You may have heard the statistics before: studies show that many of us spend 70 to 80 percent of our waking hours engaged in some form of communication. Breaking it down further: we spend about 9 percent writing, 16 percent reading, 30 percent speaking and 45 percent listening. Studies also find that most of us are quite lacking in our listening skills. Why are so many of us so bad at listening when we do so much of it?
Listening is the communication skill in which we’ve had the least training.
In high school and college, most students are required to take composition and speech classes. How many schools offer Listening 101?
We can think faster than people can speak.
The average person speaks at the rate of about 125 words per minute. Interestingly, if it were possible to speak at 400 words per minute, we would have the mental capacity to understand what was being said! This difference between speaking speed and thought speed is significant. Our minds will turn to other thoughts when someone is speaking unless we make an effort to concentrate and listen carefully.
We are inefficient listeners.
Studies are fairly consistent in confirming that most of us are not good listeners. For example, several studies indicate that immediately after listening to a 10-minute oral presentation, the average listener has heard, understood and retained approximately 50 percent of what was said. After 48 hours, there is another 50 percent drop. In other words, we retain about one fourth of what we hear. We can all point to personal and professional problems that have been caused by poor listening. Anytime you are only 25% proficient in any skill, problems will arise.
Our listening skills don’t improve with age.
According to studies by Ralph Nichols, known as the Father of the Field of Listening, “If we define the good listener as one giving full attention to the speaker, first-grade children are the best listeners of all.” In his book, Are You Listening?, Nichols describes an experiment conducted with the cooperation of Minneapolis teachers from first grade through high school. Each teacher involved was asked to interrupt classes and suddenly ask pupils “What were you thinking about?” or “What was I talking about?” The answers of first and second graders showed that more than 90 percent were listening. Percentages dropped in higher grades. In junior high school classes, only 44 percent of the students were listening. In high school classes, the average dropped to 28 percent.
Listening is Work.
It really is hard work to listen intently, especially for an extended time period and especially if the topic isn’t one that particularly engages you. It takes effort to remain engaged even in the best of circumstances because we have so much on our curious minds and so many thoughts interrupting the discourse we should be listening to.
Most of us are poor listeners, and we live in a culture that values speaking more than listening. Those who speak up in meetings are often valued as more important than those who listen silently, even though we need exemplary listeners to accomplish anything productive and meaningful. It is true that we have had little training and few training opportunities exist, but we might consider ways of training ourselves and being mindful of our own listening skills. Listening is hard work, making it a challenge to be a good listener. But good listeners get big rewards. Let’s face it: everyone wants to be heard.
Next week, this blog will explore how our amazing minds, which think more than three times faster than others speak, can be put to use to develop our listening skills and develop those rapid-fire thoughts into productive, focused listening skills that demonstrate Esteem for those who have something to tell you.
For information on Esteem’s trainings, including our workshop on Listening, visit our website.
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