LISTEN HEAR!

LISTEN HEAR!

Bottom line, there are only two major causes of personal crisis. One springs out of one or more kinds of Fear: the second arises out of a perception that our emotional needs are not being met.

The Royal #1. Emotional Need is the need to BE HEARD.

Whenever you feel you are not being listened to, you feel unsupported by your environment and unable to interact with it to get your other needs met. That leads to perceptions of aloneness, inadequacy, confusion, anxiety, rejection, alienation, insignificance, meaninglessness, overwhelm and an inability to cope.

FIRSTLY, BE A GOOD LISTENER

To feel you're not being heard is one helluva smack in the face. I find it hard to think of a more devastating one. That being the case, the first skill to acquire may well be to learn how to listen.

Rare indeed is the effective communicator who did not first learn to be a good listener. Adolf Hitler comes to mind as one exception, but he did not last long. Neither do other bad listeners. No matter how gifted you may be with the gab, the time comes to shut the orifice that dominates your face, and use the two on either side of your head. While your lips are moving and your mind is working out what you're going to say next, you're not learning anything.

Unlike Hearing, which is an innate sensory resource that most of us were born with, Active Listening is a skill that does have to be learned. Listening involves intentionally creating space inside our-self to receive unconditionally whatever is being offered. In listening mode we turn the volume down on any expectation we may have of what or how the offering should be. Listening focuses on the speaker, seeks to enter the space he/she is coming from, and consciously allows the message and its context to filter easily through our judgemental defences.

Listening means attending to the Speaker, as well as what is spoken. In Listening mode we openly meet the speaker and what is being said and how it is being said and we wilfully allow all of that to lie alongside our experience up to date. We consciously create a temporary “Maybe” file in which what is being said can lie, unmolested by our Inner Judge for the time being.

Listening means giving your ego a break and taking in the whole message before any comparing, evaluating, believing, doubting, accepting or rejecting robs the process of its transforming potential. Any thinking about what is being said stops us from hearing what is being said while the thinking is going on. No-one can do both at once. Don't believe me – try it for yourself. Set yourself a difficult mathematical problem to work out in your mind, and have someone read you something at the same time. Watch how your mind has to flick from one to the other – the instant thinking starts, experience and listening stops everywhere other than precisely where you're focused in the moment. That's why we're widely advised to ignore the mobile phone while we're driving

Until recently I had a friend who, in time, revealed an annoying habit of listening to the first few seconds of what someone else is saying to him, then I'd see him switch off his ears and start compiling his response, waiting for the other to pause for breath so that he could jump in and take over control. Needless to say, he is no longer on my “friends” list. If you have such an acquaintance, you might try getting an agreement from him/her to hear you out until you have finished, then NOTHING is to be said for the next 60 seconds, at least. Both of you allow the echoes of what has been said to quietly reverberate, and the thoughts contained to percolate in silence. At first you will find this task impossible to do without “losing it”. Most people cannot go more than 7 seconds in silence; a minute will feel like eternity, during which your mind will wriggle and squirm like a tortured eel. Persevere. With persistence, it will get better to the point where you actually enjoy the pause.

In Listening mode, we agree to allow ourselves the possibility of being affected. If you're addicted to being “right” about your own concepts, beliefs and opinions ,and who isn't, “listening to be affected” is going to be the toughest of challenges for you.

After moving to Perth television, my career morphed into hosting and interviewing. If I had not already learned how important it is as an actor to really listen to the other actor so that I could catch and bounce off nuances in rhythm, inflection and body language, interviewing sure taught my very quickly how immensely important a skill is active listening. Being a good interviewer is not just about asking great questions – anyone can do that, especially in TV shows where researchers and writers prepare the questions for you. It's too easy, especially as a rookie, to ask one question and then jump straight to the next question. Danny Kaye, on the Midday Show, once caught Mike Walsh doing that. He leaned across, took Mike's clipboard off him and flicked it to the back of the set, and then said “Now, let's you and me just talk.”

I still hear the answers to too many interview questions go in one ear and out the other of the interviewer. Countless opportunities for follow-up questions and real exploration go begging because the interviewer is simply not listening. At it's worst, and this is becoming depressingly more common as journalists are replaced by “presenters”, questions are asked of the interviewee after he/she has already given the information. I've been in this situation too many times as an interviewee, and it's very hard to reframe what you've just said so that it sounds as if you're saying something new. I for one resent being put in that position, simply because the interviewer is not listening. I find that disrespectful in the extreme.

