Listening : Is it your Achilles Heel?

We spend approximately 45% of our communication time listening. The question is, how well do we really listen?

PAUL DU TOIT challenges executives to reassess themselves

Have you ever been introduced to someone and immediately forgotten their name? Well, you're not alone, it happens to many of us frequently. Why does it happen and how can we correct this?

Highly successful people seem to have one thing in common - they are usually excellent communicators. In order to be a good communicator it is important to be a good listener. Unfortunately, we leave school relatively unprepared in this area. The skill we need the most receives the least training!

This may give us some idea why effective communication is not as commonplace as one may think. Most people use less than 2000 of the over 15,000 words available in the English language. But the problem is not about vocabulary, or lack of understanding. Some of the reasons for poor listening are:

• We may have our minds on something else
• We often enter into conversation with our own agenda, waiting for the other person to finish, only so that we can have our say
• We may be listening for points to support our view
• Some people complete other's sentences for them

Listening can be broken up into 3 primary categories: Marginal, Selective and Active. Marginal listeners pretend to listen, but do not have their attention on the speaker. They absorb neither the speaker's content nor the context of the communication. Selective listening is where the listener makes a conscious effort to hear the actual words but fails to notice the context (the emotions being displayed by the speaker).

Active listening, as defined by the well-known psychologist Carl Rogers involves listening to both the content and context of the speaker and responding appropriately. The secret of active listening goes beyond hearing - it incorporates watching as well. Let's see why.

When communicating verbally, people do far more than just talk! They use paralanguage (better known as voice tone) and give off both passive and active body language signals. When these are observed in the context of words spoken, they can significantly affect the meaning of a sentence.

An example of this may be a husband enquiring of his wife "Do you like my new suit?" The way she uses inflection in her voice when she replies "Yes" can mean either yes, no or "sort of". If she shakes her head while saying yes - it clearly indicates that the yes actually means no.

It is therefore important to watch while listening. An added skill is awareness of the manner in which you respond to people. We tend to choose the words we use, but find it more difficult to control our body and paralanguage which reveal our true feelings.

The good news is that Active Listening is a skill that you can teach yourself with a bit of application and practice if you follow these basic guidelines:

• Face the speaker and make eye contact (acknowledgement)
• Listen carefully to the content
• Listen to the way the words are being said
• Respond to the way the speaker is putting the message across
• Watch for other verbal and non-verbal cues
• Reflect key phrases or words back to the speaker acknowledging that you have heard and understood them
• Use the power of association to remember key information like names

Particularly in a South African work environment where the vast majority of people communicating in English are doing so in their second or third language, it is vitally important to be able to accurately interpret the real meaning of what is being said. For example, when asked if a work instruction has been understood the answer may be a polite "yes." This answer could mean that the person doesn't understand you, but are too shy to say so.

Watching some of the overseas sitcoms can be even more confusing if one does not understand context. "I didn't do nuthin!" which actually means, "I did something" is actually supposed to mean, "I didn't do anything".

I referred earlier to the power of association. And at the beginning I asked how we could remember names. Not long ago I met a man with a beard called Leon. I immediately pictured his beard as the mane of a lion. So it became easy to remember his name - Leon the Lion! You could imagine Mike riding a bike, or Robin singing like a little bird and so on.

So if listening is your Achilles heel, it needn't be. You can become a good listener by applying the simple principles above and asking a trusted friend to give you feedback.