ML21: How To Become a Better Listener

You're listening to the MetaLine pod comps, the show that helps you take full learning to the next level and master anything. Whether you're building a business, learning a language or picking up a sport, you'll discover the principles and techniques needed to succeed, as well as gaining insights from the thought leaders driving the global learning revolution. I'm your host, Nassau's Papadopoulos, and welcome to the MetaSphere. Hello and welcome to episode 21 of the MetaLine podcast. In today's short episode, I'm going to focus on the theme of listening skills. I'll start with a short intro discussing what exactly they are, why they're important, and then go into how we can learn them. I'll also answer some of your questions covering themes from the major blocks to listening and how to overcome them, as well as best practices that I've used effectively as a teacher and interviewer to improve my listening. We all know them. That friend who looks at you with the glazed eyes of a goldfish is you're speaking and cuts you off mid-sentence to say something that has absolutely nothing to do with what you were talking about. All the colleague at work who always says, "Feel free to chat with me about any issues, but spends the whole time talking about their problems when you do finally agree to grab a coffee with them." These experiences are annoying as hell, and there's nothing that gets people's backs up quite like not being listened to. But the truth is that very often, we're guilty of doing exactly the same things we find annoying in others. We're often equally bad listeners as these annoying people, and we're just not aware of that. On top of our inability to focus while listening, we're especially unaware of the filters we use unconsciously to make meaning from what we hear, our values, beliefs and expectations, and we're unaware of the impact these filters have on our understanding. Unfortunately, listening just isn't something we do well automatically. Studies on listening have shown that the average person can only remember 50% of what they've heard straight afterwards, and that falls to 25% just two months later. Another study has even shown that only 10% of the initial message communicated is retained after three days. The reason for these shocking stats is that most of us think of listening as a passive process that requires no effort, but listening isn't the same thing as hearing. It's an active process and a skill that needs to be practiced and refined. If you listen to the podcast on communication skills and reading, you'll remember the analogy I use to describe communication. It's like throwing and catching a ball. You need to be aware and alert to receive communication in the form of writing and speaking as a reader or listener, just as you need to be alert enough to receive a pass from a teammate on a basketball court or in a football field, both throwing and catching, speaking and listening require focus and skill. But why should we care about improving our listening skills so much? Besides, are there other more practical and important things we should be spending our time on? Well, while the benefits of improving these skills may not be easily quantified, I honestly think listening better will tangibly improve every area of your life, and I'm not the only one. The importance of listening has been emphasised by plenty of ancient sages and philosophers. A great quote from Greek philosopher Diogenes you may have heard is, "We have two ears and one tongue so that we can listen more and speak less." It's also a common misconception that as we make progress in our careers and find ourselves in positions of more responsibility, the more activities will shift from listening to and receiving messages or taking orders to sending messages or telling others what to do and giving orders. But if you listen to CEOs and other successful leaders, what they'll often emphasise is critical to their jobs, is the process of asking good questions and listening closely for the answers. Now, other meanic, total evidence, there's plenty of research which highlights the importance of listening. First of all, we spend an awful lot of time doing it much more than you'd first expect. A study that looked at how professional workers spend their day discovered that seven out of every ten minutes spent awake were spent in some form of communication. Of that time, a huge 45% was spent listening compared to 30% speaking, 16% reading and 9% writing. Another study is suggested that we spend as much as 60% of our communication time listening. So it's definitely worth looking into, whichever study you believe. The second thing I want to pick up on is that listening is a skill that's neglected massively. At school you were probably taught to write, read, and speak, at least to a basic level of ability. Listening on the other hand is the most neglected of these communication skills. The assumption we make a lot of the time is that, as long as we don't have a physical hearing deficiency, we're automatically capable of listening from the day we're born and just don't need to be taught the skill. But a few minutes of thought, even about some of the conversations you've had today, will bring to mind plenty of times when you're mind-wondered or when you were thinking of what you wanted to say next. The third thing is that listening has a massive number of benefits. For a skill that we need to use so often and neglect so heavily, you think the listening was pretty useless, but this couldn't be further from the truth. Listening well provides so many benefits, the majority of which can be grouped under two main areas. Listening for information and listening for understanding. If you listen to the podcast on reading, you remember I spoke about the difference between reading for information and for understanding. The exact same distinction can be applied to listening because it's a form of receiving communication. The first of these, listening for information, massively increases our ability to make good decisions and work with others. When we listen well for information, we capture the finer details of what someone's saying, whilst also grasping the bigger picture. This helps us make better decisions, collaborate more effectively on projects, and remember the time and place we're supposed to be meeting our friends after work without having to check with them three times. The second area is listening for understanding. And this allows us to improve the quality of our relationships massively. When we listen well for understanding, we deepen our connection to the person we're listening to. Whether it's a family member, a girlfriend, or one of our colleagues at work, there's nothing people valuable than being heard. Because it's an acknowledgement that they matter. A great quote that captures this sentiment is from the author Henry David DeRotte, who wrote in life without principle, the greatest compliment that was ever paid to me was when someone asked me what I thought and listened to my answer. Well, hopefully the rose convinced you how important these skills are. But the question is, can we get better at them? Now, we can easily identify good and bad listeners, but it can be