Communications is an important topic in all aspects of life, whether you’re talking to family, coworkers, customers, or yourself. It’s so important, that I decided to make this a series.
In my last post, I discussed the propensity of people to tune out articles or newscasts that made them uncomfortable. Now the question is, how often do people tune out conversations that happen at home or at work? Do you hear your children / coworkers / customers, or do you listen to them?
Hearing someone is different than listening to someone. Hearing is the recognition that there is noise outside your head that your ears recognize, and may even translate into words. But though you may know what someone is saying, do you really understand it?
For instance, if your child wants to talk to you about drugs, do you instantly rattle off all the anti-drug catch phrases you’ve picked up from television, list the prescriptions you’re taking, or start a lecture on how they should stay away from the drug-of-the-week in the midst of a paranoid lecture? This, to me, is an example of hearing. You know what your child said, but did you understand what she wanted?
If, instead, you asked your child what exactly she wanted to talk about, and let your child express herself in her own words, and built your responses based on what she was saying AND what she meant (usually two different things), that is an example of listening. Listening is understanding the other person’s conversation before responding. It’s thinking over what was said and considering the import of what was said.
When I graduated college, I worked at another college in the Business Office. It was my job to take tuition money from the students. One snowy morning, an ESL student (English as a Second Language) came up and asked if we had a tool. I waited, watching his face and his lips while he fought for the correct words in English. Theatre people know the audience can’t understand what you’re saying if they can’t see your lips move. Using what I learned in theatre, it took me two minutes to realize he wanted to borrow a shovel to uncover his car. When he left, the other girls in the office asked how I’d figured out what he wanted. Even though they could hear the conversation, they didn’t understand a word he’d said.
So, I told them. "I just listened." But they got stuck on the fact that his accent was too thick to understand. A perfect example of hearing without listening. Listening is more than just paying attention to the noise. It’s the body language, the words that remain unsaid.
It’s easy to get caught up in a Loud Howard or Topper situation. To think that the loudest voice is the one that gets heard. To concentrate solely on your own wants and needs in a conversation. But if you intend to communicate, you have to remember to listen to the other person when they speak. That’s especially important in electronic communication media. Many of us have a bad habit of skimming emails, forum threads, and important work communications. We walk away with one or two sentences sticking out in our mind and forget the rest, the little stuff that changes what we thought we saw.
I have watched people lose jobs because they never listened to what their customers wanted. Look at Steve Jobs and the iphone dropping calls debacle. He "heard" the problem, but didn’t listen. As far as he was concerned, there was no reason to listen to the complaints because he knew his product. If he’d shown his ability to listen, he could have phrased his responses better and not ended up looking foolish at the end of the day.
To hammer my point home, Scott Adams ran a Dilbert strip on Saturday that seems oddly appropriate to today’s post.
First rule of communication, learn how to listen. We’ll discuss the talking part in the next post. Comments welcome. Let me know how you think communication should work.
