Are Good Listeners Almost Extinct?
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Pawan Sarda | Feb 09, 2012
The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and to be understood.The best way to understand people is to listen to them. Listening is by far the simplest process a human body undergoes. But most of us have yet to learn the art of listening.
Good listeners are becoming extinct among us. What is even more disturbing is that very few of us are concerned about our inability to be attentive listeners.
The ear is a radar that picks up frequencies created by any kind of sound and sends them to the brain. This is hearing. Hearing is an effect (of some sound or noise), while listening is an effort. Hearing is a natural biological function while listening is a choice on our part. Many of us have only heard and never really listened in our lives. Listening is an effort to receive all that comes to the ear in the form of speech or sound and understand it as well as if you have spoken it. A good listener tries to understand what is being said. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he must know what exactly he disagrees with and that can only happen if he listens attentively. Listening is quite an evolved process within human consciousness.
When a knowledgeable man speaks, only a wise man has the ears, heart and wisdom to listen. The wisdom he possesses is not because he is wise, but because he listens. Out of the 5 senses, listening uses the least amount of energy. Perhaps that’s why sound (alarm) is used to wake up from sleep. Listening is a very sensitive process with complex psychological inputs. Let us explore some of them.
You don’t just listen to sound outside you. You can listen to your own voice. Try speaking your name, and it sounds like the crescendo of a concert. Try listening to your thoughts, they sound even louder and clearer because they are even closer to the brain. Try listening to the feelings of pain, relief, desire, joy, surprise etc. Each of these has a distinct sound associated with it. I would even go to the extent of saying that everything in this world is sound or has sound or makes sound. All you need is a set of ears that can catch, convey and comprehend these sound waves.
The one factor that will make you a genius listener is patience. There is no barter for patience. The second equally important intention is to get the message right, as exact as possible. Therefore what you need is a positive body language to make the speaker feel confident that he is making sense to you. This will help him to convey his idea better, so the eventual beneficiary is you, the avid listener.
Here are the thumb rules to being a good listener:
1. Listen to the speaker, instead of planning what you will say in return.
2. Listen as if you are listening to the cancellation of your death sentence.
3. When you speak, make sure that you have finished speaking before the audience has finished listening.
4. Interrupt only when the speaker wants it.
5. Remember, your ears will never get you in trouble.
I will sign off now with one of my favourite quotes on listening: I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. Robert McCloskey.
Filed Under: Miscellaneous
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Yes so true…As knowledge tends to speak while wisdom sticks to listening!
Always.
With the convergence of technology and knowledge transfer happening at lightening speeds as well, we are having more of the former and less and less of the later.
No wonder Listeners are getting rarer and rarer by the hour!
Axee
I know plenty of great listeners – but that’s more about the company I choose than about the general ability to listen. In the education I received we were taught a lot about how to put words together to communicate messages, but I don’t recall a single lesson on how to listen. And I agree with you that it is SO important. In fact I think it’s more important than what we say because an expert listener will still understand us even when we express ourselves poorly.
I love #5: “Remember, your ears will never get you in trouble.”
I think the absence of real listening is a reflection of our modern “now” culture. We want instant gratification in so many aspects of our lives and that kind of impatience often turns our interpersonal communication into a competition rather than a collaboration.
I don’t think good listeners are extinct quite yet, but I do believe that we can all further develop the ability, once we’ve expanded our awareness of any deficiency we might have. Great article
Thank you for the reminder. We have a tendency of getting so caught up in our own life drama that we forget that it is not always about us, it almost never is. If we can hear, I mean really listen to what is being said to us perhaps than we will become better communicators.