Are you listening?

God has given us two ears to listen and one mouth to speak, so we should listen twice as much, at least, as we speak; something all of us have been listening since childhood, but most of us fail to apply the age old wisdom.

The more listening you do, the smarter you will become, the better you will be liked, and the better conversationalist you will be. A good listener always winds up far ahead of a good talker in the affections of people. This is because a good listener always allows people to hear their favorite speakers, themselves.

Being a good listener is the outcome of many small actions, and to become a good listener sometime you need to tweak some of your behavioral and attitudinal attributes. Anybody worth listening to is worth looking at, look at the person who is talking. Eyes give natural feedback. Leaning towards the speaker demonstrates your intent of being keen in what he wishes to share, appear as if you don’t want to miss a single word. While listening, ask appropriate questions at opportune times, this lets the person who is talking know you are listening. But you should not interrupt and cut between sentences while asking questions.  

Listening requires lot of patience, not only you should allow the person to finish his sentence, but you should also allow him to finish the topic or subject he is speaking on, don’t change the subject no matter how anxious you are to get started on a new one.  

William Ury, an American author, academic, anthropologist, and negotiation expert, says  “Listening, I believe is the missing half of communication.  Absolutely necessary but often overlooked.”

We are living in the world of communication with all kind of devices, equipment, technologies like cellphones, texts, tweets, emails, chats designed to help us communicate, but mostly we use these technologies to talk and seldom communicate.  If you study the behavior of successful negotiators, you find that they listen far more than they talk.   

William Ury narrated an instance from his professional negotiation assignment experience in a lecture, to demonstrate the power of active listening –

“Some years ago, I was in the country of Venezuela serving as a third party between the government and the political opposition at a time of intense conflict, with a lot of people fearing a civil war. My colleague, Francisco Diaz and I had an appointment with the President, Hugo Chavez, at 9:00 PM at the Presidential Palace.

 Finally, at midnight, we were ushered in to see the President who had his entire cabinet arrayed behind him. He asked me: “So, Ury, what do you think of the situation going on here?” I said: “Mr. President, I’ve been talking to your ministers here, and to the opposition. And I think you’re making some progress.” “Progress? What do you mean progress?” he shouted. “You’re blind. You’re not seeing all the dirty tricks those traitors are up to.” And he leaned in very close to my face and proceeded to shout. What was I going to do?

Part of me felt like defending myself, naturally. But what good would it do for me to get into an argument with the President of Venezuela? How would that advance peace? So I just listened. I gave him my full attention. I listened to where he was coming from. And President Chavez was known – he was famous for making eight hour speeches. But after 30 minutes of me just nodding and listening, I saw his shoulders slowly sag. And he said to me in a very weary tone of voice: “So, Ury, what should I do?” That’s the sound of a human mind opening to listen. So I said: “Mr. President, it’s almost Christmas. The country needs a break. Last year, all the festivities were canceled because of the conflict. Why not propose a truce this time so that people can enjoy the holidays with their families? And after that, maybe everybody will be in a better mood to listen.” He said: “That’s a great idea. I’m going to announce that in my next speech.”

 His mood has completely shifted. How? Through the simple power of listening. Because I listened to him, he was more ready to listen to me.”

Ury’s story illustrates that it is very important to listen to resolve any conflict or to strike a deal through negotiation.

Listening is the catalyst facilitating the process.  Listening helps us understand the other side. Which very important as negotiation is an exercise in influence, in which you are trying to change someone else’s mind, and to be able to change it, you first need to know it.

Listening is a great connector. It helps building association and relation leading to building rapport and trust. Listening demonstrates empathy, it communicates that you care.

Listening facilitates a “yes”. I we first listen and allow the other person speak, it makes more likely that the other person is going to listen to us. Ultimately helping us get a “yes”

Again quoting Ury – “listening may be the cheapest concession we can make in a negotiation. It costs us nothing, and it brings huge benefits. Listening may be the golden key that opens the door to human relationship.

We often take listening for granted as something easy and natural. But in fact, real genuine listening is something that needs to be learned and practiced every day. Just to give you an idea of the listening that we do and the listening that we should practice – in ordinary listening, we’re hearing the words. And we’re often thinking, “Where do I agree? Where do I disagree? What am I going to say in response?” In other words, the focus is on us. In genuine listening, however, the spotlight moves to the other person. We put ourselves in their shoes. We tune into their wavelength. We listen from within their frame of reference, not just ours. And it is very difficult, and it requires lot of conviction, patience and practice.

What makes genuine listening so difficult to implement in practice. The challenge is that we have preoccupied mind, we have preconceived notions, beliefs and biases, we have so much going on in our minds, so much noise and distraction that we don’t have the mental and emotional space to be able to truly listen to the person sitting in front of us, or on the other side of the phone.

One solution could be, why not listen to our mind to start with, which has so much to say. If we learn to listen to ourselves first, our mind would be quieter after all the speaking it did to us, and be prepared to listen to the other person. So before any important, delicate or sensitive conversation, it’s a good idea to take a moment of silence just to tune in and listen to where we are? Truly listen to ourselves first. Then be ready to listen with respect to the speaker.

If listening becomes part of communication habit instead of talking, it would make huge difference. It will save lot of conflict, broken relationships, broken families, stressed out workplaces, lawsuits, senseless wars. May sound utopian but, trust me practice a little listening, genuine listening. You will believe me.