“Being a good listener” is an admired trait in our cultural lexicon.
I’ve been told that I’m a good listener. Not recently. But over the years. I don’t always think that I am but I think I know what you mean when you say it. To that I’d usually agree. I’m often concerned with your concern and am eager to engage in verbal investigation.
I’ve also been told I talk too much. Not recently. But over the years. This I do think is true often. A little bit of irony that the same person can be viewed as both a good listener and an over-talker. Sometimes my over-talking manifests as over-explaining. I like to be understood. Sometimes I take it too far. If I’ve done this to you, I’m sorry.
I’ve recently encountered a new way (new to me) to approach listening. It’s still fresh and I’m not very good at it yet but I like what I see and I think you will too. It’s courtesy, again, of Paul Greiner. (Paul’s a good dude and he’s teaching me a lot.)
But I’m not going to lay all that out here. Mostly because it’s not fluid for me yet. Instead, here’s an observation about not listening when you think you are.
First, you need to acknowledge that it’s possible to think you’re listening to someone and actually not be. I’m not talking about the kind of listening where you know you’re distracted and wandering. That’s obvious and you eventually realize when you’ve been doing it and retract back in like a tape measure. No, this is the kind of listening where you think you’re listening and capturing what is being said but you’re hearing some filtered version of it. This is a very real thing as evidenced by the countless disagreements resolved after we realize we’re saying the same thing.
If it’s true that we can listen without listening, what would happen if we listened with listening? What if we could hear something that was there all the time if we just began listening for it? Instead of hearing our opinion reinforced or dissented from. Instead of applying some filter for who this person is and what they’re trying to tell me. Instead of jumping the gun and determining I already know what they’re going to say. Instead of interjecting my opinion or working on my response.
I’ll say it again.
Listening completely without forming an opinion or crafting a response.
Just listening. And then going from there.
It’s a lot harder to do than you might think.
Which is why I don’t think I’m a great listener, even if you do.
