I've been attending a conference this week and it's made me think about the role of listening in our lives. This pondering started several weeks ago during a very frustrating meeting. Over three hours, I listened to the other party and spoke only three or four times. I was happy to play the listener role. This person had real reasons they needed to get things "off their chest". However, I realized at the end of the conversation when this person asked me to restate something I'd just said that they had been solidly in telling rather than hearing mode.
It started me thinking about how ineffective communication in all its forms really is sometimes. Just because we say, write, etc doesn't mean anyone else hears, reads, understands, or - perhaps most importantly - understands our intended meaning.
For me personally, listening and hearing feels like one of my weaker skillsets in terms of receiving & processing information.
Using real active listening skills is, for me, a whole body, high energy experience. And, to truly be an active listener, I have to shut off my desire to be heard and be understood which is hard for me. For me, active listening looks like:
- putting down my phone/putting away my screen except for taking notes (Taking notes can be its own form of distraction and so, in an exchange where I am actively taking notes, energy also has to be given to ensure that my attention does drift to the note taking medium and distractions associated with it)
- turning my whole body towards the person who is speaking
- turning my attention towards the person who is speaking
- opening my ears and brain to hear the person without trying to form a response
- being comfortable (and reading the situation well enough to know the other person is comfortable with pauses as I process the information I've heard and jointly with the other person who we proceed.
All of this, for every word that is spoken and heard. It's hard.
One thing I've found useful recently is to focus on why I'm listening in that specific situation. Without a doubt, the person who pays the biggest cost for my difficulty with listening is Gayle. She may or may not have said to me a few weeks ago "I'm going to dye my hair pink" in order to test to see if I was listening to her. I've been trying to focus on listening to her and engaging in conversation as a way of deepening our friendship. The reason is the important element here and doing the work of listening is how.
Where do you struggle with communication? Does focusing on why you're doing it make it easier? I'd love to hear from you. Reply if you're reading this in email or join the conversation on Circle using the Let's Chat button below.
