This past Sunday morning, a Tom Peters tweet suggested that excellence in listening is a strategic differentiator. Peters may have been referring to the art of listening in the workplace, but his observation holds perfectly true in every realm of life. Virtually all humans are desperate to be heard and understood. If you don’t count yourself among them, you’re either very lucky (because you’re getting all the listening you need) — or your need was suppressed so strongly at a crucial part of your life that it has gone unconscious and you can’t even tell how much you need to be heard!
Listening is one of those things that you can’t force someone else to do. You may be able to pressure them to display the appearance of listening, but the real thing has to be given volitionally.
How can you tell when someone is listening? When asked this question, both children and adults identify the signs of listening as nodding; appropriate smiling or seriousness of expression, depending on the content of the conversation; eye contact; and murmurs of encouragement (including anything from un-hunh, mmm-hmm, and ohhhh! to “tell me about that,” “please continue,” or “and then what?”). When I teach workshops, I actually ask for a little “chin action” from the participants — nodding up and down to show me that they get whatever I’m saying.
On the flip side, do you have any idea how you look when you’re listening? Not to make you feel self-conscious or anything, but most of us have some kind of odd, fixed expression that we believe makes us look interested, neutral, or patient, but actually often reads as bored, phony, or otherwise negative.
I once finished a call with an overly persistent and manipulative sales rep, and noticed that my face hurt. I went to look in the mirror to see what was causing the ache, and suddenly recognized what I would call my “bad face” — a skeptical, somewhat pained expression that indicated I wasn’t buying what was being said to me — a face that I realized I also tended to use with members of my family when I didn’t like what I was hearing.
This expression had been extremely useful when I was a young woman riding the subway and needed to let some weirdo know that I’d already seen that sort of thing before and was too jaded to care about seeing it now, but now it was an awful sight for a loved one to see instead of the desired attention and response.
It’s hard to prove you listened unless you respond. Otherwise, it might not be clear to the speaker that you care about their meaning and have absorbed it. You can give verbal acknowledgment, or go all the way to taking action after the conversation is over. It doesn’t take much effort to demonstrate that you got it — just ask! “Let me check my understanding… Do I have this right?”
And another amazing thing, which isn’t instinctive, but can be a big relief: you don’t have to answer completely at the instant of the communication. In most cases, you can go back and keep the conversation going if you think of subsequent responses.
Think of listening as a sort of pay-it-forward strategy. If you model better listening behavior for others, there’s the possibility that they’ll eventually improve their own listening skills — and maybe they’ll be able to hear you better too.
Onward and upward,
LK
More from this series:
- The Listening Post, Part I: Four Crucial Aspects of Understanding
- The Listening Post, Part III: Answers to Some of Your Questions
Liz Alt Kislik is President of Liz Kislik Associates LLC. Liz brings more than two decades of customer-focused management experience to businesses of all sizes and segments. She helps managers address complex organizational problems, particularly in the areas of customer care and employee performance.
