BECOME A TOUGH AND TENDER LISTENER

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Contents

Listening Isn't Taught....................................3One-Third Attention.......................................5The 1st Rule Of Communication.............................7May I have Your Attention.................................9Breaking Through..........................................11The Onion Approach........................................13Responsibility: Speaker...................................15Speaking Is A Vital part Of Listening.....................17Five Central Listening Guideposts.........................19pseudo Listening..........................................23The Acceptance Of Loss....................................25When We Give Advice.......................................27Good Advice...............................................29Bad Advice................................................29Advice harms Relationships................................31Logjams...................................................33Tuning To Listening.......................................35Feelings Must Flow........................................39Layers Of Communication...................................41Listening Gears...........................................45Emotional Neutrality......................................47See The problem...........................................51Stick With The Issue......................................53Listening purposes........................................57Clarification Listening...................................58Comforting Listening......................................59Confrontation Listening...................................60Comparison................................................61Equality..................................................69Sending "I" Messages......................................72Sending "You" Messages....................................74Simple Skills.............................................76Active Listening Skills...................................86Listening Summary.........................................92Listening Skills..........................................93Speaker Becomes A Teacher.................................97Listener Become A Student.................................97What Is Your Behavior Response............................99Group Work................................................100Listening Ideas...........................................102Listening To Yourself.....................................105Acknowledgements..........................................107

Chapter One

Listening Isn't Taught 1/3 Attention The 1st Rule of Communication May I Have Your Attention Breaking Through Onion Approach Listening Responsibility Speaking is Vital To Listening Five Central Listening Guideposts

LISTENING ISN'T TAUGHT

Listening is a process, not an occurrence. It is a skill that needs to be learned yet it isn't taught in schools. Even though we use speaking and listening far more in everyday life, educational institutions place far more emphasis on reading and neglect teaching listening skills in schools. Listening as a skill is taken for granted, and in doing so is totally ignored.

Dr. Lyman K. Steil of Communication Development Inc. shows in his studies we spend 80% of our waking hours communicating, with 45% of that time spent listening. Although listening is continuous, it has a beginning, middle, and end. It has purpose, procedures, and is extremely practical. It solves complex problems and is very creative and enjoyable.

Listening is our first communication skill; children understand language before they can speak. The accidental training we get comes from positive family structure, caring teachers, and good people in authority. possibly my best teacher of listening was my best childhood friend, Olive, to whom this book is dedicated. Sadly, not all youngsters, have a best friend like I did. The poem "WhAT IS A FRIEND" came from a camping experience and I have used that as a guide.

WHO NEEDS TRAINING?

Everyone needs good listening skills. In business, listening has often been cited as the most critical managerial skill and the most ignored. The butcher, the baker, the barber, the banker, and the beautician all need to know how to listen. A cashier must devote complete attention to the customer's transaction. Any interruption slows the process and creates a loss of concentration.

My desire to teach listening came from observing insensitive students. As I watched youths make cruel and hateful remarks to one another, I realized they didn't know anything else to do. Teaching listening skills in the high school classroom improved morale, attendance, and students willing to care about each other openly. It took very little time and produced marvelous results.

ONE-THIRD ATTENTION

We absorb about one third of what people say to us. Oh yes, we hear all of the words they say but we ignore two thirds of the message. A familiar example in our home was my mother calling me to dinner when I was a child. Being an avid reader, I would be so immersed in a story that I would answer her words but not come to the table. It took several messages in increasing intensity for me to leave my book and come to the table to eat.

Of course, people do listen, at least enough for their own needs. Research has shown that listeners can be categorized. Some people could be classified as 1)pleasurable listeners who seem to adjust and enjoy both working and social situations with equal ease. Comprehensive listeners 2) want to know the point of the message. Certain people recognize and are influenced by status, 3) including the style of the speech, mannerisms and perhaps the credentials, customs or clothing of the speaker. The technical listener 4) looks for supporting data before they appreciate what is being said. The empathetic listener 5) works toward understanding the emotional state of the speaker while the opposite non-conforming listener is critical of what is said and how it is stated.

WHY LISTEN TO OTHERS?

People listen best when their motivation is in the right place. To listen to others requires a decision to care about yourself and others equally well. In the movie, "Oh God," John Denver asks, "God, why did you give us these thorny problems of human suffering? Why don't who take all that away?" And God, played by George Burns smoking a cigar, replies "That's why I gave you each other."

