To understand listening better, we need to take a basic tour through the wider information processing picture.

Human Information Processing

Humans are ‘active’ in their assimilation of the information cues that bombard them continuously. This is our way of making sense of the literally millions of individual events that happen around us all the time.

Basic information processing like that of most computers is passive– messages and signals are received which are processed by the computer brains (CPU) and allocated to act by pre-set rules (the program). In contrast, with humans, the process is ‘active’. The person trying to assimilate the picture will form a hypothesis of what they are expecting to see or hear (or feel, touch etc.).  Environmental signals coming in will then make us either confirm or revaluate our original thesis. For example if we are in the environment of a road, we expect to see cars, and therefore, even just the clue of something shiny blue and moving is enough for us to ‘grab’ the reality of a car approaching.  In the same way our listening is contextual, in that it relies on what we already know, what we have just heard and other clues for us to ‘grab’ the message being given.

It is very important for us to understand this fundamental notion that we are ‘active’ in assimilating information surrounding us - we are constantly creating and sending out frames that grab the clues in the environment.  If we are ‘slack’ or simply wrong in the frames we send out, our ability to listen (process information) suffers.

Turning to listening itself, it has four key components:- preparation, hearing, understanding, active assimilation.

Good listening starts with you being prepared to listen. From the above, that means being open minded, and willing to hear what the speaker is saying. You also have to ensure that you are in a position to physically hear what is being said, that you do not get distracted, or are already thinking about something else.  

Just for a moment, put yourself in the shoes of this outrageously poor listener and observe the typical behaviours that may let you down:

• Judging – negatively labelling people before they have even said a word
  
  
• Irresponsibly relating – your reportee wants to tell you how they feel, but that reminds you of your version of injustice… You launch into your story before they can finish theirs. 
  
  
• Advising  - You are the great problem solver. You don't have to hear more than a few sentences before you begin searching for the right advice. However, while you are coming up with suggestions and convincing someone to just try it, you may miss what is most important.
  
• Sparring  - your main focus is on finding things to disagree with. Your frame of mind is to debate, not listen, and even if you are very good, the subtleties will be lost on you.
  
  
• Being Right - you will go to great lengths (twist the facts, start shouting, make excuses or accusations, call up past sins) to avoid being wrong. You can't listen to criticism, you can't be corrected, and you can't take suggestions to change.
  
• Being bored, getting inattentive  - your attention span or interest level means that you cannot wait long enough to hear a long or complex argument  - you will tend to get into one of the other modes listed here, and definitely not pick up the detail or subtlety.
  
  
• Derailing - This listening block involves suddenly changing the subject. You derail the train of conversation when you get uncomfortable or bored with a topic. Another way of derailing is by joking.
  
• Placating  - Right . . . Absolutely . . . I know . . . Of course you are . . . Incredible . . . Really? You want to be nice, pleasant, supportive. You want people to like you. So you agree with everything. You may half-listen just enough to get the drift, but you are not really involved.
  
  
• Dreaming  - When we dream, we pretend to listen but really tune the other person out while we drift about in our interior fantasies. Instead of disciplining ourselves to truly concentrate on the input, we turn the channel to a more entertaining subject.

Hearing
This is the actual transmission of the sound – and you receiving it. Often, we do not pay enough attention and are too polite to say, ‘I cannot hear’ – which does neither ourselves, nor the speaker any favours.

Understanding
What is the speaker actually saying? It does not have to be what you would agree with, or even be true, but it is what is actually being said. Sometimes the message is complex and genuinely difficult to understand. However, more often than not there is a mis-communication because the ‘active part’ of the listening process has been inappropriately applied – possibly by both you and the speaker.  In other words, the assumption you have made as to what is being said (as part of natural human information processing) was inappropriate and has led you to false or inaccurate conclusions.

Typically this sort of thing does not happen all that often – but in complex business environments, the impact of such miscommunication is huge.

Assimilation
Now you have accurately heard what the speaker has to say, how does it relate to the scheme of things as you understand them?

Managers will rarely, if ever, be given the entire picture. It not just a matter of the speakers not telling the truth, but often reportees will fear telling the truth. For most companies much of time, the enlightened employees play a game of charades of what can be told to their managers and what cannot. Even the most approachable of managers will not be told the whole story.  Add to that the managers own ‘assumptions’ (from the active process of listening), let alone prejudices, and the potential of miscommunication is huge. Imagine in this light the damage being done to the organisations from manager’s unproductive time, doing the wrong things because you were not ‘told’, but the teller thought you were.

Active Assimilation.
If you are really interested you will really make the effort to actively extract the message – relying on the spoken and unspoken word, the line and between the line, what is said here and what was and is being said elsewhere, and fundamentally know that the message you are hearing is by definition prejudiced by your own bank of frames (assumptions).  You will hear the message in the light of your accurate assessment of the fears and aspirations and motivation of the speaker.

Listening Good Practices for Managers

• Act the part. Its important to change our physical body language from that of a deflector to that of a receiver, much like a satellite dish. Be sure that your body language reflects your positive state of mind and that you treat the speaker with positive human regard..
  
  
• Open up. Your preparation is key – see above. The more open minded you are the more chances you have of getting the whole message. Develop your personal technique to quickly and painlessly get yourself in the right frame of mind in advance. Some people will simply take two deep breaths and count 1 to 5, before important encounters.
  
• Give time: if you ‘do not have time’ to listen, don’t offer to listen. 
  
  
• See past bad communication habits. Don’t get hung up on the style of the speaker, not everyone’s perfectly eloquent. It’s the content that counts. If there are delivery errors, don’t worry – we all make mistakes – don’t compound your folly by dwelling on the mistake, as opposed to the message. If the speaker is slow (for you), adjust, don’t get bored.
  
• Don’t pre-judge. Wait until you have full comprehension before judging or doing any of the list of things listed in the preparation section above.
  
  
• Judge ideas and concepts not facts. Invariably the ideas and concepts will give greater growth than barely listening to the facts alone.
  
  
• Take appropriate notes. You can think around four times quicker than the speaker speaks. Your capability of taking appropriate notes, in flexible ways (like picture diagrams) will immeasurable improve your listening capability.  
  
• Re-examine your assumptions regularly. What ever your opinion of the speaker was six months ago may not be relevant to today – his ability may have grown faster than you may have imagined. Be prepared to re-examine your assumptions several times during your listening session.
  
  
• Listen for unspoken fears / concerns / moods / aspirations. When people speak, they always reveal their deepest thoughts, ambitions, and concerns. Good listeners, attend to these background, unspoken emotions and concerns. And when they "hear" them and empathize with them (either verbally or nonverbally) the speaker often remarks "you really know how I feel".
  
  
• Listen to others with respect and validation The secret is to always find something to respect and validate about what others are saying. Unfortunately, the common habbit is to look for faults or weaknesses in what the other person says and find ways to disagree.
  
• Learn and Grow into being a good listener. No one practices all of the above all of the time. If you improve your standards by doing a few of the above, and consciously look to improve your listening skill – it will – and you will reap untold rewards.  

A word of caution and encouragement. Being thick skinned, has its advantages.  As your listening skills grow, your sensitivities to the world will change, and with that may come greater emotional pain. Given time, you will undoubtedly adjust, as your other capabilities grow too. Give yourself the benefit of some patience, the journey is definitely worthwhile.

By Hitesh Kanabar - Ology Business Coach, Peterborough

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