How To Listen So that People Talk

People often assume that listening is easy, yet it is the least understood of the communication skills. Many of us make little effort to learn or develop an ability to listen well. Yet poor listening is the cause of communication breakdowns in every area of life, particularly in personal relationships. But, as Mary Hartley shows in this book, effective listening can be learnt. The topics covered include:

• understanding points of view - your own and other people's
• communication techniques and rules
• the difference between hearing and listening
• establishing rapport and setting boundaries
• body language
• how to respond, with and without words
• taking risks and expressing feelings

The guidance provided in How to Listen so that People Talk will be helpful for those who want to build richer, stronger relationships.

Contents 

• The importance of listening
• Why we don't listen well
• Tuning in to the other person
• Ways of responding
• Asking good questions
• Keeping it going
• Listening and body language
• Listening in challenging situations
• Answers to exercises

The skill of listening

People often assume that listening is easy. After all, they say, it's an activity that we do every day and one that requires no effort. If only that were the case, many problems in communicating with and understanding other people would cease to exist. The truth is that effective listening is a skill that does not come automatically, but it is one that can be learnt and practiced.

Listening is the most used and least understood communication skill. In general, we spend 9 per cent of our time writing, 16 per cent reading, 35 per cent talking and 40 per cent listening, yet many of us make little effort to acquire or develop listening skills. We learnt to listen by picking up and imitating the habits of others, who themselves 'picked it up' in a similar way. It is quite likely that many of the listening habits we have picked up are ones that actually block effective communication.

We can all become better listeners. The first step is to recognize that we can learn to listen. We can replace unhelpful habits with practices that encourage understanding and communication.

Why good listening matters
Poor listening is the cause of communication breakdowns in every area of life. Problems need to be understood before they can be solved, instructions need to be taken in before they can be followed, ideas need to be shared and absorbed before they can be evaluated. Ask people what the main causes of difficulties in personal relationships are, and one of the issues that comes up time and time again is lack of listening. Relationships are built, maintained and nurtured by people listening to each other and, conversely, problems develop when we feel that we are not being listened to. When we are not heard, we feel hurt, deflated, let down. Our self-esteem is damaged. If someone does not attend to us and listen to what we are saying, what comes across to us is that we are being discounted, dismissed, rejected. Being listened to fosters our sense of self-worth and lets us know that our thoughts, feelings and ideas are valued. It means that we are taken seriously.

What you will gain from becoming a good listener
If you become a good listener, you will find that your sensitivity to and awareness of other people will increase, leading to improved communication and relationships in all areas of your personal, social and working life. Improved listening will lessen the stress that is caused by frustration and misunderstanding. It will help you to build strong, well-balanced relationships with all the people in your life. It will strengthen your leadership skills and enable you to generate commitment and enthusiasm in others. Best of all, good listening will affirm the value you place on other people and you, in turn, will be recognized and appreciated. As the business guru Tom Peters said, 'Listening is the highest form of courtesy.' When you show interest, understanding and response to someone, you are giving that person a rare and valuable gift.

Listening and hearing
Listening is not a natural process, whereas hearing is. If your ears and brain are not damaged, you cannot help but hear sounds of a certain intensity, whether you want to or not. You are not actually listening to the loud music blasting from a passing car, but you cannot help hearing it. Listening, however, is something you choose to do. You can choose to become a good listener and create situations that encourage others to talk openly and confidently, secure in the knowledge that their meaning will be heard and understood. If you choose to listen well, what you engage in is a complicated activity. It involves interpreting and understanding verbal and non-verbal messages, clarifying ambiguous information and encouraging meaningful communication.

Listening is more than a skill — it is an attitude to other people that indicates acceptance and respect. The quality of your listening can either affirm a person's worth and value or undermine it. Take the first step to developing this attribute by acknowledging the importance of attentive, effective listening.

Listening and talking
A good listener contributes to the conversation. Effective listening means feeding back to others that their words and message have been understood. It means making responses that promote further communication and understanding. Some of these responses are non verbal, others are spoken. Listening is not a passive activity — it is, in fact, a two-way process.

If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.
Mark Twain

In other words, we should listen more than we speak, but speaking and responding are important as well.

If you feel that your listening skills are not very good, you are not alone. One study of listening shows that we use only a quarter of our listening potential, only really taking in a quarter of what is said to us. The other three quarters of what we hear is forgotten or misunderstood or not heeded or twisted. Another study of listening effectiveness shows that we tend to forget one third to one half of what we hear within eight hours! Overall, it seems that it is common for us to miss about half of what someone tells us. Many misunderstandings are caused by the fact that, when we speak, we assume that the other person hears what we say when, in fact, it seems that there is very little guarantee that such communication takes place.

Poor listening habits
It is easy to drift into bad listening behaviour without realizing that we are doing so. We get used to interrupting people who say things we disagree with. We find that we switch off when certain people are speaking or jump to conclusions about what someone is going to say. These are habits of listening behaviour. The first step towards replacing poor listening habits with more helpful ones is recognizing the areas in which we could improve.

What makes a good listener?
Good listeners display patience, understanding and empathy. They use a range of interpersonal skills that they deploy with sensitivity and respect. When talking with others, good listeners can establish rapport and get on the same wavelength. They make appropriate eye contact and their body language conveys attention and responsiveness. They listen to the whole person and the whole message, not just to the words that are spoken, and do not allow the message to become distorted by personal bias. They listen actively, making encouraging responses and checking the messages that they receive.

About the author
Mary Hartley is a writer and personal development coach specializing in people skills and communication. She has considerable experience of writing on these topics and of presenting work shops and courses on aspects of interpersonal communication and behaviour. As well as contributing to national newspapers and women's and general-interest magazines, Mary has broadcast on national and local radio programmes on issues such as managing anger and coping with stress, and has acted as consultant for the BBC Learning Zone. Her books The Good Stress Guide, Managing Anger at Work, Body Language at Work, Stress at Work and The Assertiveness Handbook are all published by Sheldon Press.