hard to put our finger on exactly what the difference is, what exactly good listening is made up of. This is why many people assume that good listeners possess some sort of intrinsic talent and assume that it's a gift that can't be learned or improved. Now, while listening may come easier to some people because of their level of experience and communicating, the reality is that listening skills can be developed with deliberate effort and practice like anything else. Anyway, enough from me for now. Let's dive into the questions. First question. J'ouel from Lisbon Portchou, who asks, what are the most common blocks to listening and how do we overcome them? Thanks for the question. There are loads of blocks that I've struggled with myself, so I'll cover the main ones that come to mind and then offer some suggestions for how you can possibly deal with them. So, to start off with, the first one that comes immediately to mind is daydreaming and failing to listen as a result. So, it's very, very easy to lose focus when others are speaking if their tone of voice is dull or you're not particularly interested in what they're talking about, but even when someone is speaking and engaging way about something that interests you, you might just find their words triggering thoughts that take your mind in a completely different direction. My solution to combating this is that when you find yourself drifting off, just notice what's happening and come gently back to listening again. If your related thought was useful, just jot it down in the notebook and remind yourself to pick it up again later. Don't give yourself a hard time for losing concentration though, just accept it and come back to listening again. The second thing that comes to mind is judging what the other person is saying while they're saying it. So, we filter so much of what people say through judgment, and while this is something that happens naturally, it really gets in the way of good listening. For example, maybe a friend tells you about a mistake they made at work the other day, and you think to yourself that you'd never have made the same one. Then as your friend continues to speak, you filter the communication with this judgment and opinions of yourself and your friend. And this is something that can happen very, very subtly without you even noticing. Now, my solution to this is understanding, first of all, how judgment tends to arise. So, it often takes the form of expressions of necessity, like, "You must, you have to, you should have done this, you should have done that," or a judgment of whether something's good or bad. So, the first step is just to learn to watch for these signs both in yourself and others, and when the thoughts arise or other people are saying them to you, just watch them without getting distracted and try to suspend the judgment until you finish listening to what the other person has said. Then you can take as much time as you want to evaluate, think critically about it, and make your judgments. The third main block that comes to mind is the process of trying to predict what the other person is saying before they've said it. So, this is a very, very bad habit, which is especially common with people we know well, like our close friends and family. The problem is that, again, like the other two, this really gets in the way of listening because we're coloring everything they say through our view of their previous words and actions. So, if your friend complains a lot and comes to you as something to discuss, you assume it's a problem, think to yourself, "Here we go again," and then fail to listen as a result. The solution, again, is very similar to the one that I presented with judgment. I think it's essential to try and suspend our inner predictor, just as it is essential to try and suspend our inner judge, and stop that inner voice from trying to constantly forecast what the person we're speaking is trying to say. If you're having trouble, just try imagining that you've never spoken to this person before while you're listening, and then after they've finished, you can bring your own knowledge and experience with them into play and use it to interpret what they've just said. Next question. Phoebe from London asks, "Are there ways you can be actively digesting what you're hearing?" without already formulating ideas and your answer. Great question, Phoebe. I think we're all familiar with the problem of trying to rehearse our own piece while someone else is speaking. And I'd actually say that this is one of the most common traits in all conversations. You can easily notice when others are doing it because they tend to increase their non-verbal agreement noises even as they listen less. So all their arms and arhaves will get much louder and more consistent when they want to speak so that they can actually take over. And this happens whether they're conscious of it or not. Now there are three main behaviors I'd recommend for developing this habit of focusing while you're listening without trying to formulate an answer. The first is again linked to some of the comments that I made before. It's about noticing how often you're thinking about what to say next. I realize I keep coming back to this but that's because I think it's the most important part of the process, developing that awareness of your thoughts. So to start off with just notice how often you're thinking about what to talk about when it's your turn. The second thing I would say is use this tool of reflection. So reflect back what the other person says periodically during a conversation. Using phrases like you said x or you mentioned y and then repeating your interpretation of their ideas. Not only does this allow you to make sure you've grasped what they're saying as they can confirm or clarify if needed but it also shows them that you're making an effort to listen which will naturally improve the quality and flow of the conversation. Obviously there's a balanced strike here. If you stop someone mid-sentence all the time and repeat back the most basic of ideas that's going to massively disrupt the flow of the conversation and probably annoy them quite a bit. A great game you can play to practice this skill is to have a discussion with a friend about a topic, ideally one that you both disagree on and follow the rule that you're only allowed to make a point once you've summarized the last person's argument in a way that they think is accurate. Now you'd be surprised at actually how long it can take for you to rephrase or paraphrase what they've said in a way they're satisfied with. It just goes to show how often we misinterpret what other people are saying. The most difficult thing of all about this though is just not interrupting them and that links into my last recommended behaviour which is getting comfortable with pauses. Now very often someone might pause while they're talking but that doesn't always mean that they finished. A big reason we prepare answers while the other person is speaking to us is because we don't feel comfortable dealing with silence. We somehow think that silence disrupts the flow conversation or makes it awkward when what it really does is just give us the space to think and respond properly to what they've said. We feel