James 1:19
. . . Let every man be quick to hear [a ready listener], slow to speak, slow to take offense and to get angry.
Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness. Margaret Millar, The Weak-Eyed Bat.
Have you ever been in a crowd or a group of family and friends and everyone talks over each other and nobody is heard? I’m sure you have . . . I know I have once or twice. I know I’m the guilty party on occasion who just wants to be heard above the rest. An example from me is it often takes place sitting around the table at work. Someone will start a story which will trigger someone else’s ADD thought and they jump right in with it depending on how good the ADD thought is people may now turn their focus on the person telling the add on thought leaving the original story teller to do one of two things. Forget about being heard or say “Hey I wasn’t finished!!!!” In my younger years I was all about being heard so I would have been the “Hey I wasn’t finished!!!” girl! Now I find I’m in the place that I think “ah forget it!” I’ll just sit here and listen and figure out what you’re all about.
However, in my mind, good listening skills can get you places! Scripture tells us to be quick to hear and slow to speak. Not be all about getting heard but being a good communicator.
Types of ineffective listening…
Pseudo listening – this is an imitation of true listening in which the receiver’s mind is elsewhere. ~ This may be the one I’m most guilty of! ~ Often pseudo listeners ignore you because of something on their minds that’s more important to them than your remarks. Other times they may simply be bored or think that they’ve heard what you have to say before and so tune out your remarks.
Stage-hogging – Sometimes called “Conversational Narcissists” trying to turn the topic of conversations to themselves instead of showing interest in the speaker. It’s a listening style in which the receiver is more concerned with making a point than with understanding the speaker. Two of the main strategies of a stage hog are to shift-response changing the focus of the conversation from the speaker to the narcissist: example; speaker: I had a great time mountain-biking last weekend.” Shift-response: Mountain-biking is ok, but I’d rather go running. The second strategy is interruptions. Besides preventing the listener from learning potentially valuable information, they can damage the relationship between the interrupter and the speaker.
Selective Listening – A listening style in which receivers respond only to the message that interests them. (I may think my 78 year old Mom has this as well as my 3 children! The old hear what you want to hear trick)! It’s not appropriate in a personal setting when your obvious inattention can insult or hurt the other person.
Insulated Listening – A style in which the receiver ignores undesirable information… When the topic arises they would just rather not deal with it so you simply fail to hear it or acknowledge it. So maybe my kids would better fall under this one. You need to clean your room!! Why didn’t you clean your room??? I didn’t hear you….hmmm you were standing in the same room when I told you to clean your room. I don’t remember I didn’t hear you, Mom. So perhaps you can do your own dialog for you children or partner or someone close who doesn’t hear you when it’s something they don’t want to deal with.
Defensive Listening – A response style in which the receiver perceives a speaker’s comments as an attack. It’s all about perception. You could be saying something to someone to open up a conversation about a topic and listener takes it as a personal attack generally from their own insecurities.
Ambushing – A style in which the receiver listens carefully in order to gather information to use in an attack on the speaker. Needless to say, using this kind of strategy will justifiably initiate defensiveness in the other person.
Insensitive Listening – Failure to recognize the thoughts or feelings that are not directly expressed by a speaker; instead, accepting the speaker’s words at face value. Insensitive listeners aren’t able to look beyond the words and behaviour to understand their hidden meanings. Instead, they take a speaker’s remarks at face value.
Why don’t we listen better?
There are several reasons why we don’t listen, take a look at these…
Message overload – The amount of speech most of us encounter every day makes careful listening to everything we hear impossible.
Preoccupation – Another reason we don’t always listen carefully is that we’re often wrapped up in personal concerns that are of more immediate importance to us than the messages others are sending.
Rapid Thought – Listening carefully is also difficult for a physiological reason. Although we’re capable of understanding speech at rates of up to 600 words per minute, the average person speaks between 100 and 150 words per minute. Thus, we have a lot of “spare time” to spend with our minds while someone is talking. The temptation is to use this time in ways that don’t relate to the speaker’s ideas, but the trick is to use the time to understand the speaker’s ideas rather that to let your attention wander.
Effort – Listening effectively is hard work. Some are just not that interested in putting in that effort. Have you ever come home exhausted after having a coffee with a friend in need? Spending the evening listening can be a draining process.
External Noise – The physical word in which we live often presents distractions that make it hard to pay attention to others.
Hearing Problems – Sometimes a person’s listening ability suffers from hearing impairment.
Faulty Assumptions – We often make incorrect assumptions that lead us to believe we’re listening attentively when quite the opposite is true. For instance we are less likely to listen when the subject is a familiar one or if we find it boring.
Lack of Apparent Advantages – It often seems like there’s more to gain by speaking than listening. Examples; my idea is better than theirs. If I don’t interrupt them, I’ll never get to say my idea. I know what they are about to say…etc.
Lack of Training – Even if we want to listen well, we’re often hampered by a lack of skill. The truth is that listening is a skill much like speaking; virtually everybody does it, though few people do it well.
Media Influences – A final challenge to listening is the influence of contemporary mass media, especially TV, radio and internet. Most consist of short segments this discourages the kind of focus necessary for careful listening, especially to complicated ideas and feelings.
Oh, to be a better listener!
Talk less – Zeno of Citium says it this way; “we have been given two ears and but a single mouth, in order that we may hear more and talk less.”
Get Rid of Distractions – If the information is important to you, do everything possible to eliminate the internal and external noise that interferes with careful listening.
Don’t Judge Prematurely – Most people would agree that it’s essential to understand a speaker’s ideas before judging them, yet we are all guilty of forming a snap judgment. Even if there is no criticism or disagreement, we tend to evaluate others based on sketchy first impressions. Bottom line, listen first, make sure you understand and then evaluate.
Look for Key Ideas – It’s easy to lose patience with long-winded speakers who never seem to get to the point or better still never seem to have a point. If you can’t figure out what the speaker is driving at, you can always ask in a tactful way.
To sum it up; asking questions – A style of helping in which the receiver seeks additional information from the sender to be sure the speaker’s thoughts and feelings are being receiver accurately and paraphrasing – Repeating a speaker’s thoughts and or feelings in the listener’s own words. Both of these are important ways of seeking information. Another type of listening focuses on helping others solve their problems. Some common helping styles are advising- a helping response in which the receiver offers suggestions about how the speaker should deal with a problem, judging- a reaction in which the receiver evaluates the sender’s message either favorably or unfavorably, analyzing- a helping style in which the listener offers and interpretation of a speaker’s message, questioning and supporting-responses that demonstrate solidarity with a speaker’s situation. Prompting- using silences and brief statements of encouragement to draw out a speaker and paraphrasing are less common but effective response styles. The most helpful communicators use a variety of these styles, choosing the one most appropriate for themselves, the situation at hand and the person with the problem.
This is a lot of information, I know!! I even cracked open my Looking Out, Looking In book from Interpersonal Behavior course to give you this. If you can take away one thing from this blog, remember to listen and not always need to be heard!!!
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