Is Anyone Listening To Me?

By Cammi MacKinlay, Lions Gate Chorus, Region 26

Have you ever been talking to someone and wondered if she’s heard anything you’ve said because her attention keeps flicking to something that is going on behind you — or perhaps to the text messages that keep appearing on her cell phone? Or been in the middle of a sentence and your conversation partner changes the subject? Or been listening to your partner and with a start, realize that you have absolutely no idea what she is talking about because you were thinking about something else completely? The embarrassment of that situation increases when the expectant look on her face alerts you to the fact that you’ve just been asked a question and you have to decide whether to fake your way out of it or admit that you weren’t listening.

We live in a society where the constant clamor for our attention has become normal, whether it’s face-to-face, on the phone, by e-mail, text-messages, radio, iPods, TV, advertising — the list goes on. Trying to pay close mental attention to everything all the time can be very challenging. Is it any wonder that our one-on-one listening skills can become compromised?

Recognizing our listening behaviors and realizing how they might be interfering with our ability to really hear what is being said is half-way to being a better listener, and therefore, a better communicator. This article will address some common blocks to being a good listener, some tips to help you become a better listener and some ideas on how to get other people to listen to you. (I use “she” because of the uses in a chorus setting, but the tips will work in other venues also.)

One of the best ways to begin to improve your listening skills is to have a better understanding of some of the most common blocking behaviors we demonstrate when not listening effectively. Use of these is not always a negative thing — in some situations they can be quite effective at helping an individual achieve a particular result, or perhaps in diffusing a tricky moment.

Rehearsing: your attention is on coming up with your next comment. You look interested but your mind is working feverishly because you are thinking about what to say next. Some people will even rehearse whole lists of responses: I’ll say, then she’ll say, etc. However, conversations don’t always go the way we predict, and vital information may be missed.

Judging: you may tend to prejudge certain people as incompetent or uninformed, and as a result you don’t pay much attention to what they says.
Identifying: you take everything a person tells you and refer it back to your own experience. She wants to tell you about a great quartet performance she just had, but that reminds you of when you sang on stage at Carnegie Hall. You start telling your story before she can finish hers.

Advising: you are a great problem solver. You don’t have to hear more than a few sentences before you begin searching for the right advice. But, you may miss something important while you are coming up with the perfect solution for her problems.

Sparring: you argue and debate with people who never feel heard because you are so quick to disagree. In fact, it may seem that your main focus is on finding things to disagree with.

Being Right: if this is important to you, you will go to great lengths to avoid being wrong. You can’t listen to criticism, you can’t be corrected and you can’t take suggestions to change.
Derailing: you suddenly change the subject. You derail the train of conversation when you get uncomfortable or bored with a topic. Joking is another way of derailing.

Placating: you use expressions like “Right, Absolutely, I know, Of course you are, Incredible, Really.” You want to be nice, pleasant and supportive. You want people to like you, so you agree with everything. You may even half-listen so you have a rough idea of what is being talked about, but you are not really involved.
Dreaming: you pretend to listen but really tune the other person out while you drift about in your own fantasies. Instead of disciplining yourself to truly concentrate on the speaker, you change the mental channel.

When communication breaks down, the speaker is often blamed as not having explained something well enough, but there’s a good chance that if the listeners were employing any of the aforementioned blocking behaviors, they might be as much to blame for the break-down.

So what can we do to become better communicators?

10 Tips For Being An Excellent Communicator
• Detect whether the person talking to you is expressing facts or feelings. Respond with extra care and sensitivity when the person you are listening to is expressing feelings.
Respond fully to the feelings that someone shares before responding with the facts. For example, if a chorus member says she is terrified to go on the contest stage, most of us would say, “Don’t worry. It’s not scary at all. You’ll be fine.” Try acknowledging the feeling first. “Sounds like you’re feeling uncomfortable about the whole contest experience coming up.”

• Use silence when the person talking to you is sharing feelings and you do not know what to say. Simply nod in understanding and let yourself be touched by what she is saying. Resist the temptation to say something just so that you are saying something.

• Listen without judgment. A basic rule of listening is that judgments should only be made after you have heard and evaluated the content of the message. Just because the person was wrong the last time (i.e. didn’t have the same opinion as you) does not necessarily mean she will be wrong this time.

• Listen without thinking about what you are going to say next. Take time before you respond.

• If your mind wanders, ask for repetition. Everyone gets distracted at times. Try to stay focused.

• Repeat back what you heard and ask if that is correct.

• Say it honestly, but with consideration for the listener’s feelings. Be polite, respectful and sincere.

• Pay attention to body language, in the speaker and in yourself. If there is a disconnect between the words being said and the body language, the body language usually wins.

• Do not be invested in being right. Being right is not the point. If you must be right, you are not able to listen or communicate because you have set up a barrier already. If you are always right, it means the other person is always wrong. That cannot possibly be true.

• Being a better listener is essential to being a better communicator, but there are times when we wish we could do something to make people pay more attention to what we want to say. Try these:

10 Ways To Get Your Listener To Pay Attention
• Speak more softly. Your listener will probably ask you to speak up.

• Confuse the listener. Say something that does not make sense. For example: “The director told me I should do push-ups to improve my resonance.” This may be an effective way to get people to open their ears to your words.

• Use silence. Very often a pause in the conversation is uncomfortable and demands that someone says something. Wait for your listener to speak first.

• Appeal to her values. When you direct the conversation to something that is important to your listener, what you say becomes very difficult to ignore.

• Create urgency. Mention that you only have a few minutes to talk because you have to be somewhere else. It is now or never so she has to listen.

• Ask the listener if she can keep a secret. This ought to get her attention since we love to be privy to restricted information. Tell her that you will reveal all after you discuss what it is you want to say.

• Tell a joke or a humorous story. Once you have her attention and she is smiling, she will be more receptive to your message.

• Speak with lots of enthusiasm and smile a lot. This wave of high energy is hard to resist even for the most reluctant audience.

• Play with the pace of your speech by speaking too fast or too slow until you are asked to repeat yourself.

• Compliment something about your companion. People love to be admired and appreciated and if you sincerely compliment someone she will know you have good taste. If you have good taste, you must be worth listening to.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. In fact, I’m sure we could all come up with many more useful tips on becoming more skilled at communicating with our riser mates and our colleagues or family members. The bottom line is to recognize that we don’t always pay attention when we should and that if we do take the time to hone our listening skills, misunderstandings might decrease and everyone would feel like they had, at the very least, been heard.

To quote the accomplished communicator, Oprah Winfrey: “Listen. Pay attention. Treasure every moment.”

 

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