#28 Why Does Being Listened To Make A Big Difference?
Explore what can happen in groups that have laser-like listening qualities compared to to those where the same qualities lay dormant.
Hi, I write about the why-do-we-experience-life-as-we-do question.
I find it’s helpful to those who seek to understand why they, and those around them, live in the realities they do and behave accordingly.
You’re very welcome here.
Enjoy getting in touch with the sensations, thoughts and feelings that come your way continuously, and through which your sense making of what’s going on happens.
Oh, and remember to wonder what new realities may appear should old thinking habits dissipate or not be taken so seriously!
Teams that pay close attention to the human side of how they work together, feel palpably different to be a member of, compared to those that do not. There are five working practices in particular that stand out. Team members:
Are more open with each other.
Have laser-like listening ability.
Can disagree healthily.
Include the realities others live from when making sense of situations.
Make good decisions that can be adapted when needed, but until that point is reached, are both explainable and defendable if challenged.
In this post I’ll zoom in on #2 - laser-like listening. The first, openness, is covered in Post #27 and the other three will follow.
What gets in the way of listening
Imagine you’re in front of a team. You ask this question -
“How many of you think the quality of listening in the work and family groups you’re a part of isn’t very good?”
The chances are many will people will raise their hands.
You then ask a second question -
“How many of you think you are a good listener?”
Again there’s high chance you’ll have a large number of hands in the air.
This fun exercise points to a fallacy we’re all prone to - we think we are good listeners but everyone else is not. I know I thought that, until I did another exercise that brought the fallacy into sharper focus for me.
I was asked to listen to someone speak for 4 minutes. But I had to observe two rules: I couldn’t take notes nor interrupt with questions. I just had to do one thing - notice what went on in my mind as I listened to the speaker. Nothing else.
Here’s what I noticed whizz through my head while I was listening:
I compared and contrasted what was being said with my own experiences.
I so wanted to interrupt the speaker; I wanted to share what I was thinking and ask questions.
I got bored at one point.
I noticed myself day dreaming for what must have been 10-20 seconds or so.
My thoughts drifted off at one point, they focused on what I was going to have for dinner that evening.
I felt frustrated by the no-notes-and-interruption rule - it created a false situation.
When the speaker fell silent, I felt uncomfortable and wanted to fill the silence, but the rules didn’t allow me to.
I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with the speaker.
I began to plan what I’d say when the 4 minutes was up.
During the debrief I was helped to see how thoughts like those above just flood into my system without me summoning them or otherwise willing them into existence. They just appear.
They grab my attention and take me to where they want to go. To the boredom, comparisons, what’s-for-dinner question etc., as above. So much so they distract me from being fully present and able to listen to both what the speaker was saying and how they were saying it - to the “music behind the words” as an old colleague of mine once used to say.
In other words what’s flowing through my mind is in the way of my capacity to listen. Yet when I notice what’s in the flow I can ignore the distractions and bring my attention back to the present moment - to precisely what someone is attempting to convey. If I don’t notice what’s in the flow, the option to refocus eludes me. I’m at the mercy of whatever those distracting thoughts, feelings and sensations happen to be.
Seeing these distractions at work, in real time, is quite an eye opener for many. It’s the moment when they realise their listening isn’t quite as good as they believed.
During one session with a team whose quality of listening was not good, I remember running this exercise a second time, but with a variation. I asked listeners to maintain the no notes and no interruption rule, and only listen to disagree and to make judgements about what the speaker had to say. This is a theme I’ll return to in the next post on healthy disagreement, but the point I want to make here concerns the realisation several group members had during this exercise. “I always listen from a judgemental standpoint” said (let’s call him Jim) with some dismay.
Jim had seen that this was his default modus operandi, not just at work but with his wife and kids at home too. It took root during his conditioning. Jim’s limiting listening skills mirrored how he himself had been listened to by his parents, peers and teachers at school.
He also spoke about colleagues he’d worked with in a previous organisation. The culture there he described as “overly competitive and cut-throat often.” What started to make sense to him now, was he listened judgementally as a means of self-defence. The more he disagreed, the cleverer he believed he was, and the more chance he had of winning the battles for resources, reward and recognition with those now ex colleagues. An understandable approach, which made complete sense because it worked to some extent in that cut-throat culture, but in the high-performance culture his new team was trying to create? Not so much.
By joining the dots and seeing how his primary listening mode now is shaped by his past experiences, was all Jim needed to be more acutely aware of his tendency to listen judgementally. He shared other unhelpful traits he’d unknowingly developed too: “Sometimes I only listen for what I want to hear and judge folk when I don’t get the confirmation I want. I listen for what’s wrong and who’s to blame not what’s right and how we can build on that. I spend too much time planning what I’ll say next - listening to reply, not listening to understand.” Any of these familiar to you?
