Listen up
Why is listening important?
Listening is a ‘soft’ skill that is universally important, whatever your age, race, role or profession.
Listening is simple in theory and often hard in practice! And there’s more to it than meets the eye, in fact the eyes should be part of listening as the best quality listening uses all the senses. We have two ears and one mouth and yet how often do we use them in that proportion!?
Attentive listening creates awareness, enables information to be elicited accurately, and leads to increased empathy and understanding. Good listening makes people feel heard which in turn makes them feel acknowledged. Ultimately good listening results in better relationships, with people feeling more ‘connected’ and that they have a place in life and in the world.
What types of listening are there?
There are many types of listening, but my definitions are ‘external’ and ‘internal’ and ‘false’ and ‘real’.
External listening is when you listen to someone else and internal listening is when you listen to yourself; your instinct or intuition and also to what your body is telling you. All require awareness, time and connecting with your senses. Often we are rushing around so much that we don’t do either effectively.
‘False’ listening is when you pretend to listen but in reality you are not really listening because; you consider your point of view more important than the speaker, you are distracted by mental chatter or external distractions/interruptions or because you are thinking about what you are going to say next when the speaker has finished. Also, many people listen with bias, through their personal filters, i.e. their own values, beliefs, motivations, experiences and sometimes prejudices, which are different to those of the person to whom they are listening. False listening is like hearing sound underwater, muffled and not clear.
‘Real’ listening, is when you fully connect with someone else, using all your senses including intuition and are completely ‘in the moment’ with them, giving them your full attention and listening empathetically. You notice both what they say and don’t say, the tone/nuances in which they say it and what their specific words indicate and non-verbal communication silently expresses, seeing the world through their eyes instead of your own.
Really good listening, which I call ‘empathetic’ listening is rare and almost an art form!
What stops good listening?
Did you know that you can only hear on one channel at a time, so if your mind is chattering, it is almost impossible to really hear someone effectively?
There are many things that stop or inhibit good listening:
· Lack of time
· Stress
· Unrealistic pressured deadlines
· Hearing through your own ‘filters’, i.e. your values, beliefs and view of the world
· Preoccupation with your own issues or agenda
· Internal mental ‘chatter’ in your head
· Distractions, e.g. children, interruptions etc
· Focusing on what to say next while someone else is speaking
· A fast mind/impatience with someone who speaks or thinks slower than yourself
· Ego or a need to be right or dominate a conversation
· Jumping the gun or jumping to conclusions before you are in possession of all the facts and the speaker has finished
How coaching is relevant to listening
Good coaching is all about empathetic listening, both external and internal.
· Good coaches are trained to listen empathetically using all their senses
· Coaches put their own beliefs and values to one side and are fully ‘in the moment’ with their clients, listening objectively and without judgement, supportive and confidential but without an ‘emotional’ attachment to what they want, or agenda, unlike your friends, family or colleagues
· Coaching increases your self-awareness and understanding including about your habits, behaviours, motivations and beliefs.
· Coaches help their clients so that they don’t need them anymore and teach them to coach themselves. What this means in practice is you a) make time to stop and ‘check in’ with yourself, b) you ask yourself self-reflective questions e.g. What’s bothering me and what can I do about this?, c) you listen to your mental, emotional and intuitive/instinctive responses more and d) you take appropriate action to create the changes that you want to make
· Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) trained coaches – this is my training - is all about how people communicate and perceive the world differently as a result of both the unique way their senses operate and their background and beliefs
· The very act of having a coaching session in your week enables you to stop and listen to yourself and be heard, with the coach acting as a trusted witness to you expressing what you really want or who you want to be
· Being asked well thought out incisive questions during coaching and having time and space to reflect, enables you to better access your inner listening
10 simple tips to help you listen better
Here are 10 simple tips that you can try out to practise your listening skills:
1. Become more aware of your mental chatter and specifically what you say to yourself – often these are unhelpful or self-critical thoughts, worries and preoccupations
2. Make time for internal listening - sit quietly a couple of times a day, let your mind be still and check in with how you are feeling
3. Use your natural curiosity to notice others when they are speaking; become aware of their breathing, the specific words they choose, what they omit to say and their body language
4. Buy a book or attend a course about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to learn more about how different people have a unique way of perceiving the world – different dominant senses and metaprograms
5. When listening to someone, put your full attention on what they are saying and the sound of their voice, this will help your internal mind chatter quieten and focus your listening
6. Find a way to relax regularly, e.g. yoga, meditation, massage or exercise
7. Invest in yourself and have a coaching programme to increase your self awareness and learn how to coach yourself
8. Catch yourself when you are in ‘false listening’ mode and notice what is going through your mind, e.g. judgements, criticisms or concentrating on what you are going to say next
9. Summarise the gist of what someone says to you and reflect it back to them, using their original words to check your understanding. This can save a lot of confusion, mistakes and time in both your business and personal life.
10. Listen to your body and give it what it needs; water, sleep, food, a break, time in nature etc