The Lost Art of Listening (16 page)

While this sounds like a version of the acknowledgment I’ve said is part

of good listening, it’s often an attempt to pigeonhole the speaker’s com-

munication in some package of interest to the therapist—just feelings, a

summary of the facts, or an analysis of some kind.

Carmen was telling her husband about the frustrations involved in

arranging a conference at work. Instead of letting her explain the situation

and how she felt, he kept making little judgmental summaries. “Yes, these

things should have been arranged well in advance.” “So, your supervisor

doesn’t take charge of things.” “I see, there shouldn’t be so many people

involved in the planning process.” He was probably trying to be helpful,

but to Carmen his comments felt like a distraction. He was saying how he

thought things should be rather than responding to her feelings about the

way they were.

The problem with the amateur therapist’s comments isn’t failing to

acknowledge what the speaker says, but doing so in a way that focuses on

the listener’s helpfulness rather than the speaker’s feelings.

“I know what’s wrong.” “Here’s my brilliant analysis.” (Kind of like

this book.)

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

The Active Listener

Active listening is a useful technique whereby the listener paraphrases

what the speaker says. The intention is to help listeners concentrate on

hearing and acknowledging what other people are saying. Unfortunately,

when “active listening” gets translated into simply summing up what

someone says, the focus shifts from the speaker’s expression to the listener’s

perceptiveness.

There’s nothing wrong with active listening. Acknowledging what

people say is part of the essence of good listening. The problem is that

when listening is reduced to a laundry list of how-tos, some people make

more of an effort to show that they’re listening than to actually listen.

Maintaining eye contact, nodding your head, saying mm-hmm, and para-

phrasing everything you hear are mechanical listening skills. They may

come naturally when you’re really listening, but it’s important to concen-

trate on listening, not demonstrating it.

There’s an old joke in which a depressed patient is talking to a thera-

pist who practices active listening. The patient says “I’m depressed,” and

the therapist echoes “You’re depressed.”

The patient responds, “No, I mean it. I’m
really
depressed.”

“You’re
really
depressed,” the therapist says.

Now exasperated, the patient says, “I’m so depressed that I feel like

killing myself.”

“You feel like killing yourself,” says the therapist.

“I’ll show you!” the patient says and then gets up, walks over to the

window, and jumps out.

The therapist goes over to the window, looks out, and, after a pause,

says “Plop.”

Obviously, this is a parody of how paraphrasing can be a mechanical

operation. The important thing isn’t to summarize what someone says but

to understand what he or she is feeling. So of course the therapist should

have said “Ouch.”

Focusing on Yourself

This little sin is what bad listening is all about. Listeners who remain

focused on themselves may seem to be listening, but they’re only waiting

to tell their story or offer their opinion.

The Heart of Listening
91

Speaker: “I hate my supervisor.”

LiStener: “Me, too. My boss is so condescending . . . ”

How to Overcome Focusing on Yourself

Sorry, but there are no magic answers here. The only thing to do is to con-

centrate on hearing the other person out. What you want to say may be

perfectly legitimate, but saying it too soon skips hearing out and acknowl-

edging what the other person was saying.

If someone says, “I hate my supervisor,” and you want to say that you

hate yours too, wait until it’s your turn.

“I hate my supervisor.”

“Gee, that’s too bad. What does she do?”

Then, after that person has had a chance to elaborate, it’s your turn.

But such efforts are doomed if the pressure to be heard is strong. Get

the listening you need.

Do Women Listen Differently Than Men?

My assertion that the genuine listener must suspend the self runs counter

to popular linguist Deborah Tannen’s idea that “Many women, when they

talk among themselves in situations that are casual, friendly, and focused

on rapport, use cooperative overlapping: Listeners talk along with speakers

to show participation and support.”3

Yes, there are times when mutuality and the pleasures of connec-

tion are more important than the need to be heard by a self- reflecting

other. But Tannen stereotypes the sexes by claiming that women engage

in “rapport-talk,” while men specialize in “report-talk.” Men, according

to Tannen, engage in self- display, while “for most women, the language

of conversation is primarily the language of rapport: a way of establish-

ing connections and negotiating relationships.”4 “For most men, talk is

3Tannen, p. 208.

4Tannen, p. 77.

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

primarily a means to preserve independence and maintain status in a hier-

archical social order.”5

Tannen gives as an example of the clashing between the sexes (which

a lot of people like to think of as inevitable) a man telling a story about

having to make up a shortfall in his cash register from his own pocket. The

women listening to him “kept overlapping his story with comments and

expressions of sympathy, elaborating on how unfair it was.”6 This, accord-

ing to Tannen, is “rapport-talk.” But the woman (or man) who interrupts

with expressions of sympathy may not really be receptive to what you’re

trying to say; her frequent expressions of sympathy and elaborations may

be an effort to assert herself—not in a competitive way, but as a sympa-

thetic and appreciative person. Many “supportive” people are like that.

They don’t say “Look at me, I’m terrific”; they say “Look at me, I’m sup-

portive.”

When people talk about feelings—what they’re excited about, what’s

troubling them—they want to be listened to and acknowledged, not inter-

rupted with advice or told that someone else had a similar experience.