that we have to rush all the time to keep the conversation going. Yet we've all experienced amazing conversations where there are plenty of pauses and gaps because people are actually listening to each other. Next question, George from Athens Greece asks, "What are your best tips for good listening in meetings and conferences where others are speaking for extended periods? Do you recommend taking notes and if so what kind?" Thanks for the question George, this is something that I'd say all of us struggle with again. I honestly wonder how much of what gets said in conferences and meetings actually gets processed. Going back to that start of 10% of the initial message communicated being retained after three days, I imagine it's way lower for meetings and conferences, especially if there's a lack of personal interest and a sense of compulsion for being there. The first recommendation I would make when thinking about listening in conferences and meetings is try and generate interest if it's not already there and at the very least be prepared. So if you're in a meeting the chances are you're there for a reason and so just remind yourself why it is so important that you listen and how it's going to impact on your tasks for the day or for the week or for the month. Even if it's completely irrelevant, just see it as a training exercise for your listening skills that you're going to be able to use in other more important situations. If you're going to a conference, look up the speakers in advance and choose the talks you want to go to so that you're more likely to be interested in what's being discussed. I've always found a little bit of preparation on this front goes a very long way. In terms of taking notes and to answer the second part of your question, I would definitely recommend note-taking. I think listening is a much more difficult process than reading because you can't go back and review what the speaker has said once they've said it most of the time unless obviously the talk has been recorded or taped. Generally, anything that makes the process more active will increase the quality of your listening and note-taking is a great way of doing this. I personally like to jot down the key ideas from a talk in my own shorthand and reserve my own commentary about what's being said until after the speech. The focus for me should really be capturing on the key point of what the person is saying, not noting down your opinions and judgments yet or writing what they've said verbatim. If you try and do that, you'll spend the whole time looking at your pad and miss all of the important non-verbal cues you get from their gestures and facial expressions. And final question. Amy from Seattle asks, "What are the things I should look out for when trying to listen better on the phone? And how is it different from in-person communication?" Great question. Now we all spend a lot of time on the phone or doing Skype calls these days, but again, we don't ever really stop to think about whether we're doing it well. The problem with phone calls is that words are often missed or misheard, which leads to a lot of misunderstanding. The other big issue is that while we have the verbal element of communication and can also hear the voice tone of the person we're speaking to, we lack the non-verbal element of gestures and facial expressions that I mentioned just now. Check out the podcast on how to become a great communicator for more details on different types of communication. The same general rules for good listening that I mentioned in answering the previous questions still apply in this context on the phone, but what's different is the need to adjust for the lack of non-verbal communication to clarify things. So the first thing I'd recommend is compensate for this lack of non-verbal communication by reflecting back more often to make sure you've understood what's being said. So remember, reflection is just the process of repeating back to the person what they've said in your own words to show you understood. The second thing is reassure the speaker that you're hearing them more regularly by saying things like I see understood, okay. Now this is largely unnecessary in face-to-face conversation because you can obviously nod or can they understanding through facial expressions and gestures. The person can see your listening when you're speaking to them in person, but they can't over the phone. So these types of little confirmations are very very important. The third thing I would say is kind of linked to logistics, so if the call quality is bad, let the person know immediately and switch to another line. If they're talking too fast, tell them again, do the same thing. And if you miss something, just ask them to repeat it. There's absolutely no reason to be embarrassed about this. I think that's just the nature of phone conversations and given that miscommunication can cause a whole lot of problems, it's much better just to clarify things immediately rather than stumble along on a call pretending to have got the message when you actually haven't. To finish up, I think listening is an art we should all take the effort to improve because we spend so much time doing it and because it's so important for our understanding and the quality of our relationships with others, both professionally and personally. We have loads of opportunities to do this every single day. In every conversation we have. While listening well isn't easy, I think it's more than worth the effort to develop the skills. In terms of useful resources, check out Ticknietharn's book The Art of Communication which gives a Zen Buddhist perspective on speaking and listening. It's simple and super stripped back but very very powerful. Also check out Soundex but Julian Trejers' Ted Talk on 5 ways to listen better. It will give you some more great actionable tools to improve your listening. I'd also recommend thinking of someone in your life who's a good listener and just trying to model their behaviours. The person that comes to mind for me is actually my older sister who's been a great listener for as long as I can remember. Another person is John Paul Flintoff, an author, speaker and journalist who I interviewed about the art of conversation in a previous episode and that will also be very useful if you've enjoyed this Q&A. So thanks again for listening. I hope you found this useful and I look forward to seeing you next time as always. Once again, thank you for tuning in to the MetaLand podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please spread the love by pointing others in our direction and head over to iTunes till you've been rating a review so call the show. You can access all of the show notes from today's episode on the podcast section on my site, MetaLand Bluffinett. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to get in touch through the social links on my site or join the Facebook community MetaLand Bluffinett for more guidance when you're learning journey. In the next episode, I dive into the process of how to think like an entrepreneur. Discussing course skills including selling and how to talk to customers effectively with a serial entrepreneur and best selling author. Until then, keep learning and catch you next time.