We can't erase people's problems but we can alleviate them when we listen. In essence, we help ourselves when we help others. David Dunn, in his book "Try Giving Yourself Away" says giving yourself away is fun, helps make and keep new friends and will guarantee a happier life. It is done with acts of kindness, of which listening is one of the simplest yet important ones. Listening is a skill with many levels of learning is marvelous results for yourself and others.

THE 1ST RULE OF COMMUNICATION

There's an old story about a farmer buying a mule from another farmer and then coming back to complain that the mule wouldn't listen to his commands. The original owner said, "Well, first you've got to get his attention." The buyer asked, "how do I do that?" Well sir, first you take this 2x4 and then whack him across the noggin, then he will listen.

As extreme as this old joke is, there's is a grain of truth in it. People are so engrossed in their own thoughts, agendas, and busy lives, they aren't thinking about us. In order to get people to listen, we must break their train of thought from their agenda to ours. As speakers, we must get a listener's attention.

WE LISTEN POORLY

According to Dr. Steil, "We take listening for granted." We assume people are listening because they appear courteous. After all, they are looking in our direction and have appropriate looks on their faces. The pretense of listening may vary from subtle smiling to blatant ignoring.

We know deep down, however, people don't always listen to us. Do you ever have to repeat your messages? how about reminding people to do something? have you ever been called a nag? I've been known to follow people from room to room to make sure they hear me. Frustrating, isn't it?

In listening, even when we think we're paying attention, we still forget. In a lecture, we normally forget 50% in the following hour, and another 25% in the next 48 hours.

It's not memory loss we're speaking of here, it's the attention it takes to comprehend a message. Some speakers lose listeners by not helping them get interested in their conversation. The old joke about the owner hitting the passive mule over the head to get his attention has a lesson. As speakers we want listeners, but we must first get their attention.

MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION

When I have a program for a group of people, I enjoy getting started with humor and attention grabbers. Getting them interested in my agenda is important. Thirty years of teaching has taught me the value of ice-breakers or gimmicks to help people leave their personal comfort zone and enter into mine.

These are two ice breakers I've found establish a connection between the group and the speaker. With a few transitional sentences, I can weave these into my topic of the day.

In "FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF MANY YEARS," count the number of F's. That's all of the assignment—there is no hidden agenda.

In working with an audience, I ask them to keep their responses private at first. Then I ask, "Did anyone count 3?", "How many counted 4?", Did anyone get 5?" "How about 6?" On I go, repeating the process by asking them to count the letters again.

Although the answer is six, most people count only 3, overlooking the F's in the three "of 's." Besides being fun, this simple test proves that people tend to pay attention to salient facts and overlook seeming unimportant things. It's easy to find the F's in the big words, but not in the small words. This ice breaker demonstrates how we overlook the small things in life, specifically with a lack of listening. As the saying goes, elephants don't bite, it is the gnats and the mosquitoes that get you.

The ice-breaker with the square is similar brain teaser. The question to ask is, "how many squares can you count?" Most people say 16 and believe they have the correct answer. When you add the one outside the total group, that makes 17. Counting groups of four (two black and two white), you can increase the number by nine totaling 26. Counting 3 squares across and three down, times four ways, gives another 4 for a sum of 30 squares.

Counting squares has a comparable message. We hear the words but don't always recognize the hidden messages.

BREAKING THROUGH

Once when I was a teenager riding a bus to a summer camp, I sat next to a woman who, in retrospect, was a very good listener. I began talking about my life and told that unsuspecting lady all the pain and trouble other people were giving me. I knew I would never see that woman again. She wouldn't "tell on me" and she became a test for me to share what I was feeling. I remember two distinct feelings after she left the bus. First, I felt guilty because it was the first time I could remember telling bad things about the important people in my life.

The second feeling was better: I felt relief. Someone had listened. My burden was easier to bear because I had unloaded my pain and frustration and in return received a new perspective on my problem which I could handle better from then on.

There are times when we have more trouble than we can handle and we need people to listen to us when we feel overloaded. When things don't go well, when someone doesn't understand us, we need to vent our frustration about the unfairness of the situation. We can feel dissatisfied, uncomfortable, unstable, or unsure of ourselves. At that point, we need someone to listen who will be loyal. Sharing a private burden with another says, "I trust you with my private self." As an old woman described her reaction to her friend, "I like me best when I'm with you."