Jim’s intention going forward became to self-correct whenever he veered into old habits. He asked his colleagues to let him know when they felt he was judging what they said first, before being curious about it. Ironically, his colleagues told him how much they valued his judgement, but only after they’d been given a good listening to first.
Teams often conflate listening to someone with agreeing with them. The conversation Jim’s realisation provoked brought this common problem to the surface. Listening to understand someone is not the same as agreeing with them; these are two separate activities.
When we listen to understand first, judgement free, with little on our mind other than curiosity about what someone is saying, we discover much more about where there are grounds for agreement, disagreement and synthesis. We can be more considered in our response than is the case when we jump on the first thing we disagree with.
Listening to understand requires little more than awareness of the tendency we all have to not do this. To realise when we’re slipping into listening to reply, negate, confirm, disagree mode instead.
Why does listening matter?
Years ago, I read a book called The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman. Gary suggested there are five ways we each like to give and receive love:
Acts of service - doing things for others and having them done for you.
Words of affirmation - saying good things about others’ strengths and receiving similar about yours.
Gifts - showing love through giving and receiving gifts.
Touch - being physically held, touched or cuddled and doing the same for others.
Quality time - giving time to others to fully hear what they have to say, and receive it in return.
There are three types of love: erotic, philo (friendship) and agape (spiritual). The last of these five languages, quality time, suggests listening is a love language that builds friendships in groups.
In my experience, people prefer to be heard more than seen.
Though rare in this increasingly busy world, having someone else listen without judgement is one of the most affirming things that can happen to we humans. It builds connections between us. We ‘get’ each other more easily. We can speak to our differences authentically and considerately once we know what they are. We build stronger relationships through conversations that help us understand each other. Trust follows. We find new answers to seemingly intractable problems as a consequence.
High-performing teams that have honed their listening qualities to laser-like levels know this is their secret sauce. They listen with little on their mind other than curiosity about what they each have to say. They can summarise what a client, colleague or supplier has said, and how they’re feeling about it, with pinpoint accuracy. Sometimes they only move on to the next person or topic once such a summary has been made to the speaker’s satisfaction.
Listening to understand each other is vital to how great teams make sense of situations and decide what to do. It’s at the heart of good relationships that ooze high levels of trust.
High performance is correlated with high-quality listening. Why? Because so much waste is avoided compared to teams that don’t perform well. The waste that arises when teams..
Think listening to each other isn’t “real work”, creates a “talking shop” and takes too long.
Misunderstand each other and have to do much re-work; losing time and money as a result.
Miss the nuances in how they communicate with each other - the music behind the words that signal how people are feeling and what they’re likely to do next as a consequence.
Don’t trust each other and cc all and sundry on emails to cover their back and create more work.
Listening deeply to ourselves matters too.
By listening to sensations, thoughts and feelings that mysteriously visit us, continuously in a waking state, we get to a deeper knowing of who and what we are. We can observe ourselves in action, seeing in any moment what’s flowing through our mind and its potential to distract us from either listening to someone else’s voice, or our own, wise intuitions. And as soon as we notice that distraction, we have everything we need to let it go and come back to the present moment.
That’s it.
That’s all you need to be aware of, for the laser-like listening qualities you were born with and are innate to come to the fore.
Next time I’ll zoom in on the inevitable disagreements that arise in groups and what makes them healthy and unhealthy experiences.
Until then,
Kindest,
Roger
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Other useful, free posts.
You can find all the posts in my first series here.
While it’s good to pick those whose titles speak to you most, I recommend these five in particular:
#3 Being Right Here Right Now - Hard To Do? - This covers the idea of being fully present and what distracts us from that.
#4 How We Experience Life Is Mysterious. Isn’t It? - This goes to the heart of the mystery surrounding why we get sensations, thoughts and feelings in the first place, and what the implications are of being at ease with this.
#5 What Influence Do You Have Over Your Experience In Each Moment? - Here I look at what is and is not within our control and where we can exert influence when changing our experience.
#6 If You Saw Wellbeing Like This, What Difference Would It Make? - If BEING WELL RIGHT NOW is the goal, this describes what that’s like and how our feelings can be a useful warning sign of wellbeing’s absence.
#8 Why Do You Respond To “Difficult” Others Like That? - Here I invite you to consider some of the deeper, often-hidden assumptions we hold about the nature of human nature and their impact on your experience of difficult others.
Thank you Roger for sharing your thoughts on listening. I enjoyed the read, found it insightful and thoughtful.
In particular, I loved this observation..."Ironically, his colleagues told him how much they valued his judgement, but only after they’d been given a good listening to first."
This simple sentence, says so much about the impact listening can have on a colleague. I value your judgement (thoughts, observations, etc.), but only when I feel heard.
And, again as you say, listening like this saves time and money, (less misunderstandings, less re-work), and builds connection and trust within the team.
I agree with your starting two questions...my question is how do we get them in the room to even have those questions?
Thank you Roger
Colin