps, and most of our conversations don’t make it to step 3. Think about the last time you were in a crowded, noisy place and tried to have a conversation. Did you make it through steps 1 and 2? Honestly, it’s difficult for us to make it through those steps at home with one person because we live in a world of distractions. We need techniques to help us stay attuned to the conversation we are choosing to have and to really hear what is being said.
Once you have selected your stimulus, the following techniques can help you stay focused on that conversation, to better attend to the discussion so that you can understand, remember, and respond appropriately to your speaker. To your speaker, the most critical of these is responding since it is the step that highlights that you accomplished the other 4 steps. Responding allows the other to feel heard and validated. This response can be verbal (“Right,” “Uh-huh,” “I understand,”) or nonverbal—simply nodding your head lets the other person know you are listening.
It is important to note that active listening is an internal mechanism. The techniques provided below are not intended for speaking, but for listening. Speaking is a different skill, and, as always in life, we must keep some of our thoughts to ourselves. I have provided a cautionary statement after each technique: no one wants to talk to a person who interrupts, jumps ahead, or critically evaluates. These techniques are to help you select, attend, understand, and remember. What you do in your head to stay tuned in isn’t always an appropriate outward response.
Anticipate the next point
Good listeners try to anticipate the points a speaker will make in developing a subject. If they guess right, the speaker’s words reinforce their guesses. If they guess wrong, they’ll have to do some thinking to discover why they and the speaker failed to agree. In either case, their chances of understanding and remembering what was said is nearly double what it would have been if they had simply listened passively.
Caution: Do this in your head, not out loud. Don’t interrupt speakers by finishing their sentences for them. No one likes that, and finishing another person’s thoughts can make you seem like a know-it-all or impatient and inconsiderate.
Identify supporting material
Good listeners try to identify a speaker’s supporting material. Every good speaker makes a point and then provides listeners with evidence on which the conclusions are based. The bricks and mortar that have been used to construct an argument can be examined for clues to help you understand how your speaker’s mind works and where he or she is going with the story.
Caution: This skill is for becoming a good listener, not a trial attorney. Use this skill to remain engaged in the conversation, not to verbally poke holes in your speaker’s claims.
Recapitulating
Last week I noted that we are able listen at a rate of 400 words per minute, but most of us only speak at a rate of about 125 words per minute. This variance makes it easy to summarize in about five seconds the highlights of a story that took five minutes to tell. To stay engaged in the story, experienced listeners make a mental summary whenever a speaker pauses. This improves retention. Research demonstrates that making six mental summaries of the highlights of a fifty-minute lecture will easily double the understanding and retention of important information in that lecture.
Caution: Do not always verbalize your recapitulations. Doing so could be an ineffective technique in an intimate conversation about emotional matters. No one wants to tell a friend all the sordid details of a lousy coworker, only to have that friend provide a verbal summary of the “main” points afterward; that can come across as reductive and insensitive. Remember: the “main” idea in any interpersonal communication is the emotion that is being communicated to you. Recapping the main details is a tool for active listening, not a tool for speaking thoughtfully and compassionately to another person. On the other hand, in a work situation, this listening technique could be effectively transferred to speaking: “So you’re saying you want a one-page report by 4:30 on Thursday, and you want it to cover the following details…” This can be a useful workplace communication skill. The main point is this: recapitulating is a listening skill first and foremost. Whether to use it as a speaking skill depends on the situation.
Anticipating, Identifying, and Recapitulating should help you in your quest to tune out other stimuli and attend to the conversation at hand. Your highly efficient brain needs to keep busy while listening to someone who is only putting out information at a rate that is one-quarter to one-third of your ability to process. Keeping your whole brain engaged is going to enhance your final step of the listening process: responding. Your responses demonstrate how well you have listened, so good listening demonstrates a feeling of real Esteem for those who want to talk with you.
Next week, in the final installment of this listening series, I’ll share the four different listening orientations along with tips for getting different kinds of listeners to listen up.
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