Open All The Doors
Beyond Active Listening is Effective Listening, THE Essential Tool for Building & Keeping Relationships
“I’m trying to help..”
“I’m just trying to help…”
“Why are you being so difficult? I was only trying to help!”
In any conversation, there are several levels of meaning.
On the surface are the words and the basic information they convey.
Beneath the surface is the meta-message, the speaker’s attitude and feelings, revealed through tone, volume, pitch, body language, and other paramessages. This is what you hear if you “read between the lines.”
Beneath the metamessage, are human needs, usually unrevealed, unexplored, and unknown to the speaker, yet driving their behavior and choices.
Only through effectively listening can we understand what’s really going on when we communicate.
Here’s how.
Go Beyond Active Listening
You may have been taught or told to be an “active listener” — to maintain eye contact, nod your head, show the other person you’re engaging with them — but too many of us only develop this skill to the point of pretending to listen, so we can get what we want.
We all know what it’s like to be with people who don’t really listen. Think about how you feel when you’re with them.
Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, creator of Nonviolent Communication (sometimes called Compassionate Communication) takes us beyond active listening to effective listening.
Effective listening uses empathy to deepen human connection and understanding, uncovering what’s driving behavior beneath the surface…people’s feelings and unmet needs.
“Be” in the Room Where it Happens
When talking to others, we all have an interior dialogue running in our head, drowning out what other people are saying. Most of the time, we are only pseudo-listening.
It’s even worse when we communicate through technology or online, where we are more disconnected and distracted.
When someone else is talking, if you’re thinking of how to respond, judging them (or yourself), or wondering what they think of you, then you’re pseudo-listening.
You’re not fully present if you are:
- Making people think you’re interested so they’ll like you,
- Being hyper-alert for signs of rejection,
- Listening for one specific piece of information and ignoring everything else,
- Listening to find someone’s vulnerabilities or weak points,
- Watching to see how someone reacts to get your desired effect,
- Half listening because that’s what nice people do, or
- Being preoccupied with how to end or redirect a conversation.
So how can we be more present and tune in to what’s happening, rather than be at the mercy of the interminable narrative in our own head?
Three steps: remove blocks, set your intention, and monitor what’s going on inside you.
Step One: Identify Listening Blocks
Before we can effectively listen, we must first recognize our own listening blocks. According to McKay, Davis and Fanning, there are 12 blocks to listening that we all unconsciously engage in to some degree:
- Comparing — Trying to assess who is smarter, more competent, emotionally healthy, etc.
- Mind Reading — Trying to figure out what the other person is really thinking, feeling, or doing.
- Rehearsing — Preparing your responses or next comment.
- Filtering — Listening to some things and not others (e.g. listening just to ensure you’re not in emotional danger, then tuning out).
- Judging — When you label (either positively or negatively), you’ve already decided what you think. (It helps to wait until after you have heard and evaluated the full content of a message.)
- Dreaming — When something the other person says triggers a memory, followed by a chain of unrelated thoughts.
- Identifying — Taking what someone says and referring it back to your own experience. (“That reminds me of the time I…”)
- Advising — “I’m a great problem solver ready to help with suggestions!”
- Sparring — Focusing on things to disagree with, including dismissing someone’s point of view or discounting yourself when you get a compliment.
- Being Right — Going to any lengths to avoid being wrong, including twisting facts, shouting, making excuses or accusations, and calling up past sins.
- Derailing — Suddenly changing the subject when you’re uncomfortable.
- Placating — “Right, right, I know you’re right…”
Here’s an exercise you can do right now to identify your listening blocks. After the next conversation you have today, take a minute to pull up this list and reflect on what was going on in your head.
Step Two: Set The Right Intention
In a recent interpersonal communication workshop, I was asked: “I have tried, but simply can’t stop thinking. How am I supposed to turn off my brain in order to listen?”
What a great question! Most of us are not Buddhist monks or Zen masters.
Our goal with effective listening is not to stop thinking, but to be open enough to see the other person’s humanity (their feelings and needs), without judgement.
Doing this is not as difficult as you might think. Try this: before beginning your next conversation, make it your intention to simply understand, enjoy, and learn. Nothing else.
When we start with the right intentions, we will naturally:
Be empathetic, reminding ourselves that everyone is just trying to survive and that all human acts are strategies to meet the needs we all share.
Be open, not judging the speaker or ourselves. When we listen to find fault, information gets scrambled on its way in.
Be aware, for example, if the other person’s message and body language are aligned with your knowledge of them and the situation. (If not, you will feel something wrong in your body and know to ask clarifying questions.)
Step Three: Monitor What’s Going On Inside You
This leads to the third vital listening skill to develop, tuning into yourself.
As with all life situations, what’s going on internally is far more important than what’s going on externally, so pay attention to your body. Your body will tell you more about a situation than your brain ever can.
Before perception of the world can be formed, sensory signals must be received and processed. The interpretation of these signals will be reflected in your breath and body. If you’re getting agitated, for example, it’s because one of your needs isn’t being met.
Allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. The more we cling to or reject our emotions, the less we can listen to what our body is trying to tell us.
When something doesn’t feel right, that’s your signal to pause or verify. Say it often: “I just want to make sure I heard you correctly…”
Conclusion
Listening is your job and no one else’s.
Listening is a compliment because it says: you’re important and I care about what’s happening to you. When you listen first, others will listen to you.
When you become an effective listener, you will know what others want or need and what irritates or hurts them. This will help you find ways to fulfill their needs while fulfilling your own.
People are drawn to effective listeners. Friends confide in them. Co-Workers seek their council or leadership. Success comes a little easier, because people appreciate you and want you around.
