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7 DON'TS OF REFLECTIVE LISTENING

I've said that the single most important problem encountered in human communication is the lack of a Receiver's attention to what a Sender is saying. To a great degree all other problems of communication derive from this basic problem of inattention.  The most damaging of these subsidiary problems can be listed as a series of "Don'ts,"

1.   Don't rehearse. If you want to get 100 percent of what a speaker is saying to you, you can't give him or her 25 or 50 percent of your attention. That means more than simply not letting your mind "wander" on to irrelevant topics. It also means not letting your attention wander to your own (relevant) thoughts while the speaker is talking. We all have a tendency to do this - to prepare and rehearse our countering statement while the speaker is talking - and the habit can be fatal to understanding. Rehearsing what you're going to say when he shuts up may be an appropriate tool for a debater, but good managerial motivation has very little to do with debate. You simply cannot turn somebody on if you're turned off to him from Square One.

2.   Don't defend. A related problem is allowing yourself to become defensive in the face of comments that can be interpreted as antagonistic. Defensiveness, even when it's justified by a speaker's attack, is a major barrier to understanding. It's a natural reaction, I know, and I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't feel defensive. But as a manager you've got to look to the long term. You've got to keep your public reactions to antagonism on hold, or turn a potentially motivating exchange into the worst kind of demotivating  experience - a shouting match between opponents. Find out first what the person is saying and feeling; you can counter later on.

3.   Don't interrupt. Unless the guy is rambling on like he's possessed, and you can't make anything out of the diatribe, interruption is always contraindicated. It is physiologically impossible to listen and talk at the same time, so the best you can hope for when you interrupt is the standard 25 percent retention rate that, as I've said, is a hallmark of poor communication.  Again the lesson is to listen up first, then respond.

4.  Don't change the focus to yourself. A common misuse of Reflective Listening, especially of Empathy Statements, is to try to "top" the speaker's story by relating it to one of your own.  An effective Empathy Statement validates the speaker's feelings first. An ineffective one often reads something like this: "I know just how you feel. I had the same thing happen to me. Let me tell you about it." And the "listener" goes off on a tangent, talking about himself while the speaker (who is the one with the immediate problem) is left feeling half-understood. (If you have a story that does relate to the speaker's, there's nothing wrong with mentioning it briefly, of course; but if you want the clarification of information that Reflective Listening is supposed to bring you, you must keep the initial focus on the speaker.)

5.   Don't discount. When Laing and other psychologists caution against identifying a person's feelings as "mad" or "bad," they refer to such a procedure as "negating" or "discounting," Discounting a speaker's reactions as irrelevant, or inappropriate, or misguided nearly always guarantees that the communication process has broken down. As I mentioned in the section on Empathy Statements, you don't have to agree with each speaker's analysis of a situation. But you always have to acknowledge that the feelings he has about it are valid. Your goal as a Reflective Listener is to clarify and improve the situation; if you have a minor in clinical psychology and you just know that the speaker is reacting inappropriately, keep your pearls of wisdom to yourself - at least until after you have clarified why he is reacting the way he is.

6.  Don't Judge. Similarly, if you have assessed a situation in dramatically different terms from those of your speaker, slow down until you get all the facts before making a judgment on his or her view. I mean positive as well as negative judgment.  It can be just as damaging to the ultimate solution of a dilemma to agree with a person's analysis prematurely as it can be to denounce it prematurely. The goal of Reflective Listening is "clarify (information) and reinforce (the speaker)." Judging the rightness or wrongness of either feelings or information generally tends to cut the conversation short - the last thing you want to do when the problem you are facing is still unresolved.  So you should be just as wary of reacting with an enthusiastic "Yes, and . . ." as you are of reacting with a less enthusiastic "Yes, but . . ."

7.  Don't solve the problem - yet. Finally, the Reflective Listener must always understand that the skills I have outlined here are ways of accumulating data - not shortcuts to pushing the button that will explain how all that data fits together. In the chapter on Creative Problem Solving, I'll show you how to work with your various speakers and listeners to generate effective team solutions. As you practice Reflective Listening,
don't jump the gun. One of the quickest ways to turn off a speaker with a problem is to respond to his initial complaints with a ribboned-and-bowed solution. In team problem solving, the guy with the problem has got to be part of the solution. You serve no useful purpose by saying, "I know just how you feel, Ms. McVie. And here's how to set things straight."

The final lesson here is very simple. A fundamental reason that human communication goes sour is that people who are supposed to be listening are doing any number of other things instead. This is because listening does not come naturally, but is a learned skill that improves with practice; obviously, only those who do practice it are going to get good at doing it. In this chapter I've outlined a few of the most effective techniques that I know of to increase your Reflective Listening potential. By practicing these techniques in your own job, family, or other social situations, you will gradually rise above that depressing
25 percent retention rate that most people think is "acceptable."

Ultimately, hearing more and retaining more of what you hear is half the battle in human communication - and in the various performance and motivation problems that are governed by communication.                        
    .
The other half of the battle is making sure that, once you've heard what the other fellow has to say, he will then hear your side. That's the subject of the following chapter.

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