The capacity to listen is one of the most important assets we bring to the table in discussions with our family and friends. But given the racket of conversational exchanges we all hear while watching talk shows and news broadcasts on TV — often overlapping ones — listening appears to be something of a declining capacity in most of us.
The acuity of our listening skills is fundamental to all successful relationships and, right now, we want to share with you our insights on this important – but all-too-frequently overlooked – skill.
3 Categories of Listening
According to the classic textbooks on the subject there are three fundamental categories of listening:
- Informational Listening – listening to learn something, such as watching news or a documentary on TV.
- Critical Listening – when the goal is to assess and scrutinize the value of what is being said.
- Empathetic Listening – when you are trying to put yourself in someone else’s psychological shoes.
Listening Well is a Rare Gift
Dianne Schilling, who specializes in the development of educational materials and customized training programs for business and industry, wrote an insightful article in Forbes where she identified 10 steps effective listeners need to consider as a means of improving their listening skills. These steps included facing the speaker while maintaining eye contact, being attentive but relaxed, waiting for the speaker to pause in order to ask clarifying questions, and not interrupting to impose solutions.
Pay Attention to Nonverbal Cues
Another great take away from the same piece is that reading a person’s non-verbal cues is by far the most important aspect of effective listening. How often have you been at a dinner, a cocktail party or even a meeting – especially if it involves some kind of negotiation – and divined, purely through body language, that the individual across from you is being evasive or dishonest?
Most of the communication we all engage in is nonverbal. As Ms. Schilling observes:
We glean a great deal of information about each other without saying a word. Even over the telephone, you can learn almost as much about a person from the tone and cadence of a voice than from anything said.
Remember that words convey only a fraction of the message. Adds Ms. Schilling: “Face to face with a person, you can detect enthusiasm, boredom, or irritation very quickly in the expression around the eyes, the set of the mouth, the slope of the shoulders. These are clues you can’t ignore.”
Take It From An Expert…
An issue of The Wall Street Journal published a short commentary entitled A Hostage Negotiator’s Lesson in Listening. It dealt with a gentleman by the name of Glenn Cohen, who recently retired as chief psychologist and hostage negotiator.
Mr. Cohen is someone who regards successful listening – and remember he’s talking to a terrorist, and probably a fanatical one at that – as absolutely fundamental to success in his life-or-death profession.
Genuine listening has become an increasingly rare gift. It helps build relationships, solve problems, ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy. And, make no mistake, in Mr. Cohen’s line of work, listening can save lives.
Our final thoughts on this matter: it’s even more important to really listen to whomever you’re talking with these days because masks cover the lower half of our faces. Our smiles, grimaces or grumpy expressions, pursed lips and other facial tics are not visible to help provide us with clues as to a speakers’ intentions.