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The Art of Listening

Chapter Three

‘We are interested in others when they are interested in us.’

(Publilius Syrus)

The Roman poet Publilius obviously knew about Social Intelligence! If someone shows an interest in us and clearly wants to know us better, then we will be more interested and favourably disposed towards them.

The best, easiest and most effective way of showing interest in another person is to listen to what they are saying – to really listen, focusing on what they are saying, as opposed to standing there planning our own reposts and anecdotes in turn!

Listening in a Socially Intelligent way shows that you find someone to be worth your attention, and to be of value as a person – and everyone responds positively to that.

A Cautionary Tale of Social Intelligence – Part Two

When I was still in the ‘Mighty Muscle/Mighty Vocabulary’ stage of developing my Social Intelligence, I would tend to ‘dominate the airwaves’. This was because I thought that the more brilliant points I made, the more brilliant the conversation was.

This was a very one-sided and limited view.

Nature stepped in and taught me a very valuable lesson.

Just before an important social occasion, I contracted an irritating throat infection. To my chagrin, I could hardly utter a word.

At the party I met someone who was passionate about many things. We began an animated conversation, but because of my weakened voice, I was soon reduced to nodding, massaging the conversation with well-placed ‘uhuhms’ and very occasionally asking a question, which gave my companion the opportunity to launch into another five-minute conversational journey.

When we eventually parted I assumed that he would consider me an utter bore, as I had contributed probably less than 5 per cent to the conversation, and he comfortably more than 95 per cent.

To my amazement I heard later that he considered me a fascinating conversationalist!

How could this be so?

The light slowly began to dawn: we had had a wonderful conversation. He had entertained me with delightful stories and provocative concepts; my body, rather than my voice, had ‘spoken back to him’, indicating that I was interested, was involved and, by my supportive presence, I had allowed him to explore his own thoughts in good company, and therefore not only to have a conversation with me but also with himself.

I realized that listening gave me this wonderful opportunity to be completely relaxed in a conversation, to be entertained with wonderful tales and thoughts, as well as allowing me to give someone else the opportunity to be freely expressive.

I realized that up to that time, I had been guilty of what Leonardo da Vinci observed: that most people ‘listen without hearing’.

This chapter is devoted to helping you listen with hearing!

Listening – A Neglected Art

It is estimated that we spend between 50 and 80 per cent of our waking life communicating. On average half of that communication time is spent in listening. In schools and colleges the percentage is even higher, and in the business world listening ranks as one of the top three most important necessary managerial skills. Amazingly, despite all this, listening is the ‘poor relation’ of communication skills when it comes to being taught, despite the fact that it is learned first and used most, as the table below shows.

Learned	Used	Taught
Listening 1st	Most (45%)	Least
Speaking 2nd	Next most (35%)	Next least
Reading 3rd	Next least (16%)	Next most
Writing 4th	Least (9%)	Most

The Power of Social Intelligence is going to help you redress that balance.

Self-check 1

How would you rate yourself as a listener? On a scale from 0–100, with 0 representing the worst listener imaginable, and 100 meaning that you listen better than anybody else, how well do you think you listen to people?

Self-check 2

On a scale of 0–100, how do you think the following people would rate you as a listener?

1. Your family (you may give them individual ratings or a group average)

2. Your best friend

3. Your other friends

4. Your boss

5. Your work colleagues

6. Any people you supervise at work

Most people (in fact a staggering 85 per cent) rate their listening ability as average or less. On a 0–100 scale, the average rating is 55. Only a tiny 5 per cent score themselves in the 80–90 range, or consider themselves excellent listeners. By the time you have finished reading this chapter, you should be in that top category!

When it comes to other people assessing your listening skills, if you gave your best friend the highest score out of the six groups, you will be in the majority! In fact most people believe that their best friend would give them a higher rating as a listener than they would give to themselves.

People rate their boss as giving them the second-highest listener rating, and this rating also tends to be higher than the rating they give themselves. This is because of the power of authority. People tend to pay more attention to those who have their lives, or part of them, in their hands. Interestingly, and you can muse upon this, colleagues and subordinates tend to be rated exactly the same as the individual rates herself or himself – 55 out of 100.

Scores for family members range widely, depending on the particular structure of the family and the interpersonal relationships. Rather depressingly, the ratings which people thought their spouse or partner would give their listening skills tend to decline in inverse proportion to the number of years they have been together. There is a moral in there …

Bad Listening Habits

There are 10 listening habits that are most damaging to your skill as a listener and most weakening of your Social Intelligence.

1 Pretending to pay attention when you are really not

2 Trying to do other things while listening

3 Deciding the subject is uninteresting

4 Getting distracted by the speaker’s way of speech, or other mannerisms

5 Getting over-involved and thus losing the main thread of the person’s argument or thoughts

6 Letting emotion-filled words arouse personal anger and antagonism

7 Concentrating on any distractions instead of what is being said

8 Taking linear, one-colour notes

9 Listening primarily for facts

10 Avoiding anything that is complex or difficult

Of which bad listening habits are you guilty?! Make a note of where your weaknesses lie, and where you can do most to improve your listening skills.

Active Listening

Listening is not a passive activity; it’s not the ‘unexciting’ or ‘unflamboyant’ part of a conversation. As I myself found out, listening well is the vital ingredient in a successful, productive and interesting conversation.

‘Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.’

(Robert Benchley)

Nor is it just a person’s words that we should listen to. If we are aware of the other person’s body language as well (see Chapter 2) we can intuit so much more meaning from any conversation – we can listen to what they feel as well as what they say.

There is a humorous phase that is particularly apt here: ‘I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant!’