THE WORK OF COMMUNICATION

Good listening in a communication is hard work but it is very satisfying. Most people have an internal battle with their feelings; as much as they'd like to open up and share their feelings, they're very frightened of doing so. Experience has taught them not everyone is trustworthy or cares enough to listen well. When you become a confidential person and value the information people share, the next skills will come easily.

To get people to open up sometimes simply takes an interested person using phrases such as: "How can I help?" "Tell me what you want me to know." "And then what happened?" "I can't decide for you, but I can help you sift through the alternatives."

THE ONION APPROACH

people test us before they give us their whole story. Most of us hesitate before we lay it on the line. That is what the test is supposed to do. People may not even know it consciously, but the first thing they give us is similar to the brown husk of an onion that is thrown away. When we listen carefully to this surface layer, they will begin to recognize we are trustworthy. When we butt in with our agenda or ignore their seriousness, they will clam up or find someone else. The first layer of communication is not the important message, it is the test.

When listening to the first or surface layer, the first important attitude for a listener is acceptance. To illustrate, Jennie went to a counselor for grief therapy. She had been in a terrible automobile accident in which her mother and husband were killed. The counselor began, "What can I do for you?" When the young woman told her story, the counselor spoke with tension, "Oh my God! How can you go on living?" Because the therapist conveyed her shock that someone had gone through such an experience, Jennie did not feel accepted by this counselor and didn't return.

UNPEEL LAYERS TO REACH THE CORE

Perhaps the best way to understand the troubled person is to realize that within every story people tell, is a feeling. Listening finds the center; the core of the story, a specific buried feeling that needs to be recognized by the hurting person.

When I listened to Jennie's story, I heard the fear of not being able to enjoy happiness again. While she felt paralyzed and unable to see how life could be meaningful again, Jennie revealed a painful unhappy first marriage that had lasted for fifteen years. Then the death of her second husband, she felt she would be deprived of happiness for the rest of her life. In processing this feeling she revealed how she decided to move out of her first marriage. We connected her current depressed feeling to her recognition of need to change in her first marriage. We inventoried how good life was in other ways and she was eventually able to move toward emotional recovery.

RESPONSIBILITY: SPEAKER

One of the great frustrations as a speaker is not being understood. Few people can make themselves clearly understood without feedback. Conversations or dialogue between family members, co-workers, students and teachers need the input of a good listener to clear up misconceptions.

The speaker, or sender of a message, normally thinks because they send a message, anyone can understand it. To test that belief, I used a class lesson called the "Speaker Clarity Test." Two volunteers were used—a speaker and a listener. On paper I had drawn three uneven geometric shapes.

The speaker described the shape only once for the listener to draw on the board. With only one explanation, it was difficult for the listener to draw because people cannot always interpret the speaker's message well without clarification. The speaker must assume as least 51% of the responsibility for communication.

RESPONSIBILITY: LISTENER

Too often, listeners assume the speaker is more knowledgeable and sit passively and politely even when they missed something earlier in the message. Even though speakers think their messages are clear, feedback is necessary to crystallize the information.

As a listener it is important to always ask the speaker about the important parts of messages you don't understand.

According to Dr. Steil's writings, the listener must also assume 51% of the responsibility for communication. Not only does it clear confusion for the listener, the feedback will help prevent the speaker from rambling, assuming, deviating, and repeating. Recognize also it may please the speaker to know you are interested enough to respond to them.

There is a delicate balance in deciding whether to interrupt or not. however, clarifying the communication not only will increase your learning, indeed it leads to wisdom. The lesson is clear: the speaker and the listener each share 51% of the responsibility of a communication.

SPEAKING IS A VITAL PART OF LISTENING

Listeners are sometimes as verbal as the speaker because good listening requires a response. As we tune in to the speaker and his story, we sense our own intuition working. We can see the whole story and piece the parts together in a different perspective than the speaker. However, we have to be sensitive that we are appropriate in our response. It is vital to respond with messages that are clear, non-judgmental, and yet totally honest.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from BECOME A TOUGH AND TENDER LISTENERby Shirley Brackett Mathey Copyright © 2012 by Shirley Brackett Mathey. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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