16 Habits that Make You a Terrible Listener (& What Coaches Do Instead) - Part 1

Excerpted from Harvard Business Review, "Barriers to Effective Listening" by Scott Walker and "What Coaches Do Instead", by Val Olson

1. Advising: You jump in too quickly with solutions.

What coaches do instead: Coaches focus on the client's agenda and help them discover their own solutions.

2. Analysis paralysis: You continue to gather information instead of moving to potential solutions.

What coaches do instead: Coaches stay curious, ask questions, and encourage the client to summarize their main point, or "bottom line". They refocus the dialogue when enough relevant information has been shared, or is being repeated.

3. Assumptions: You go in with strong opinions but few facts.

What coaches do instead: Coaches set opinions aside and listen to what the client is saying and not saying. They don't automatically assume what the client's saying is true. It may be factual, or it may be a belief, perspective or point of view, which can be explored or challenged.

4. Avoidance: You shut down at any sign of tension.

What coaches do instead: Coaches listen for emotion and welcome tension if it shows up because tension carries useful information if you examine it. They help the client experience their ability to "be with" tension, and other discomfort, instead of avoiding, denying or burying it.

5. Derailing: You abruptly change subjects.

What coaches do instead: Stick with the subject; take it deeper, help the client see it from different angles; keep it center stage until a path forward is found. Stay with the client's stated agenda. Bring the conversation back to the client's agenda and/or check, if the topic is different than what they said they wanted to focus on, check in to see if they want to move on to a different subject.

6. Dreaming: You half listen to your counterpart.

What coaches do instead: Coaches practice active listening by staying focused on the client and what they are saying, or not saying, and how they are communicating.

7. Experience: You assume you understand the situation because you've been in a similar one previously or have dealt with your counterpart before.

What coaches do instead: Coaches draw from their own experience for context in order to ask salient questions focused on the client's experience. They never assume their own experience is equivalent to the client's experience.

8. Filtering: You listen to some things and not to others.

What coaches do instead: Coaches listen to and for everything and anything, metaphors, tone of voice, emotion, context, pace, words, sighs, etc.

8. Identifying: You link everything the other person says to your own experience.

What coaches do instead: Coaches link everything the client says to what they already know about them and stay focused on the client's experience so that the client feels seen and heard and can come to their own conclusions.

Note: Coaches may be trained in listening, but this doesn't mean they always listen well to their own colleagues, families, partners, friends or bosses. In fact, coaches can be terrible listeners if they don't discipline themselves to listen well when they aren't coaching. When coaching with a client, coaches have to discipline themselves to stay in "coach mode" and continually bring themselves back to listening.