Are You Really Listening?

And before we get into the heart of the matter today if you've enjoyed this journey so far if you've gained something from it or believe you know someone who might please forward or repost for now today we'll look at active listening and the 10 rules for it there's a cute story of the worker returning to his desk trembling after his annual review with his boss his co-worker asked him what's wrong he answered boss said i have two problems and i need to work on them if i want to keep my job well what are they well he said my first one is the most important i don't pay attention to listen well enough and the second asked his co-worker uh i don't remember don't dismiss this as a joke or a fable it's likely true common and indicative of a larger issue overall communication skills For 15 years at Fairleigh Dickinson University in northern New Jersey, I taught two courses in executive communication and leadership.

The rationale was that communication is recognized as the most important skill set, more than any specific field of study.

Nobody has ever successfully argued against that premise.

Aside from the 15 years of teaching the communications courses, I've been in the business world in positions of hiring people and building staffs for more than 30 years.

This holds true not only in the academic realm but in the practitioner realm many of my students have reached top positions in global companies including the quarter office some were elected to public office others founded successful ventures every one of them has told me over the years that our intense focus on communication skills was and still is the single most important determinant of their leadership success.

But what are those communication skills?

Interestingly, when asked at the beginning of every course how many communication skills there are and what they are, no one ever answered completely. In other words, we take communication for granted and therefore don't work on it enough.

But it's amazing how many people have on their resumes, on their skills, communication skills, and they can't tell me what the six communication skills are.

You know that illusion that George Bernard Shaw was talking about? There it is.

I'll say it again the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has occurred and that brings us to ask the following question why to that I offer my answer which developed not only as an adjunct professor of those two courses but also in corporate leadership as an advisor as an employee and then as an advisor to clients in 25 different industries over 25 years.

The culprit, more than the inability to write or speak well, is the inability to listen well.

Generally, we're just not good listeners.

So then let's ask, what's good listening?

Good listeners are active listeners.

Listening is a skill, not a casual ambient condition.

Of the six communication skills, verbal, written, presentation, nonverbal, cross-cultural, and the last one on the other side of the scale, listening, that last one, would outweigh the other five combined.

Active listening is no accident.

Listening might be half the communication process, but it is the bigger half.

Listening and hearing are two different things. Hearing is audiological, physiological, subconscious, and involuntary. We hear whether we want to or not.

Listening, on the other hand, is cerebral, mental, conscious, and decision-based. We listen when we choose to. Let's put the two up against each other. Hearing is audiological, listening is cerebral.

Hearing is physiological, listening is mental. That being the case, listening is a skill that can be defined, learned, practiced, and improved like any other skill.

And overwhelmingly, with the exception of organizations run by autocrats, good leaders rose to the top by being good listeners so that brings us to this question what's a good listener first a question with what set of organs do we listen it's not a trick question or maybe it is the answer is that active listeners listen with their ears and their eyes if part of communication is non-verbal then how can we be good listeners if we don't make eye contact if we don't observe if we limit our intake possibilities that question answers itself so if we're good listeners or good listeners are going to be what should we be looking for What are the outcomes of good listening?

When we listen well, we develop clearer understandings, build better rapport, demonstrate support, build stronger teams, resolve problems more easily and more long-term, and ultimately discover new ideas. is.

Well, if you think it's that easy, it isn't, because there are things standing in the way. So let's take a look at the barriers that have been identified to effective listening. Barriers to effective listening.

And commonly recognized barriers to effective listening, there are six of them, action, emotion, preconception, linguistics, discrepancies, and inattention.

And they require six remedies to overcome these barriers. Focus, objectivity, open-mindedness, articulation, facts, and concentration. Let me go back and do them one against the other like I did before.

Barrier number one is distraction.

Remedy number one is to focus. Don't let yourself be distracted by other stimuli.

Number two is emotion. We get wrapped up in what we're saying, what we're going to present, especially if we get into debate or persuasive environments.

Remedy, objectivity. To develop objectivity and fairness in what you're listening to. Barrier number three is preconception.

And the remedy is open-mindedness. Don't go into a discussion with the I'm right attitude. Go into the discussion by saying, let's find what's right.

Barrier number four, linguistics.

Remedy number four, articulation.

In an increasingly multicultural, multilingual world where we have to be able to communicate in more than one language, more than one mode, we must be articulate. But as I taught to students from 78 different countries and 26 different mother tongues, it's not necessary to be skilled in one language after another. It is very good to be able to be skilled in two, but it's not necessary. It's more about being articulate and simple than it is sophisticated. Stay away from linguistics, which means slang and jargon, and be simple.

Barrier number five is discrepancies, and remedy number five, have the verifiable facts. In episode one, we talked about critical thinking, and one of the things we talked about was making sure that your information that you're getting is reliable and concise and accurate.

And barrier number six of inattention is concentration. Concentrate on those sending the message. Concentrate on those around you who are receiving the messages, but concentrate. trait.

This is pretty simple, but it's not easy.

