Description

We can all recall situations where we have utterly failed to listen to what someone else is saying. For various reasons, we are simply not taking in anything useful. How many times have you been introduced to a person by name only to not know what their name is thirty seconds later? The reason this happens is because you have failed to actively listen. By italicizing the word “actively”, it might suggest that actively listening is different to plain old listening. In truth, there are only two states when we are communicating with another person: actively listening, and not really listening. Active listening is the art of listening for meaning. For us to gain meaning from the words of another person, we need to be listening carefully. Meaning is not necessarily assured even when we are actively listening, but we will at least know that we don’t understand, and can therefore ask the correct questions to gain enlightenment. l

Active listening must become a habit because it is the foundation of effective communication. Imagine a troop commander not really listening to his orders and attacking the wrong target. A failure to actively listen can certainly have dire consequences. Many people give the appearance of listening but fail to really hear what is being said to them. They assume that listening is such a basic sense that it will happen automatically. This is not the case. Or it might be that they are so used to making all the outward gestures of listening that they are convinced it is really happening. It is not difficult to pick up on tone of voice, body language and facial expressions, all of which indicate the gist of what is being said. All it then takes is to hear a few key words and it becomes very easy to think you have understood everything you’ve been told, and to give the convincing impression that this is so by returning appropriate tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. Active listening requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they are being told. Without this, communication is nothing but a façade, which may suffice when you are passing the time of day talking to a neighbor in the street, but is wholly inadequate in any business environment. As businesses depend on human interaction to succeed, the quality of that interaction must be of the highest caliber, and interaction means communication. There are many reasons why people fail to listen properly. They may be distracted by an activity they are attempting whilst listening, or by other thoughts in their head they deem to be more important, or they might be thinking about what they are going to say next, which is a common flaw in communication between parties whose opinions differ. Active listening focuses attention on the speaker. It involves the listener subjugating their own needs for a while in deference to those of the listener. It requires concentration and a genuine willingness to hear what is being said.

Why It Is So Important To Actively Listen Where there is an absence of active listening, there is poor communication, and where there is poor communication, opportunities are missed and problems are created or perpetuated. Active listening encourages people to open up, reduces the chance of misunderstandings, helps to resolve problems and conflicts, and builds trust. Research has shown that the majority of people spend up to 90% of their waking time engaged in some form of communication, be that reading, writing, speaking or listening. However, over half of our communication time is taken up with listening – or what passes for listening. Anyone in a managerial position is likely to devote as much as 70% of their communication time to listening. The higher up the chain of command you go, the more demand is placed on the individual to listen to other people. Studies also reveal that we properly hear only around 25% to 50% of what is said to us. Out of a 10 minute conversation, you may be getting only 2½ to 5 minutes of useful information. Whilst that may be sufficient to grasp the general thrust of the conversation, it still leaves 50% to 75% that has passed you by. The potential for important details to be missed is therefore significant. In a way, the importance of listening hardly needs explaining. No one can live in this modern world and not understand the need to communicate with other people. It is not the importance of listening that really requires stressing; it is the misconception that listening is easy and happens by default. All human relationships, from the most personal that we enjoy with our partner and children, through those we have with friends and our more extended family, to those that occur in our work life, and those we experience with mere acquaintances – all these relationships are based on our ability to communicate effectively. One of the most common complaints following any failed personal relationship is that the other party didn’t listen, or that there was a lack of understanding, which amounts to the same thing. When a person appears to be listening but fails to truly understand what is being said and where the other person is coming from, this is because listening has not really taken place – not the active listening that matters. Human beings are social creatures. Not only is communication unavoidable, it is truly desirable. We crave interaction as a means of enlivening our time on this earth, and because it keeps us (relatively) sane. It allows us to express our emotions – our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows – and share them with other people who we think may be interested, or who may be able to help us make sense of them. But when we speak, there has to be someone listening for it to have any point. In simple terms, speaking is one person reaching out, and listening is another person accepting and taking hold. Together, they form communication, and this is the basis of all human relationships. This being the case, it is crucial that the listener is truly listening with a view to offering constructive feedback. How catastrophic would it be if a depressed individual called a helpline and after fifteen minutes pouring out their heart, the listener said: “Uh-huh. What? Sorry, I wasn’t listening, tell me again.” A failure to listen can create immense hurt, if not genuine damage. Active listening tells the speaker that what they have to say matters. It creates a sense of confidence that advice is at hand; advice that will be considered and useful. A listener is a sounding board that allows the speaker to develop thoughts that may, up to that moment, have been difficult to clarify.

Common Barriers to Active Listening Listening may be affected by several barriers that impede proper communication. Ignorance and Delusion The first barrier to active listening is simply not realizing that it isn’t taking place. Most of us can get through life perfectly adequately without developing our listening skills, mostly because we fail to classify listening as a skill to start with, and because most everyone else is in the same state of ignorance. It is very easy to then delude yourself into thinking that listening just involves allowing another person to speak in your presence. Even when you are the one talking and faced with a lousy listener, it still may not dawn that you are every bit as bad at listening as they are. It is only when faced with a truly gifted listener – one who actively listens – that we may become aware of how lacking we are by comparison. Reluctance The possible result of actively listening to another person may be that you become embroiled in their situation in some way. People who share problems often do so because they are seeking advice, but they may also want the listener to become more deeply involved. Where this is obvious from the outset, the listener may be reluctant to become implicated and may therefore willfully fail to lend a sympathetic and understanding ear. Bias and Prejudice The listener’s personal interpretation of what they are hearing may cause them to respond negatively to the speaker. They either assume that they know the situation because they have been faced with similar in the past, or they allow their preconceptions to color the way they respond. In the first case, the listener does not properly listen to the facts because they already think they  know the full story. This means they might belittle the problem or offer a response that does not meet the needs of the listener. In the second case, the listener judges the speaker negatively because the speaker’s opinions or beliefs run counter to their own

Contents

 Legal Disclaimers & Notices ............................................................................2 Introduction .......................................................................................................4 Why It Is So Important To Actively Listen.......................................................6 Common Barriers to Active Listening ..............................................................8 The Four Components of Active Listening.....................................................11 Improving Your Active Listening Skills .........................................................13 Reflective Listening ........................................................................................18 Conclusion.......................................................................................................22

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