People Who Can
Understand Things Quickly Are Not Gifted, They Just Know How to Listen
Weall change our “technique” when
needed… Using different strategies while playing any kind of sport to better
counteract our opponents, being a different kind of parent to our children of
different ages and even speak differently to different people to get their
attention back to us…
And yet, knowing very well that we need to keep changing
ourselves to better adapt to the situation, we don’t really change our
listening technique at all. Despite being in different situations, we sit back
and listen, the way we always do. There’s a lot of difference in listening to a
speech, an interactive talk, a lecture, a song, a stand-up show – but do we
really use our listening differently to better adapt to these different
situations? Frankly, the answer is likely to be a no, and the mismatch is as
evident as is beer served in a wine glass!
The solution: Change our modes of listening, to better suit the
different occasions.
You Can Truly Understand What Is Being Said When You Can Switch
Your Listening Modes Properly
Different “speaking” situations demand that we adapt to them by
using different listening techniques. A simple example of this would be three
very different situations we often face in office – that of getting a directive
from our seniors, attending a training module or having a luncheon conversation
with colleagues. All three situations demand that we use different listening
techniques for we have to remember the first one, learn from the second and
empathize with the third. So then, the three most commonly used listening types
are:
Informative Listening
When you listen to learn something or collect information from –
this is called informational or informative listening. This kind of listening
holds true in many diverse situations – attending a lecture or training module,
listening to the news or a documentary, asking and then listening to the answer
of a question you have, listening to an asked-for recipe… Diverse situations
but all of these have a commonality – you are paying attention to what is being
said and basically listening to something that is giving your information that
you want, need or deem necessary.
·
For informative listening, switch off those wandering thoughts
and keep those distractions away. Listen to the words and try and remember as
much of them as you can. You are basically downloading a set of directives or
directions – so listen, understand and retain as much of it as you can.
·
Informative listening can also be called active or attentive
listening – where you consciously direct all your attention to the speaker and
listen to the words being said.
Critical Listening
Critical listening is not listening with a critical or jaundiced
view, rather, it’s the next step in learning where you evaluate and scrutinize
all that is being said and figure how much of it holds true in different
contexts and how much of it have you truly understood. This is also the time to
raise your doubts and ask your questions, once the speaker has finished his
talk, so as to truly understand what is being said.
Examples of this are instructional and educational talks,
lectures and courses, conversations with doctors, technical experts and much
more… The end idea is to learn and remember for future use.
·
To be in a critical listening mode, you have to be attentive and
listen to all that the speaker is saying and also try and read between the
lines, instead of talking the words on just a literal scale. Make notes if you
want, and make sure to raise your hand and ask those questions at the end – you
have to be clear on the understanding and comprehension of all you listened to.
You can also choose to digress from or argue a point if you disagree about
something.
·
Critical Listening is often also synonymous with deep or
reflective listening where you listen to more than just the words, and then
think about all that you have understood or not, trying to glean as much as you
can through introspection and doubt clarification.
Empathetic Listening
This is akin to lending your shoulder for someone to cry on –
empathetic listening exists purely as friendly shoulder where you listen to and
feel from the place the speaker is coming from so as to commiserate, empathize
or even help the speaker in any way you can. While this is used in
relationships be it family, friends or lovers – empathetic listening is also
employed by professionals such as therapists, doctors or even lawyers where
they listen to their clients’ tale of woes with an open ear and a friendly
expression to better get to the root of the problem.
Good marketing and sales professionals also employ this tactic
to better understand their clients’ need and provide them with tailor-made
solutions.
·
For empathetic listening, you have to listen to more than just
what is being said – the body language, the emotions behind the words all come
into play for you to truly understand all that the speaker is trying to make
you envisage. Imagine yourself in the speaker’s place and you will begin to
understand the situation in better detail – for you to help the speaker as you
can, as a professional or simply as a friend.
·
Relationship listening (where attentive listening happens due to
an active interest in maintaining or furthering a relationship), sympathetic
listening (where you share the pain of the speaker), dialogic listening (where
you enter into a conversation to really understand the speaker better) and
therapeutic listening (where you listen and try to offer help or advice, mostly
a professional caregiver) all come under empathetic listening.
So there you have it, the way we use different tools to crack
different hardware, or even use different cutlery to eat different cuisine –
similarly when it comes to listening, we need to use different skills and
techniques to better listen and understand what is being said.
Rima Pundir
http://www.lifehack.org/600949/people-who-can-understand-things-quickly-are-not-gifted-they-just-know-how-to-listen?ref=mail&mtype=daily_newsletter&mid=20170609_tuning_v1&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=click
No comments:
Post a Comment