Analyzing the listening process, defining its characteristics, recognizing its barriers, and identifying the remedies, that all makes things pretty simple. Doing it, though, is not easy. But if we see what a few great thinkers said, we make the case that developing listening skills is more important than we probably ever thought, important to our organizations and important to our careers.

Carl Rogers, the pioneer in humanistic school of psychology said, man's inability to communicate is a result of our failure to listen effectively. Look how he put together that term, listen effectively.

Winston Churchill maybe the great communicator of the 20th century said that courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen and there's an old Turkish proverb that said if speaking is silver then listening is gold And finally, not finally, but for this purpose, President Calvin Coolidge said that nobody ever listened himself out of a job.

You know, there's an old folky tale about Calvin Coolidge, who was known as Silent Cal. A young girl and her mother came up to the president and said, Mr. President, I have a bet with my mom that I can get you to say more than three words. and he looked at her and he said mom wins well now that we've made the case for active listening effective listening let's look at some rules of listening like anything else there are rules like your grip in a golf game your ability to work with teammates in any sport there were rules here are my offerings for 10 rules of listening effectively my 15 week course in communication in one paragraph number one maintain eye contact remember we listen with our ears and our eyes number two show that you're listening through body language.

Lean forward, nod, make notes.

Rule number three, focus on content, not on delivery.

What is being said, not what is that guy saying?

Number four, keep emotion out of it.

We already saw earlier that emotion takes away from the objectivity rule number five defer judgment do not judge what you hear when you hear it in context with stuff delivered later on it may mean something different rule number six avoid even fight distractions don't let ambient conditions rule don't let interruptions get in your way fight distractions questions.

Number seven, stay involved by asking questions. The sender may be delivering an energetic remark, but if you're not receiving it energetically in an involved way, it's going to be useless. Rule number eight, give feedback, including asking for clarification.

Don't do it too soon.

Deferred judgment, but when something needs to be clarified, ask permission to interrupt and say, I want to get clarification on this so I know where we are moving forward. Did you mean so-and-so?

Rule number nine, don't be selfish.

Time belongs to both of you, and it needs to be shared equally.

And number 10, rule number 10, remember the gap.

Thinking is faster than talking.

Make sure that you are clear to talk and that the other person is done with his thought or his expression.

This could be the most important one of all.

One of the ways to make sure that you remember and mind the gap is when you think somebody's done talking count silently to yourself to three takes about two and a half or three seconds and then say let me let me reply to that or let me remark about that or can i ask a question about that before i give you my reaction and then begin talking there you have it as quickly as i can give it to you in limited amount of time But if I were to offer a main theme, it's that listening is the most important communication skill of all.

Identify the barriers, employ the remedies, and remember the 10 rules of listening. Let's take a break. I'll be right back.

I'm back and hoping you've listened well.

Let me start offering you a couple of aphorisms today, slightly related to what we've been talking about today.

Aphorism number one, too many people can't solve their own problems, but are quick to tell you how to solve yours.

Recognize that and then deal with it in your own professional way.

And aphorism number two, I'm going to have to explain this to you because it's going to seem perhaps puzzling.

The distance between setting and reaching your goal is inversely proportional to your effort. Now, you might think that I would want to say directly proportional, but it's not reaching your goal that's directly proportional. It's the distance between setting and reaching.

So the distance between setting and reaching your goal is inversely proportional to your effort. The greater the effort, the shorter the distance between setting and reaching your goals. Hope that makes sense.

In the great minds section today, Harry Truman, the 33rd president of the United States, who assumed the presidency when FDR died in April of 1945, was patently known as an honest but blunt, no-nonsense guy.

He had appropriately earned the nickname Give Him Hell Harry by being not gentle on those people he needed to go after.

One day, after being excessively rough on an adversary, Harry he reacted to the approval of his supporters who said give him hell Harry and Truman's retort was I don't give him hell I tell the truth they think it's hell I think we could use Harry Truman around today and for the what-if section today during and after World War II Franklin Roosevelt and then later Harry Truman George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, King George VI, and Winston Churchill had a particularly strong and affectionate relationship amongst themselves. Oh, they argued, they bickered, they jumped up and down and all kinds of things.

But they genuinely liked each other, especially Roosevelt and Truman.

I'm sorry, Roosevelt and Truman.

Churchill. As a matter of fact, Franklin Roosevelt said to Churchill, you know, it's fun living in the same century as you.

They all really liked each other as a group and therefore were extremely effective in doing what they did, winning the war and moving the world into an era of prosperity.

The question of what if today?

Imagine what would have happened if they didn't.

There would have been no end to the war with a decisive decision on Truman's part to drop the two bombs.

George Marshall wouldn't have been elevated to Secretary of State to begin the greatest aid package in the history of humankind, the Marshall Plan.

What would have happened if they didn't like each other?

That does it for me for this episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being with us. Thanks for sharing your time with us. We really do appreciate it, as well as all of the feedback we've been getting.

In future episodes, we'll be talking about AI, of course, about personal development, about more heroic figures from whom we'll derive great lessons. In the meantime, thanks for spending time with us. I'm Eli Amdur. See you next time. Until then, keep questioning, keep learning, and keep thinking critically.