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FIVE POOR LISTENING STYLES

To understand someone you must listen to them. Surprise! The problem is that most of us don’t know how to listen.

Imagine this. You’re trying to decide what classes to take next year. You open up your class schedule and look at what’s available.

“Hmmm … Let me see … Geometry. Creative writing. Beginning speech. English literature. Listening. Wait a minute. Listening? A class on listening? Is this a joke?” This would be quite a surprise, wouldn’t it? But it really shouldn’t be, because listening is one of the four primary forms of communication, along with reading, writing, and speaking. And if you think about it, since birth you’ve been taking classes on how to read, write, and speak better, but when have you ever taken a class on how to listen better?

When people talk we seldom listen because we’re usually too busy preparing a response, judging, or filtering their words through our own paradigms. It’s so typical of us to use one of these five poor listening styles: Five Poor Listening Styles

• Spacing out

• Pretend listening

• Selective listening

• Word listening

• Self-centered listening

Spacing out is when someone is talking to us but we ignore them because our mind is wandering off in another galaxy. They may have something very important to say, but we’re caught up in our own thoughts. We all space out from time to time, but do it too much and you’ll get a reputation for being “out of it.” Pretend listening is more common. We still aren’t paying much attention to the other person, but at least we pretend we are by making insightful comments at key junctures, such as “yeah,” “uhhuh,” “cool,” “sounds great.” The speaker will usually get the hint and will feel that he or she is not important enough to be heard.

Selective listening is where we pay attention only to the part of the conversation that interests us. For example, your friend may be trying to tell you how it feels to be in the shadow of his talented brother in the army. All you hear is the word “army” and say, “Oh yeah, the army! I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately.” Since you’ll always talk about what you want to talk about, instead of what the other person wants to talk about, chances are you’ll never develop lasting friendships.

Word listening occurs when we actually pay attention to what someone is saying, but we listen only to the words, not to the body language, the feelings, or the true meaning behind the words. As a result, we miss out on what’s really being said. Your friend Kim might say to you, “What do you think of Ronaldo?” You might reply, “I think he’s pretty cool.” But if you had been more sensitive, and listened to her body language and tone of voice, you would have heard that she was really saying, “Do you think Ronaldo likes me?” If you focus on words only, you’ll seldom be in touch with the deeper emotions of people’s hearts.

Self-centered listening happens when we see everything from our own point of view. Instead of standing in another’s shoes, we want them to stand in ours. This is where sentences like “Oh, I know exactly how you feel” come from. We don’t know exactly how they feel, we know exactly how we feel, and we assume they feel the same way we do, like the shoe salesman who thinks that you should like the shoes because he likes them. Self-centered listening is often a game of one-upmanship, where we try to one-up each other, as if conversations were a competition. “You think your day was bad? That’s nothin’. You should hear what happened to me.” When we listen from our point of view, we usually reply in one of three ways, all of which make the other person immediately close up. We judge, we advise, and we probe. Let’s take a look at each.

Judging. Sometimes, as we listen to others, we make judgments (in the back of our minds) about them and what they’re saying. If you’re busy judging, you’re not really listening, are you? People don’t want to be judged, they want to be heard. In the conversation below, notice how little listening and how much judging is going on in the mind of the listener. (The listener’s judgments are enclosed in parentheses.) Peter: I had a great time with Katherine last night.

Karl: Oh, that’s nice. (Katherine? Why would you want to go out with Katherine?) Peter: I had no idea how great she is.

Karl: Oh, yeah? (Here you go again. You think every girl is great.)

Peter: Yeah. I’m thinking about asking her to the prom!

Karl: I thought you were going to ask Jessica. (Are you crazy? Jessica is much better looking than Katherine.) Peter: I was. But I think I’ll ask Katherine now.

Karl: Well, ask her out then. (I’m sure you’ll change your mind tomorrow.) Karl was so busy judging that he didn’t hear a word Peter was saying and missed out on an opportunity to make a deposit into Peter’s RBA.

Advising. This is when we give advice drawn from our own experience. This is the when-I-was-your-age speech you often get from your elders.

An emotional sister who needs a listening ear says to her brother:

“I don’t like our new school at all. Ever since we moved I’ve felt like the biggest outcast. I wish I could find some new friends.” Instead of listening to understand, the brother reflects upon his own life and says: “You need to start meeting new people and get involved in sports and clubs like I did.” Little sister didn’t want any advice from a well-intentioned brother, no matter how good it was. She just wanted to be listened to, for heaven’s sake. Once she felt understood, only then would she be open to his advice. Big brother blew a big chance for a big deposit.

Probing. Probing occurs when you try to dig up emotions before people are ready to share them. Have you ever been probed? Parents do it to teens all the time. Your mom, with every good intention, tries to find out what’s going on in your life. But since you’re not ready to talk, her attempts feel intrusive, and so you shut her out.

“Hi, honey How was school today?”

“Fine.”

“How did you do on your test?”

“OK.”

