Are you listening……? The Art of Active Listening

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” — Ralph Nichols

Have you ever felt like not being properly heard by your spouse, your colleagues, your children, your friends? In the midst of that serious discussion with your husband, haven’t you said to yourself “God! Why isn’t he listening to me?” When you had a cold war with your mother-in-law, haven’t you realized that she didn’t listen to the narration given by you for not bringing her medicine and is just going by what her “morning walk friends’ have told her? And just remember that meeting where you went with the first ever presentation of yours, bubbling with energy. After a few minutes of the presentation, haven’t you felt like you had wasted your time preparing for that presentation and here was the ‘intellectual crowd’ making most of their time munching cookies and enjoying the cool atmosphere of the conference hall.

Yes, we all crave for ears to listen to our words. 

These were the situations where you were the speaker. Just think of those moments when you were on the other end, listening to someone- in class, at home, in a training session, in a discussion, in meeting. Were you not behaving like the listeners in the above paragraph?

"We were given two ears but only one mouth, because listening is twice as hard as talking." Did you know that our brain uses as much energy in an hour of careful listening as is used by our body during a long race?

Listening is one of the most important skills one can have. How well we listen has a major impact on our job effectiveness and on the quality of our relationships with others. Active, effective listening is a habit which can be developed through practice. It is the foundation of effective communication. It is a way of listening and responding to other person that improves mutual understanding.

What is ‘Active Listening’

Active listening is an intent to "listen for meaning", in which the listener checks with the speaker to see that a statement has been correctly heard and understood. The goal of active listening is to improve mutual understanding.

In Active listening, the attention is focused on the speaker. The listener must be able to repeat in his own words what was being said by the speaker. It is not necessary for the listener to agree or disagree with the speaker. He has to hear, interpret and assign a contextual meaning to what has been said. He then has to restate his interpretation of the spoken material so that the speaker may confirm or clarify the actual meaning of what was said by him. This enables the speaker to find out whether the listener has really understood what is being said.

Active listening has several benefits. First, it forces people to listen attentively to others. Second, it avoids misunderstandings, resolves conflicts and builds trust as the listener has to state his interpretation of the speech and the speaker confirms it to be the same as was intended to be said. Third, it gets people to open up, to say more. Other benefits include patient satisfaction, improved cross-cultural communication, decreased litigation and so on.

Why Active Listening

When people talk to each other, they don’t listen attentively. They are often distractive, half listening, half thinking about something else which is not related to the spoken topic. When engaged in a conflict they are busy thinking about their own response to what is being said by the other person so that they may win the argument.

Active or empathic listening demands putting one's self in another's place. The goal is to effectively understand and accurately interpret another's meanings. We listen for various purposes- to have information, to understand, for enjoyment, for learning. Our purpose is lost if we don’t listen carefully, attentively, actively.

What stops us from listening perfectly

When listening to someone speaking, it is common to overlook aspects of the conversation or make judgments before all of the information is presented. This distorts the person’s message by affecting the perception of a particular topic. Some of the obstacles in effective listening may be understood as following:

• The tendency of the listener to pick out aspects of a conversation that supports his own beliefs and values
• Forming of opinion before obtaining all relevant information
• Arousal of a specific emotion- anger, frustration, hatred etc. that may affect the perception of the remaining conversation
• In highly graphic and dramatic descriptions (mostly presented by the media), the listener tends to believe that all aspects of the event are bad if he can remember even one vivid part that offended him
• Hunger! Yes it is hard to listen when one is hungry (so now when you know this, it is good to plan eating before meetings where it is known that listening would be important)

How can we become better listener

“A man's silence is wonderful to listen to” - Thomas Hardy

Active, effective listening is a habit which can be developed by anyone. Just use all your senses and not only ears to hear the world. If one hears not only the words but tries to understand the feelings and emotions that the speaker is undergoing, the meaning of the spoken matter can be interpreted in the way in which it is intended to be interpreted. Here is a list of things that a “listener” should do to become a “good listener” but in no way can this list be said to be an exhaustive one. Use your imagination beyond these tips to become a good listener.

How to listen well when in a group

• When in a group (class, meeting, conference, seminar), don’t engage yourself in any irrelevant activity and focus your attention on the subject.
• Review mentally what you already know about the subject
• Avoid distractions (looking out from window, side conversation, some noise, etc.)
• Acknowledge your emotional state, suspend emotions until later or passively participate unless you can control your emotions
• Set aside your prejudices, views, opinions, beliefs till the speaker has said all that has to be said. You are there to learn what the speaker has to say and not the other way round (your doubts may be cleared after the session is over or whenever the speaker gives chance to the audience for putting forward their questions. Just keep a note of your doubts so as to discuss later on)
• Be speaker-directed. Focus, follow and understand the speaker as if you were in his shoes. Listen not only with your ears but also with your eyes and other senses, with your mind and your heart.
• Be aware. Acknowledge, non- verbally, the points of the speaker. You don’t have to agree or disagree with the speaker’s points of view- just a slight nod, a smile or an eye contact is enough to acknowledge the speaker’s efforts so as to encourage him to follow his train of thoughts.
• Be involved , actively respond to questions and directions
• Summarize key points of the speech and whenever given a chance, restate and ask non-threatening questions so as to affirm your understanding of the subject.
• If some one is reading a printed material and you have a copy of the same, don’t follow the reader through the text. This will block the understanding of the subject properly. Just be a nice listener.
• If you are not able to avoid the distractions and cannot focus on listening, shut your eyes. This makes listening much sharper. But don’t try to do this while driving a car or taking skating classes, oops!!!

How to listen well in interpersonal communications

In emotionally charged communications, try to listen for the feelings. Observe the behaviour and body language of the other person. This can be really helpful to avoid any conflict. In conflicts, individuals often contradict each other, trying to invalidate the other person’s position. This often results in making one defensive which can either invite harsh treatment or withdrawal. Both the options can not resolve any conflict. On the contrary, if one feels that the other person is trying to understand his feelings and the underlying causes for it, an atmosphere of cooperation can be created which may result in the resolution of the conflict

• If you feel that you are responding emotionally to something said, say so, and ask for more information or clarification : “I think I am not able to understand you correctly and I am taking the thing personally. I thought that you just said that xxxxxxxx. Is that what you meant?” This attitude will certainly avoid any kind of misunderstanding
• Be Honest. If you are in the middle of something important, tell the same to a person trying to say something to you. Apologize and plan for another meeting so that you can give your full attention to what is being said. This will let the other people know that you appreciate their coming to you and you want to give them your full concentration. It’s much better than lending half-an-ear and not listening well.
• A person suffering from some emotional trauma or involved in a serious intra personal or interpersonal conflict has a buildup pressure of emotions in oneself. In such a state of mind one is not able to think clearly and may not be receptive to other person’s viewpoints. They need a release of the held up emotions. A ‘Good Listener’ allows the venting of emotions- anger, stress, frustration and other negative feelings- by being patient, until the individual is able to see clearly and consider other perspectives.
• If you are having trouble listening to someone, try noticing something good about the speaker or look for something interesting in what is being said. This will improve the way you listen.

We all know some or the other person who has this reputation of being a “Good Listener”. Next time you are speaking to one of them, “Observe and Learn”.

So, here wishing you all “Happy Listening”.