Library Worklife

Volume 2, No. 12 • December 2005

Work/Life

Listen Up!

Achieving Greater Understanding through Listening

By Julius Rhodes

How many times have you said or heard someone say, "Listen and learn"? From my earliest recollections in grammar school to my participation in endless client meetings I often run across people, who unabashedly exclaim, "Will you please just listen?" While I am sure these individuals are well intentioned the fact of the matter is that within each of us is a huge presumption that people do indeed know how to listen.

In reality, what I have found is that very few people do indeed know how to listen. From a very early age all of us were taught how to write, read and speak. However, the same cannot be said regarding our ability to listen. Instead of bandying about the phrase "listen and learn" I contend that we first need to learn to listen.

My first basketball coach, a great man by the name of Andrew Summerlin, was fond of the saying, "You have two ears and one mouth so you should listen twice as much as you talk." As a child the importance of this "street wisdom" was lost on me but as I matured I began to understand what he meant. For most of us the hardest thing to learn is something we think that we already know. As a result, if we truly believe we know something it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to unfreeze our current knowledge in favor of something that might be more beneficial.

Listening, some people will have you believe, is a natural activity. These same people would also have you believe that breathing is a passive rather than active process. If you think breathing is a passive process then answer this question: what happens to your mental processes when you have the wind knocked out of you? For most of us, when that occurs, it represents the first time we think about breathing as an active process. We have to concentrate on relaxing our diaphragm so that we can control the muscles that allow us to breathe.

The same is true of listening if we want to truly realize a symbiotic connection with the person who is communicating to us and achieve a greater understanding of their intended message and its potential impact. Listening is not a passive activity. Rather, listening is an active process that requires a great deal of concentration and effort.

Sadly in today’s age of emails, faxes and phone-mails the occasion to improve one’s listening skills is under assault. Therefore, it becomes absolutely critical that we must value every instance where we have an opportunity to listen to others. Given all the distractions and noise in our world, active listening allows you to better assist individuals with whom you are engaged.

By now you might be asking, if listening is such a critical skill then how do I improve in this area? That is a good question but before I answer that question let me first provide you with some of the reasons for poor or passive listening.

Rapid Thought: Most of us are able to process information mentally at a far greater speed than the average person is able to speak. Consequently our brain exceeds the capacity of the speaker to articulate his or her opinion.

Relevance: As a result of rapid thought many people become bored with the message that is being communicated or they may fail to see its relevance vis-à-vis other issues and or concerns they might have.

Preoccupation: All of us are continually faced with myriad situations in our professional and personal lives that compete for our attention and this preoccupation interferes with our ability to listen.

Excessive self-indulgence: All of us should have a positive opinion of ourselves, as well as our ability to help resolve issues that confront us. However, when a person begins to believe that his or her ideas are better than someone else’s simply because of who they are then that again constrains one’s ability to listen.

Now that you know some of the critical areas that limit our ability to listen, let’s examine how you can overcome these effects.

Rapid Thought: The simplest yet best answer to this issue is to allow yourself to slow down your mental processes such that you really focus on not just each statement the person is making but each word as well. This is an extremely difficult assignment initially and it is akin to focusing on a constellation of stars. First you have to identify the center point of the constellation and then you have to expand your frame of reference so that you can take in the full range of the object under consideration. What initially appears as a single object suddenly develops into a beautiful picture.

Relevance: While all of us would like to believe that the conversations that we are involved in will all be relevant to our current issues, in actuality that will not always be the case. Therefore, I believe an opportunity exists for each of us to try and identify how the presented information might fit into other areas that we may have to address. This is akin to mining for gold where you have to sift through a lot of sediment but when all is said and done you have obtained a nugget that is highly valuable.

Preoccupation: As is the case with rapid thought, preoccupation has the ability to severely limit one’s ability to actively listen to the message that is being communicated. While I am not suggesting that you try to make your mind a blank slate when interacting with others, I am saying that the best way I have found to avoid this pitfall is to put yourself in the shoes of the other person. How would you feel if the person with whom you were speaking was not attentive to your message? If you can imagine how you would feel in this situation then it should help you proceed accordingly.

Excessive self-indulgence: The number one cause of business failures is over optimism. Listening is the same as a business enterprise and if people do not feel like you are meeting their needs they will work around you and find someone else who will. Ultimately if your "customers" find other places to get their message heard, then you will be left out of the loop and you run the risk of having your services become obsolete.

Remember the old saying anything worth having is worth working for? Well the same is true if you are to improve your listening skills. It will not occur overnight and the first time you attempt these strategies it will be difficult. However, with repeated practice you will be able to master these approaches and achieve greater understanding via the application of thorough listening practices.

Julius E. Rhodes, SPHR is Founder and Principal of the mpr group a broad-based Human Resources (HR) consulting practice that provides services in: training program development and delivery, project management, motivational and keynote addresses, executive coaching and development, ethics consultations and other HR areas. Contact him to see how his services can benefit your organization at 773-548-8037, via email at j-rhodes1@neiu.edu or you can visit his web site at www.bossnetworks.com/mprgroup/index.htm.

We would love to have your feedback on this article!