Listen. Communicate Achieve Success

  Most of a manager’s day is spent communicating.

What are the tools we can take along to help successfully navigate our course?

“We are all in races, every day, especially in the work environment.

 Racing is a way of life, and we are all in it together.”

By Judith E. Glaser

Whether your talents are in sales, systems engineering, administration, a support center or as headquarter's staff, gathering and effectively assessing relevant information is very important to your success as a manager.

On Your Mark, Get Set

Unlike this page before it was printed, the listening adult mind is never blank or completely impartial.  Our listening is influenced by events, relationships and experiences − all adding to what we hear, and changing the meaning.  As objective as we would like to think we are in our listening, we actually are not.

We also are subject to the effects of our physical and emotional states.  Being tired, angry, elated or stressful predisposes us to selectively attend to what we hear.  These two forces − history plus emotional state − make up our “listening set” at any point in the day.

The Navigator

Try to recall a recent situation where you were a listener.  It may have been a speech delivered by an executive, a discussion with a subordinate or an explanation from a peer.  Did you listen to facts or to specific words?  Did you paraphrase these words in your mind?  Did this lead to new impressions, feelings, and ideas?  Were you affected by how the speaker stood, her low voice or his tan suit? 

Did his anger bother you?  Were you evaluating the speaker’s effectiveness as a communicator?  Were you judging?  Or were you so preoccupied with your own problems that you didn’t listen at all? It’s impossible to attend to everything we hear, so we listen selectively.

But what guides our listening?  It isn’t the same for everyone; for example, individuals who hear the same speech often walk away with different impressions of what they heard.  Obviously they didn’t “hear” the same thing.

The Untrained Navigator

We hear at a rate of one − seventh as fast as we think − about one unit of hearing to five units of thinking.  Obviously, the mind has the opportunity and the time to construct questions, inferences, assumptions and associations as we listen.  But:  Are we using this time wisely?

Traditionally, ineffective listening has been viewed as a hearing problem. However, as we gain important new information about the effects of this uniquely human process − called listening − on the effectiveness of an organization, we can recognize that ineffective listening is a management problem. Consider some of these common types of listening behavior in business.

“Noise in the Attic” Listening

Like many people, some we've been taught to think that being a good listener is merely sitting silently while others talk.  Outwardly, we appear to be listening.  Inwardly, however, we are surrendering to a type of listening called Noise in the Attic.

Disengaged from the speaker’s ideas and − sometimes − presence, when listening with this posture, we are completely involved in our own mental processes, adding partiality and distance between the speaker and ourselves. 

Noise in the Attic listening tends to develop from childhood experiences.  As youngsters, how many of us heard: “Don’t talk while I’m speaking!”  “Don’t interrupt me!”  “Don’t ask so many questions!”  “Why?  Because I said so!” Conditioned by these long ago warnings, many of us in business unconsciously turn off our minds − and potentially good habits of inquiry.  Instead of trying to clarify the speaker’s intent, we sometimes end up preoccupied with our own internalizations:  “Who does she think she is?”  “I can do his job better than he can.”  Or, sometimes we find ourselves planning a trip, remembering a pleasant experience, or even mentally completing a thought left dangling from another conversation...returning from time to time to listen to what is being said.  Sound familiar?

“Face Value” Listening

Sometimes, we think we are hearing facts, when actually the words we’re hearing are interpretations of events they describe.  In Face Value listening, the listener isn’t mentally “checking back” into the real world to see whether the words really explain what they purport to explain.

Words are heard more for their literal meanings rather than as tools for understanding.  This explains why executives, managers and staff can differ dramatically in their perceptions. 

Children are excellent examples of people who use Face Value listening.  But they have a choice, since their experiences are so limited.  As adults, we have more experiences, and we should use these experiences to add depth and understanding to the listening process.  Unfortunately, many adults hear, rather than listen.  Good listening requires guided thought.