They want listeners who will take the time to hear and acknowledge what

they’re saying, not turn the focus to themselves.

The inability to set aside one’s own needs long enough to listen is

a function of personality, state of mind, and relationship to the speaker.

Some people always turn the conversation around to themselves. Narcis-

sism or hypochondriasis or just plain immaturity leaves them with limited

ability to consider anything but themselves. There are certain people who

rarely talk about themselves but can’t listen without imposing their own

opinions on everything. These people may not be self- centered (concerned

only for themselves), but they are egocentric (stuck in their own point of

view) and certainly no fun to talk to.

Being listened to through the screen of a loved one’s bias or anxi-

ety leaves us feeling isolated and lonely, as though our feelings weren’t

valid, as though we didn’t count. Children unlucky enough to grow up

with biased listening become alienated from their own experience. Their

view of themselves is reflected by a distorted mirror. Adults subject to ego-

centric listeners who aren’t open to hearing their experience from their

5Tannen, p. 77.

6Tannen, p. 201.

The Heart of Listening
93

perspective feel shut down, angry or deflated, and alienated from those

relationships.

Those listeners who are more or less always in an unreceptive state find

themselves shunned, often with no idea why. They never connect because

they never cross the space between themselves and others. In Chapter 7

we’ll see how listeners can learn to take in and acknowledge what people

say without permeating their responses with “me” messages.

Exercises

1.
Ask someone you trust to help you check your listening skills. In

the course of a practice conversation, summarize what the person

said after the person has completed his or her thought. By summariz-

ing, you will become aware of how well you heard what the person was

trying to communicate. What’s important isn’t just repeating what the

person said but articulating what you think the person was trying to

express.

If you’re not able to do a good job of grasping what the other person

was trying to get across, try to figure out what was getting in your way.

Daydreaming, forming your own response, being critical of something?

Were you bored? Thinking about something else? Did you get inter-

ested in some detail of what was said and fail to concentrate on the

main thing the speaker was trying to convey? These are the habits you

need to overcome to become a better listener.

2.
For each of the following statements from people expressing their feel-

ings, check the response you are likely to make—not what you think

you should say, but what you think you typically would say.

a.
“I’ve had a terrible headache all afternoon.”

(1)
Maybe you should take some aspirin.

(2)
Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much coffee.

(3)
Gee, that’s a shame.

(4)
Gee, that’s a shame. When did it start?

(5)
I’ve had a headache, too. Maybe it has something to do with a

change in atmospheric pressure.

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THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

b.
“I can’t decide what to wear.”

(1)
Why don’t you wear—.

(2)
Nobody is going to care what you wear.

(3)
I know, it’s tough to decide.

(4)
I know the feeling. What were you thinking of wearing?

(5)
I know what you mean. I can’t decide what to wear either.

c.
“I hardly slept at all last night.”

(1)
Maybe you need to get more exercise.

(2)
You fall asleep every night in front of the TV; no wonder you

have trouble sleeping.

(3)
That’s too bad.

(4)
That’s too bad; any idea why?

(5)
I didn’t get much sleep myself last night.

d.
“I hate staff meetings!”

(1)
Do you just sit there and get bored, or do you try to partici-

pate?

(2)
It’s part of your job, isn’t it?

(3)
Yeah, I know what you mean.

(4)
I hear that! What are yours like?

(5)
At our meetings everybody has to put in his two cents’ worth.

e.
“I do twice as much work as everyone else, but I don’t get any rec-

ognition for it.”

(1)
Maybe you should do a little less.

(2)
It’s your own fault. You’re always doing things for other people.

(3)
That’s not fair.

(4)
How long has that been going on?

(5)
I know what you mean. I’m always the first person at work and

the last to leave.

The Heart of Listening
95

f.
“I hardly made any progress on that project today. Every time I’d start

to work on it, something would come up and I’d get sidetracked.”

(1)
Why don’t you try shutting your office door and turning off the

phone?

(2)
You’ll never get it done if you keep letting yourself get inter-

rupted.

(3)
That’s too bad.

(4)
You kept getting sidetracked?

(5)
I’m getting like that myself lately. Whenever I have something

important to do, I seem to find so many other things to do.

In each of these examples, choice (1) is advice, (2) is criticism, (3) is an

empathic comment that closes off conversation, (4) is an empathic com-

ment that opens up conversation, and (5) is talking about yourself. Is there

a pattern to the responses you typically make?

Practice making empathic comments that invite people to elaborate or

go deeper with what they are saying.

THE REAL REASONS PEOPLE DON’T LISTEN

How Hidden Assumptions Prejudice Listening

5

…

“You Hear Only

What You Want to Hear”

How Hidden Assumptions

Prejudice Listening

Listening, as we’ve seen, takes effort. But sometimes that effort is preju-

diced: Our biases filter what we hear and how we respond. Those biases

take the form of preconceived expectations and defensive reactions. I’ll

explain how what we expect to hear filters what we do hear in this chapter

and then get to emotional reactivity in the next. Understand, though, that

just as it isn’t always easy to separate the speaker’s and listener’s contribu-

tions to misunderstanding, it isn’t always possible to separate assumptions

from emotions that interfere with listening.

How Our Attitude about the Speaker Biases