By Jeri Mae Rowley
We hear with our ears. We listen with our hearts.
In the Chinese language, the active verb “to listen” is created with four characters: ears, eyes, undivided attention, and heart. If one of these elements is missing—you aren’t really listening. We hear with our ears. We listen with our hearts.
Some people are hard of hearing. Hearing involves the physical vibration of sound waves on an eardrum. Hearing happens unconsciously, when your ears perceive sounds.
Many people are “hard of listening.” Listening requires concentration to enable your brain to process meaning from language, tone, and sentences. When we truly listen, we have an opportunity to understand what the sender—Even if we don’t agree. And research shows that of all of our communications skills, we rely on listening most—as much as 45% of our work day.
According to Stephen Covey, there are five different levels of listening:
1. Ignoring: don’t even make the effort to hear.
2. Pretending: act like we’re listening but our mind and heart are not engaged.
3. Selective listening: pay attention only when our own ideas and beliefs are supported.
4. Attentive listening: focus on words, compare to our own experiences, but not focused on meaning.
5. Empathic listening: striving to understand from the speaker’s perspective rather than filtering it through our own experiences and paradigms.
Achieving attentive and empathic levels takes a combination of listening skill and commitment. We have to not interrupt, ask questions for clarification, and—as the Chinese tell us—give the speaker our “undivided attention.”
Our attention can be challenged by something called “thought speed.”
People speak at 180-200 words per minute but can listen and process information twice as fast at
at 400 words per minute or faster with some experts saying
the number could be as high as thousands of words per minute. When you add that to the
fact that we retain on average only 25% of what we hear, that 75% is lost, you’re looking
at a communication chasm that can seriously affect the impact of your message. No
wonder sound bites have become ubiquitous in our culture!
You can think three to four times faster than a person can talk, which is a major reason for poor concentration. Impatient with the speaker’s slow progress, your mind wanders off until you hear something that interests you. Then you realize you’ve missed something, and you don’t really understand what the person is asking. When the temptation to take brief mental excursions becomes irresistible — this frequently happens while listening to long-winded speakers — your listening efficiency drops to near zero.
To use your thinking speed to advantage, keep analyzing what the speaker’s saying as he talks. Mentally sum up what’s been said. Weigh the evidence by considering whether the facts are accurate and the viewpoints are objective, or whether the speaker is only trying to prove a point.
To listen effectively, Covey tells us to have to move to a fifth level, which he calls empathic listening. Empathic listening is listening to understand. It’s listening for meaning as well as content. It does not mean agreeing although that is a risk that comes with opening yourself to be influenced by another point of view. It does evolve trying to understand what the speaker is saying from his perspective rather than filtering it through our own experiences and paradigms.
Empathic listening requires skill and commitment. Practicing and refining the skills will start the process, but unless there is a real desire to understand, the skills are little more than techniques that will quickly become transparent. That’s why, according to Covey, personal integrity along with the courage and commitment that come with maturity (Habits One through Three) are critical to becoming an empathic listener.
Hearing is one thing—the physical vibration of sound waves on an eardrum. o you think there is a difference between hearing and listening? You are right, there is! Hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something you consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning.
Most people tend to be “hard of listening” rather than “hard of hearing.”
Although we use listening skills more than any other communication skill, listening is rarely taught (Since the human brain works about four times as fast as the mouth, to listen effectively requires that you maintain a considerable amount of self-control and concentration. It is little wonder that you may have found yourself nodding off in class or wondering why you seem to gain very little from attending lectures when we consider these facts. The good news is that you can improve your listening skills by practicing the following techniques and principles:
Hearing passive
Listening active changes in heart rate, brain activity, ….
People speak at 180-200 words per minute.
Research shows that most people talk at a rate of 135 to 150 words per minute but can
listen and process information at 400 words per minute or faster with some experts saying
the number could be as high as thousands of words per minute. When you add that to the
fact that we retain on average only 25% of what we hear, that 75% is lost, you’re looking
at a communication chasm that can seriously affect the impact of your message. No
wonder sound bites have become ubiquitous in our culture!
Chinese
Dr. Covey
Shirley
Mrs. Kissinger
You probably spend more time using your listening skills than any other kind of skill. Like other skills, listening takes practice.
What does it mean to really listen?
Real listening is an active process that has three basic steps.
• Hearing. Hearing just means listening enough to catch what the speaker is saying. For example, say you were listening to a report on zebras, and the speaker mentioned that no two are alike. If you can repeat the fact, then you have heard what has been said.
• Understanding. The next part of listening happens when you take what you have heard and understand it in your own way. Let’s go back to that report on zebras. When you hear that no two are alike, think about what that might mean. You might think, “Maybe this means that the pattern of stripes is different for each zebra.”
• Judging. After you are sure you understand what the speaker has said, think about whether it makes sense. Do you believe what you have heard? You might think, “How could the stripes to be different for every zebra? But then again, the fingerprints are different for every person. I think this seems believable.”
Tips for being a good listener
• Give your full attention on the person who is speaking. Don’t look out the window or at what else is going on in the room.
• Make sure your mind is focused, too. It can be easy to let your mind wander if you think you know what the person is going to say next, but you might be wrong! If you feel your mind wandering, change the position of your body and try to concentrate on the speaker’s words.
• Let the speaker finish before you begin to talk. Speakers appreciate having the chance to say everything they would like to say without being interrupted. When you interrupt, it looks like you aren’t listening, even if you really are.
• Let yourself finish listening before you begin to speak! You can’t really listen if you are busy thinking about what you want say next.
• Listen for main ideas. The main ideas are the most important points the speaker wants to get across. They may be mentioned at the start or end of a talk, and repeated a number of times. Pay special attention to statements that begin with phrases such as “My point is…” or “The thing to remember is…”
• Ask questions. If you are not sure you understand what the speaker has said, just ask. It is a good idea to repeat in your own words what the speaker said so that you can be sure your understanding is correct. For example, you might say, “When you said that no two zebras are alike, did you mean that the stripes are different on each one?”
• Give feedback. Sit up straight and look directly at the speaker. Now and then, nod to show that you understand. At appropriate points you may also smile, frown, laugh, or be silent. These are all ways to let the speaker know that you are really listening. Remember, you listen with your face as well as your ears!
Thinking fast
Remember: time is on your side! Thoughts move about four times as fast as speech. With practice, while you are listening you will also be able to think about what you are hearing, really understand it, and give feedback to the speaker.
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Jeri Mae Rowley, MS Human Resource Management, is a professional speaker, trainer and author from Great Falls, Montana. You can read more of her articles and learn about her many speaking and training topics on her website: www.stressinadress.info.