Listening FAQ 10/12/19
How to be a “good listener” might not be obvious. Or easy.
1. What is good listening? Isn’t it just making eye contact and paraphrasing or mirroring?
2. What’s so hard about listening?
3. Why would I want to go to all that effort?
4. I’m a good listener, but sometimes people claim I’m not hearing them. What’s going on?
5. How can I tell if I’m listening to someone well?
6. What if they say something that’s just not true?
7. Don’t I get to be heard, too?
8. This sounds so time-consuming!
9. What if I realize that I haven’t been listening to someone?
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1. What is good listening? Isn’t it just making eye contact and paraphrasing or mirroring?
Good listening may seem obvious. But rather than focusing on body language, paraphrasing, or repeating what someone has said, good listening involves paying attention to what someone else is saying. My experience tells me that this is often harder than we think. And rarer. To really listen well usually means sort of setting aside our own perspective, at least for a short time, and trying to imagine theirs, and letting them know what we have heard. We aren’t necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with the other person. We are not debating the rightness or wrongness of that experience. Instead, we are focusing on what they are experiencing; we are trying to understand them and give them the feeling of being heard and understood. So, this kind of engagement is actually quite different from focusing on body language or on paraphrasing or mirroring.
2. What’s so hard about listening?
If we don’t have much investment in how the other party sees things, it may not be very hard. Or maybe we’re just not very interested in what they’re saying. But if their experience is very different from ours or is challenging to ours, it can be very, very difficult. For one thing, attending to and tolerating more than one perspective is cognitively more work; it requires our brains to work harder. Even more so if the other person is challenging something we hold dear, or if they are criticizing us. To listen to them can feel as if we are abandoning our own reality, our own perspective. Some people fear that they will forget what they, themselves, think and feel. So they struggle to set their own experience aside long enough to hear someone else.
3. Why would I want to go to all that effort?
Good question. Why would we want to do something that’s so hard? One answer is that it helps relationships. When we feel heard by others, we tend to feel more warmly toward them. When we feel misunderstood or invisible to others, we feel more distant, even resentful. Another reason is that, when we’re able to really listen well, we open up opportunities to learn; we hear things we might not have otherwise known. Even when we have very different views, we can benefit from knowing something about others’ perspectives. And finally, listening well to someone else is a good way to make progress toward a negotiated agreement. So, in that sense, it’s a way for us to get more of what we want.
4. I’m a good listener, but sometimes people claim I’m not hearing them. What’s going on?
There are a couple of possibilities here. Unfortunately, someone might say we have misunderstood them, even when we’ve carefully listened to them; they might not realize that we understand. I’ve also met people who don’t want to admit that others have heard them well. But sometimes, even when we think we’re listening well, it can be hard to notice when we’re not doing it. For example, sometimes we can think we’re listening but we’re actually waiting impatiently for the other person to finish so we can tell them about our experience. But if we’re having trouble focusing on the other person, they will likely notice. One thing we can do is imagine how we would feel if we were on the receiving end of our listening efforts. Would we feel heard? It’s probably inevitable to be unable to listen well sometimes, and it’s worth acknowledging when that’s happening. Maybe whatever is taking our attention is just too compelling for us to listen well right now. But maybe we can invite ourselves to come back to what the other person saying, and that might be all we need to do.
5. How can I tell if I’m listening to someone well?
One way is that they will sometimes just continue to talk. Or they might say Yes, or nod, or visibly relax a bit, and then continue talking. Sometimes, when I have been able to really hear someone well, their face shows relief, or they cry. It’s so rare to be heard that it can be very powerful when it happens. Another way to tell if you are listening well is that you will feel engaged by what they are saying. If you take a moment to notice where your attention is going, you will find that, when you’re listening to their experience, that’s where your attention will be. You won’t be spending much energy preparing to defend your own perspective or worrying about what to say next.
6. What if they say something that’s just not true?
That is probably inevitable, though it can be very hard to bear sometimes. One way you might make some peace with moments like that is to remember that each of us has our own experience and history. When we are trying to really listen, we aren’t focusing primarily on establishing what’s objectively true. If we don’t agree with what they say, or we have a very different experience, that’s okay. We humans have different past experiences, different struggles, and we have often made different meanings of the same events. Of course, humans do misinterpret things sometimes, and the person we’re trying to listen to may be have misinterpreted something. But that doesn’t mean we can’t acknowledge the way it is for them. As my Harvard mentor, Kiyo Morimoto, used to say, acknowledging is different from agreeing. It might be very tricky to remember that we are focusing on what feels true for them, not what’s true for us, but that is our job as a good listener. Our time might come later.
7. Don’t I get to be heard, too?
You might, depending on your relationship and the other person’s ability. If the other person is able and willing to engage with you to help you feel heard, that’s fine. But if not, and if you thought the situation was reciprocal, you may feel disappointed and resentful. You may be tempted to resort to a debate approach, trying harder to get them to see your perspective. If you press hard enough, emotions can get heated, and your demand to be heard can create distance, rather than convincing them of your views. It can be experienced as too challenging or even coercive. Ironically, after a conversation turns into a debate, sometimes both parties find themselves refusing to hear one another, claiming to be unheard, themselves, and even bullied. So, while you may eventually be heard, it’s good to clarify ahead of time what to expect and to take satisfaction in listening well, rather than in the assumption that you will also be heard.
8. This sounds so time consuming!
Not necessarily. Careful listening can involve a long conversation, but it doesn’t have to. I’ve felt very deeply heard and acknowledged in just a few seconds when I realize that someone has really paid attention to something I’ve said or felt. You might decide to engage in a long, concerted effort to listen to someone, especially if there is a complicated situation being discussed, but it’s not the only way good listening happens.
9. What if I realize that I haven’t really been listening to someone?
That’s almost sure to happen sometimes. If we feel unheard by someone else, it’s painful. It’s not what we wanted and can be disappointing, but we tend to feel more favorably toward someone who is honest about it. When someone claims to have been listening and the speaker doesn’t experience it that way, that usually makes it worse. So, as a listener, you can acknowledge that you didn’t listen well, forgive yourself for being imperfect, and offer to try again (if you are, in fact willing to do that). If the person speaking is willing to try again too, you’re off and running. If not, maybe they will be willing at another time. In any case, you’ve been honest with them and with yourself about what happened, rather than denying it. Congratulations on that!
c. Ariel Phillips 2019
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