Communication - Role of Listening
A husband and wife were in the kitchen chatting while making dinner. She was worn out after a very stressful day and talked about her challenges, experiences, and feelings. After a time the husband spoke about what he would do. How he would approach the situations she described. He felt quite pleased with the ideas he had shared and his problem solving abilities, but his wife’s face didn’t show the satisfaction he was feeling. ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like my suggestions?’ he asked.
‘I know what to do…I just wanted you to listen,’ she replied.
“The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.”- Stephen R. Covey.
When you are speaking and someone is not paying attention, how do you feel? Annoyed, frustrated, discounted, rejected, anxious or angry? Such feelings usually make communication more difficult. So how can we show someone who is speaking that we really are paying attention to them? We can do this both nonverbally and verbally.
Research shows that about 85% of what we communicate is nonverbal. This includes our posture, physical movements, eye contact and our psychological presence. So, wh en someone is speaking to you, is your posture inclined toward the speaker, so as to invite and encourage expression? Or is your back turned or your arms or legs tightly crossed, which discourages and cuts off involvement?
Are you making good eye contact with the person? By looking at and observing the speaker, not only will the speaker feel "attended" to, you will learn more about what is really important to him or her.
Verbal ways of showing that we are paying attention include 1) an open invitation to talk, 2) using one or two words to encourage talking to continue, 3) asking open-ended questions and 4) knowing when to be silent. For example, "You look like something is bothering you. Do you want to talk about it?" describes a person’s body language followed by an open invitation to talk. It is important to silently allow the person time to decide whether to talk and what to talk about. If someone chooses not to accept the invitation, don’t try to force them. Back off and respect their privacy.
Brief responses to encourage continued talking include "mm-hmmm," "I see," "Oh?" "Right," "And?" "Go on," "Tell me more," etc. These don’t imply either agreement or disagreement. They simply mean "Yes, I hear you - please go on."
The second biggest communication problem is that we frequently interpret communication as a request for opinions, when it’s a yearning for connection—we are seldom being asked to rip off our shirts to turn into Superman and conduct some kind of life saving exercise—when the squirrel climbs the tree it connects its life force with the texture of the tree.
The third biggest communication problem is hearing feelings of doubt, despair, and disappointment as problems to solve, when they are desires for empathy.
Posted on
https://www.mediate.com/articles/foster2.cfm
Author
Nancy J. Foster, J.D
Nancy J. Foster, J.D., is Director of the Northern California Mediation Center and has been mediating divorce, family, business and organizational disputes since 1988. She received her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School and specialized in the practice of commercial litigation, securities and real estate law for over ten years prior to becoming a mediator.