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These blogs are a way to share my thoughts and insights with you. Feel free to comment and share.

The Wandering Mind

23/10/2013

8 Comments

 
And the art of listening

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Listening requires focus, and focus isn’t easy if you feel pulled in different directions and if your mind is jumping all over the place, in a  jumble of thoughts and emotions.

This weekend, I volunteered at the First International Congress on Whole Person Care in Montreal. The topic of listening came up at a few workshops and plenary sessions. The key message for healthcare professionals went like this…Listening isn’t just hearing words. It's listening to tone, speed and volume of the voice. It’s paying attention to gestures, mood and feelings and what is and isn’t being said. Listening is part of providing good care.

I said to one doctor, " I always assumed that doctors' should know how to talk and listen to their patients, but many have poor communications skills and don't know how to seek and respect input from their patients. Why?" To which she answered, "It's taken me 20-years to learn how to be an effective parent; it's really no different. These are learned skills and our training has not supported partnering with patients."  She had a point.

A keynote speaker said to a large crowd, "You need to sit near your patients, remove as many barriers as you can, be as present as possible with your hands in your lap and, look and listen so to hear what is really being said."

In the evening, unwinding by the wood stove in my living room after a long conference day, I started to tell a friend  about an important experience I had at one of the workshops. After only a few minutes, mid-sentence, I stopped talking. Deflated, but not angry, I said, “What happened, you just disappeared into lala land? You don’t seem to be listening to me at all.”  He replied in a non-defensive tone, “I don’t know, I just drifted off. I’m sorry.”

I was reminded immediately of an exercise we did during a workshop intended to demonstrate how easily distracted we are and how poorly we pay attention. It goes like this:
  • In partners, the speaker has 3-minutes to tell the listener something about what he/she is passionate about.
  • The listener is to simultaneously listen and nod appropriately while using his/her iPhone to send text messages and emails.
  • At the end of the 3-minutes, they switch roles, except this time, the listener pays attention, stays focused on the speaker and engages in an authentic and interested manner.

What do you think happened in both scenarios?
In the first one, the listener was distracted and had very little recall of what the speaker was passionate about. The speaker, feeling unheard, became  disheartened and disengaged. In the second scenario, both speaker and listener felt connected, interested and bonded.

No doubt, our minds wander. We seem to drift in and out of listening, nodding and saying yes and aha at appropriate times. Our minds are so jittery we don’t even remember what we are talking about!

To improve your listening, you can adopt more mindful practices. Here are some good suggestions - you only need to remember using them!

Stop multi-tasking and:
  • Planning on what to say next
  • Anticipating the point the other person is about to make
  • Developing arguments and counter arguments
  • Being impatient and interrupting, talking over someone

Stop listening in the modes of:
  • This idea/message threatens me
  • I agree or disagree
  • What is the flaw in what they are saying
  • Suspicion and mistrust

Keep me posted,

Coach Minda

When other people talk, do you actively listen?  Effective listening requires certain techniques for receiving, organizing and interpreting what has been said. Would your professional or personal life would benefit from learning how to become a better listener?
8 Comments
Susan
23/10/2013 06:25:58 am

Those observatons at the end about all the things that we do inwardly and defensively when we claim to be listening to our friends and colleagues are spot on. I am ashamed to recognise how many times I have been guilty of exactly those things in conversation with my friends and relatives (not the texting though!)

Reply
Minda link
23/10/2013 07:06:34 am

Tell me about it! I have made a conscious effort to develop my active listening skills and to become more mindful of where my attention is/isn't. The wandering mind.... even in meditation, between breaths, swims far away until I remember to come back to my breath.

Reply
Catherine
23/10/2013 03:09:43 pm

I often am listening and trying to figure out how to solve the other person's problem as I am listening. I mean to be helpful but perhaps I'm not?

Reply
Minda
24/10/2013 12:53:17 pm

You raise a good point. We assume if our intentions are good and we are trying to be helpful then we are doing right by our listening. Thanks for your comment Catherine

Reply
Carlos
23/10/2013 03:56:12 pm

This was a fantastic blog. I once did an experiment and didn't talk for a few days. After a day or so, something incredible started to happen. WHich is when I heard people talking, I listened, deeply, wholly. I had stopped preparing to talk. So much of our listening is that we are preparing to talk; even if we are preparing words to show support and empathy, it means we are listening less. And by listening I mean hearing timbre, tone, body position. It shows me how much better we can listen even when we are carrying on our normal lives, perhaps, spending less time preparing what we will say in response.

Reply
Minda
24/10/2013 12:57:46 pm

Thanks Carlos. I would like to go without talking for a few days.... quite a challenge I imagine. I wonder if our inner voice would get quieter or louder.

I think the art of listening is a worthwhile skill to cultivate - with the need to impress upon, teach, fix, give or give advice much reduced,

Reply
Judy
24/10/2013 08:43:19 am

When I was in my late teens, the book Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlen was hugely popular. I only remember tiny bits of the plot, but I do recall his way of relating to people, tasks and thinking. His word was grok and it meant fully attending to whatever you were doing, especially listening. When I feel myself silently wandering from really listening or focussing, I've taken to just actually silently saying grok. Silly, but it works - pulls me right back to where I want to be. Listening well truly honours the other person.

Reply
Minda
24/10/2013 12:59:34 pm

Judy, thanks for introducing grok into my life. A great cue to tell us we are really moving far away from center... I wish you get grok in your life

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