“How are your friends?”

“Good.”

“Do you have any plans tonight?”

“Not really.”

“Have you been seeing any cute girls lately?”

“No, Mom. Just leave me alone.”

No one likes to be interrogated. If you’re asking a lot of questions and not getting very far, you’re probably probing. Sometimes people just aren’t prepared to open up and don’t feel like talking. Learn to be a great listener and offer an open ear when the time is right.

• GENUINE LISTENING

Luckily, you and I never exhibit any of these five poor listening styles. Right? Well, maybe just occasionally. There is a higher form of listening, fortunately, which leads to real communication. We call it “genuine listening.” And it’s the kind of practice we want to put to use. But to do genuine listening, you need to do three things differently.

First, listen with your eyes, heart, and ears. Listening with just your ears isn’t good enough, because only 7 percent of communication is contained in the words we use. The rest comes from body language (53 percent) and how we say words, or the tone and feeling reflected in our voice (40 percent). For example, notice how you can change the meaning of a sentence just by emphasizing a different word.

I didn’t say you had an attitude problem.

I didn’t say you had an attitude problem.

I didn’t say you had an attitude problem.

To hear what other people are really saying, you need to listen to what they are not saying. No matter how hard people may appear on the surface, most everyone is tender inside and has a desperate need to be understood. The following poem (one of my all-time favorites) captures this need.

PLEASE … HEAR WHAT I’M NOT SAYING

Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the mask I wear. For I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that is second nature with me, but don’t befooled.

…I give the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without; that confidence is my name and coolness is my game; that the waters are calm and that I’m in command and I need no one. But don’t believe it; please don’t.

I idly chatter with you in the suave tones of surface talk. I tell you every-thing that’s really nothing, nothing of what’s crying within me. So when I’m going through my routine, don’t befooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying; what I’d like to be able to say; what, for survival, I need to say but I can’t say. I dislike the hiding. Honestly I do. I dislike the superficial phony games I’m playing.

I’d really like to be genuine, spontaneous, and me; but you have to help me. You have to help me by holding out your hand, even when that’s the last thing I seem to want or need. Each time you are kind and gentle and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings. Very small wings. Very feeble wings. But wings. With your sensitivity and sympathy and your power of understanding, I can make it. You can breathe life into me. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. But love is stronger than strong walls, and therein lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands, but with gentle hands, for a child is very sensitive, and I am a child.

Who am I, you may wonder. For I am every man, every woman, every child … every human you meet.

Second, stand in their shoes. To become a genuine listener, you need to take off your shoes and stand in another’s. In the words of Robert Byrne, “Until you walk a mile in another man’s moccasins you can’t imagine the smell.” You must try to see the world as they see it and try to feel as they feel.

Let’s pretend for a moment that everyone in the world wears tinted glasses and that no two shades are exactly alike. You and I are standing on the banks of a river. I am wearing green lenses and you are wearing red. “Wow, look how green the water is,” I say.

“Green? Are you crazy, the water is red,” you reply.

“Hello. Are you colorblind? That’s as green as green gets.”

“It’s red, you idiot!”

“Green!”

“Red!”

Many people look at conversations as a competition. It’s my point of view versus yours; we can’t both be right. In reality, since we’re both coming from a different point of view, we both can be. Furthermore, it’s silly to try to win conversations. That usually ends up in Win-Lose or Lose-Lose and is a withdrawal from the RBA.

My little sister was once told this story by a friend of hers named Toby. Notice what a difference standing in another’s shoes made: The worst part about going to school was having to ride the bus. I mean most of my friends had a car to drive (even if it was a junkie) but we couldn’t afford a car for my own personal use, so I had to either take the bus or find a ride. Sometimes I would call my mom after school to come and pick me up, but she would take so long it drove me crazy. I remember many times screaming at my mom, “What took you forever? Don’t you even care that I’ve been waiting for hours?!” I never noticed how she felt or what she’d been doing. I only thought about myself.

One day I overheard my mom talking to my dad about it. She was crying and said how much she wished they could afford a car for me and how hard she had been working to try to earn the extra money.

Suddenly my whole perspective changed. I saw my mom as a real person with feelings— fear, hopes, doubts, and a great amount of love for me. I vowed never to treat her bad again. I even started talking more to her, and together we figured out a way I could get a part-time job and earn my way to a car. She even volunteered to drive me to work and back. I wish I had listened to her earlier.

Third, practice mirroring. Think like a mirror. What does a mirror do? It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t give advice. It reflects. Mirroring is simply this: Repeat back in your own words what the other person is saying and feeling. Mirroring isn’t mimicking. Mimicking is when you repeat exactly what the other person says, like a parrot: “Geez, Tom. I’m having the worst time in school right now.” “You’re having the worst time in school right now.” “I’m practically flunking all of my classes.”

“You’re practically flunking all of your classes.”

