Level 5 Listening

Habit 5 - Seek first to understand, then to be understand By Stephen R. Covey

"Oh, I know exactly how you feel!"
"Let me tell you about this instead."
"Bullshit! You are just covering his ass, he's obviously slacking!"
"You won't understand"

How often do you actually hear similar lines like those mentioned above ? How often do you feel as though someone is dominating conversation which you initiated with the intent to share your personal experience ? Many are constantly overwriting the speaker's personal experience with their own. But, in actual fact, they have no idea what was really going on.

Now, look back at some of your recent conversations and compare it with some of the examples and personal experience of mine. Then, see if you can see your shadow in them. Have you been unconsciously committing these mistakes as well ?

Let's start off with ignoring (Level 1 Listening). The easiest way to know if someone is ignoring you is by looking into his eyes and at his body language. When he is ignoring you, he is probably looking around or in a daze. At the same time, he could be moving about or playing with his shirt or shoes. This is level 1 listening, which most of us are aware of committing. This is especially common when they are listening to someone they have great odium for.

Level 2 Listening - pretending. This group of people usually looked like they are paying attention, however, they were actually diverting their attention to something else, something more enticing to them. Let me draw up one of my personal experience to illustrate this idea.

One day, I was telling Joyce about my trip to Hong Kong, the places I had been to and the stuff i bought, and mid way, John who was sitting next to me interrupted and started to share with the rest his trip to New York where he met the starts of "Harry Potter". Despite his interruption, I continued on talking about my endeavor in HK, and I thought Joyce was still with me because she was apparently nodding and smiling at me throughout. Within the next few seconds, she opened her mouth and said, "So what did Emma Watson say? Was Daniel Radcliffe present? ". At that point in time, I was appalled and disappointed at the same time. After all this while, she was not even listening to me at all. All along, she had already diverted her attention to John the minute he interrupted me. From this experience, I realized that nodding and smiling may not be approval of what you said, rather, it could just be a facade to mask the listener's diverted attention. There, I suggest prompting them & pausing to make sure that your listener is still with you, he/she might be interested after a while and you should end the conversation if you see her yawning or looking away before it leads to further uneasiness.

Level 3 listening is known as selective listening, many of us usually do this when the conversation is too long and we tend to ask questions about certain facets of the conversation. For the remaining part of it, we merely listening and forget. We only hear what we want to know and for the rest of it, we will naturally filter it off. The easiest way to test it out is to ask the listener about the conversation the next day and you will then roughly discover what he took away with him.

Level 4 listening is attentive listening. I'm suer that many of you can actually relate to this form of listening when you focus all your attention onto the speaker. However here comes the tricky part, we often listen and rebutt with what we feel rather that what we think you are feeling about the issue. Many do not actually listen to understand, they listen to your arguments but deep inside they never did waiver on their own stand. No matter how you try to state your concerns, they will remain adamant to it. Once you stop, they will immediately jump in and drown you with their own autobiography. In addition, they don't really understand the point you are actually bringing across, it almost seems arcane to them, something they can't comprehend or relate to.

One example is when I was complaining about a friend of mine, Johnny. I told another friend of mine, Tiffany if I should confront Johnny about the incident where he castigated all of his subordinates for reporting to work late. i told her that the truth is that they were all held up by a major traffic jam down the street due to a chain of accidents. To my dismay, she told me that I should not bother myself with such a trivial issue because Johnny will never accept that kind of reason and he has always been bad tempered to begin with. I disagreed, I tried to reason with her by saying that the incident could have diminished their trust for Johnny because he just won't listen, if this persist, their working relationships will be strained and both parties will lose. But, once again, she rebutted by saying that Johnny will be impervious to such agreements. From then, I knew that Tiffany is obviously missing my point. She was obviously too concerned with Johnny's attitude. I see no point in seeking her opinion anymore. Therefore, I went to confront Johnny myself and true enough initially he completely ignored my argument. But, I persisted and reinforced my view about the loss in trust with some of my experience and eventually he capitulated. He change his paradigm and listened, eventually he apologized to the employees and from then, they were in a great working relationship. The key here is to not just be attentive but yo have to understand the argument of another as well. Otherwise, you will end up like Tiffany, being too infatuated with the mindset of others.

Last but not least, Level 5- empathic listening. This form involves looking into the world of another. You see the world the way they see the world, you understand their paradigm and how they feel.

Researches have proven that 10% of our communications is represented by the content, 30% by the presentation of speech and 60% by our body language.

When you listen, you should not just focus on the words coming out from the speaker, it covers merely a 10% of the communication process. Never assume you know, never interrupt unnecessarily, thinking you know everything.

Listen throughout first and look at their eyes and body language. See how they are feeling about he point they are bringing across. Reassure them if you feel that they are not feeling secure about the topic. Some of the pointers which I have personally identified are trembling in their voices, random pausing and stuttering. In terms of body language, they usually move about, fidget. At times, they play with their fingernails and they shake their legs. These are some of the signs and gestures I have identified when I feel that the speaker is not confident about his point or do not feel secure saying it.

You can assure or affirm them by nodding slightly or smiling. Try not to say I can understand as that might come off as being frivolous. You can bring across some points of your which you feel relates to their points. Try not to conflict their views straight away or they might not continue with their own opinions. The key is to listen and understand.