OK, let's get onto listening in everyday discourse.

Ground rule – if you want to be interesting, first be interested. Preferably more interested in the other person than you are in how you look and sound in a replay.

Becoming a better listener is no strain – the sounds will come to you just as clearly whether you try or not. But efforting creates static that makes listening harder. Relax.

Active Listening will help you in almost every aspect of your life. It will make you a better conversationalist, a better spouse, a better manager, a better leader. Listening also makes you more like-able. As distinct from the person who commands central position in any group, the most popular person at a party will always be a good listener.

What can you do to become a Good Listener? Well, if you want to be a professional listener – counsellor, teacher, interviewer, journalist, public speaker -- enough to challenge you for the rest of your life. But to raise your acceptance levels in everyday situations, three disciplines mastered will see you well on your way:-

1. Reflect back what you're hearing;
2. Ask questions and, yes, listen and watch uncritically to the feedback you get;
3. Focus your attention.

1. Mirror what you hear being said to you. This is more than mere parroting. This repeats, in the form of a question, what you've just heard so that the other person knows that you have heard what was intended to be heard. It can also be done with an inflection that says “Tell me more”. You've made a friend in two or three sentences.

If the conversation is via telephone, it helps if you occasionally drop an “Hm-hm” into pauses so that the person on the other end doesn't start to wonder if you've left the room.

These things need to be practiced until your sincerity is unimpeded. DO NOT EVER pretend to listen; the other person will know, and possibly take offence. In every facet of communication, be real.

2. Ask questions. How many conversations have you been in where someone says something that just doesn't make sense to you? And you let it pass either because you hope it will make sense shortly, or it seems like too much trouble to ask about the point of your confusion. Don't do that. Get the conversation back on the rails before there's a major crash.
   People sometimes make remarks that seem nonsensical, not because they're stupid, but because they have entered the conversation with you on a wavelength different to yours. Actually, it happens 99% of the time, and leads to protestations like “I thought you understood!” If you want to be a Good Listener, you must take 100% of the responsibility for putting yourself completely in their space, so that you can fully understand what they're trying to say, from their perspective. There's a challenge for you. Yes, I did say 100%; not 50-50. The other person probably won't be as fluent a communicator as you. When you stop at a point of confusion, it shows the speaker that you are indeed listening.
   If, however, the person is running on endlessly about something of no real interest to you, you can signal that you've left the room by – looking around the room. Which leads me to the 3^rd principle of Good Listening....

3. If you want to be a good conversationalist, stay 100% present and available to the person you're with. Do not let your attention, and then your gaze, wander. I am struck by the number of times a person who has been in the presence of a good communicator says of that experience, “She talked to me like I was the only person in the room.”. That experience is so rare that people do not forget it. Make this one rule a habit and you will not only be noticed, you will be remembered and sought after.
   Five minutes spent fully engaging with one person is more satisfying for all than 100 times that amount of time half-heartedly twittering on about the dullest inanities.

Try these three techniques and you'll find you can be the life of the party without having to apologise to someone next morning.

There is a blessedness in giving others the gift of Unconditionally Receiving what the others say. You can disagree or say what you think later, but first hear them as unconditionally as you possibly can.

When I'm counselling, I ask open questions to get feedback. I listen to their experience and listen for clues in words and vocal quality that display any social and cultural conditioning and assumptions that may be shaping their experience of what I'm saying. I get them to describe how the world looks and feels from where they stand. I reflect what I am hearing back to the client so that he/she is reassured they are being heard. I then work from there.

When it comes your turn to speak in a live presentation to an audience your training as a good listener helps you to get to know who you’re communicating with. It helps you tune in and be appropriate to them. In every meet-and-greet situation ahead of your presentation, use the opportunity to get a handle on their language, style and speed; you may even pick up references and anecdotes that you can use in your presentation. The greatest exponent of this art I've ever met is comedian Barry Humphries. For at least an hour before every performance he is in the foyer, listening and getting a feel for his audience that night. It's hard to spot him; he has developed a talent for being almost invisible. But he is there – watching and listening for anything and everything that will help him connect with those who have come that night.

We can't all be a Barry Humphries, but we can be an empowering listener.

Isn't that enough for you?