“Man, stop saying everything I’m saying. What is it with you?” Mirroring is different from mimicking in the following ways:

Mimicking is: repeating words

Mirroring is: repeating meaning

Mimicking is: using the same words

Mirroring is: using your own words

Mimicking is: cold and indifferent

Mirroring is: warm and caring

Let’s take a look at an everyday conversation to see how mirroring works.

Your dad might say to you: “No! You can’t take the car tonight, Son. And that’s final.” A typical seek-first-to-talk response might be: “You never let me take the car. I always have to get a ride. And I’m sick of it.” This kind of response usually ends up in a big yelling match where neither side feels very good afterward.

Instead, try mirroring. Repeat back in your own words what the other person is saying and feeling. Let’s try it again.

“No! You can’t take the car tonight, Son. And that’s final.”

“I can see that you’re upset about this, Dad.”

“You bet I’m upset. The way your grades have been dropping lately, you don’t deserve the car.” “You’re worried about my grades.”

“I am. You know how badly I want you to get into college.” “College is really important to you, isn’t it?” “I never had the chance to go to college. And I’ve never been able to make much because of it. I know money’s not everything, but it sure would help right now. I just want a better life for you.” “I see.”

“You are so capable that it just drives me crazy when you don’t take school seriously. I guess you can take the car if you promise me you’ll do your homework later tonight. That’s all I’m asking. Promise?” Did you notice what happened? By practicing the skill of mirroring, the boy was able to uncover the real issue. Dad didn’t care so much about him taking the car; he was more worried about his future and his casualness toward school. Once he felt that his son understood how important grades and college were to him, he dropped his defenses.

I can’t guarantee that mirroring will always lead to such perfect outcomes. It’s usually, but not always, more complicated than this. Dad might have replied, “I’m glad you understand where I’m coming from, Son. Now go do your homework.” But I can guarantee that mirroring will be a deposit into another’s RBA and that you’ll get further than you’d get using the “fight or flight” approach. If you’re still a skeptic, I challenge you to give it a try. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Disclaimer. If you practice mirroring but don’t really desire to understand others, they will see through it and feel manipulated. Mirroring is a skill, the tip of the iceberg. Your attitude or desire to really understand another is the lurking mass of ice underneath the surface. If your attitude is right but you don’t have the skill, you’ll be okay But it doesn’t work the other way around. If you have both the attitude and the skill, you’ll become a powerful communicator!

Here are a few mirroring phrases you can use when trying to practice genuine listening. Remember, your goal is to repeat back in your own words what another person is saying and feeling.

Mirroring Phrases

• “As I get it, you felt that …”

• “So, as I see it …”

• “I can see that you’re feeling …”

• “You feel that…”

• “So, what you’re saying is …”

Important note: There is a time and a place for genuine listening. You’ll want to do it when you’re talking about an important or sensitive issue, like if a friend really needs help or if you’re having a communication problem with a loved one. These conversations take time and you can’t rush them. However, you don’t need to do it during casual conversations or everyday small talk: “Man, where’s the bathroom? I gotta go real bad.”

“So what you’re saying is you’re worried you won’t find a bathroom in time.” Genuine Listening in Action

Let’s take another look at the sister who needs a listening ear from her big brother to illustrate how different genuine listening is.

Sister says, “I don’t like our new school at all. Ever since we moved I’ve felt like the biggest outcast. I wish I could find some new friends.” The brother could use any one of the following responses: “Pass the Cheetos?” (Spacing out) “Sounds great.” (Pretend listening)

“Speaking of friends, my friend Bart …” (Selective listening) “What you need to do is start meeting new people.” (Advising) “You’re not trying hard enough.” (Judging) “Are you having trouble with your grades?” (Probing)

But if big bro is smart, he’ll try mirroring:

“You feel that school’s kind of tough right now.” (Mirroring)

“It’s the worst. I mean I don’t have any friends. And that Tabatha Jones has been so rude to me. Oh, I just don’t know what to do.” “You feel confused.” (Mirroring)

“Sure do. I’ve always been popular and then suddenly no one knows my name. I’ve been trying to get to know people, but it doesn’t seem to be working.” “I can see you’re frustrated.” (Mirroring)

“Yeah. I probably sound like I’m psycho or something. Anyway, thanks for listening.” “No problem.”

“What do you think I should do?”

By listening, big brother made a huge deposit into his sister’s RBA. In addition, little sister is now open to his advice. The time is now right for him to seek to be understood, to share his point of view.

A guy named Andy shared this:

I was going through communication problems with my girlfriend whom I cared very much about. We had been going out for a year and we had begun to fight and argue a lot, and I was really scared to maybe lose her. When I learned about seeking first to understand and then to be understood, and how to apply the relationship bank account to relationships, I took it very personal. I realized that I always had been trying to interpret what she was saying, but never really listened with an open mind. It saved our relationship and we are still together two years later. Our relationship is much more mature than most couples because we both believe in Habit 5. We use it for big decisions as well as little ones like going out to dinner. Every time I am together with her, I honestly keep saying to myself, “Now shut up and try to understand her.”