Listening is a critical, often underutilized skill. But if listening is already your forte, you may need to do more talking. Speaking up is a good way to demonstrate your expertise and gain the confidence of those around you.

Many of us would be amazed that anyone might need to talk more since there’s so little skilled listening that occurs in many a workplace. But then, I bet we can picture meetings in which the same person sits throughout the entire time without uttering a word.

Alas, there’s no indication the person is listening, all we can observe is that the person isn’t talking. So this tip is excellent in that situation. The lack of talking can be interpreted as disinterest, ignorance, fear, slowness, unwillingness, shyness, unconfident, or even being a misfit.

I coached one brilliant, funny and non-verbal Asian, who, when I asked about her reticence to speak in a group, responded, “I grew up being told the duck that sticks out its neck is supper.” That’s pretty darn hard to overcome. We worked for months on techniques to gradually help her to engage. In the process, I discovered that she wasn’t such a great listener either because she was so petrified someone would ask her a question that she neither spoke nor listened.

As she became more comfortable speaking up, her listening acumen also sharpened, and visa versa.

What’s important about this management tip is to balance listening with speaking and talking with hearing. Neither should overwhelm the other. They are integral parts and in service of one another, and both require practice to master.

~ Become a Better Listener ~

Take the Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio_® Assessment NOW!

I was particularly anxious to talk to him about his new album, Friends. It’s lush, straight ahead jazz that includes some of the best musicians around today. Listen to it for yourself—it’s getting a much deserved following.

Stanley’s not much of a chatter-box, so I didn’t want to usurp his time or impose upon his attention, but he offered that he had studied with Ken Wilber, a Boulder-based modern philosopher. I asked why the interest.

In a very tiny and not well-understood nutshell, fusion indicates that separate entities are put together, or fused, until the original entities no longer exist. For example, jazz fusion isn’t a musical style, instead it’s a collection of various musical styles. In medicine, fused backs were once a series of disparate vertebrae, but when fused, become one strong mass.

Integration, on the other hand, also includes various entities, but they retain their integrity. On Wilber’s website it says, humanity lives with the awareness necessary to compassionately integrate the fragmented and partial perspectives of differing pursuits of the good life. I don’t have a medical analogy other than Siamese Twins who might share a body part, but they remain two different people.

Besides being fascinated by what Stanley was saying about his studies with Ken Wilber, and how they influenced his music, I wanted to know how they pertained to listening. So I briefly explained my work to Stanley and asked what he thought the relationship is.

I don’t remember his exact words, but he said a few insightful things that have stuck with me:

• Good listeners are probably integrators. They take in words or sounds, but they allow the words/sounds to hold their own meaning, rather than fusing them into a whole new, and maybe different, meaning. I interpreted that to say that a good listener hears what is said and doesn’t layer on personal assumptions that will change the intention or message.  They might add to the information, but they won’t alter it.
• Musicians don’t need to use words to integrate their playing. They play and play together until their instruments blend. Their mirror neurons fire when they are in sync.
• Sometimes a musician is the lead, and sometimes the backup, but whatever the position, s/he’s always cognizant of what everyone else in the group is “saying” (playing) so there’s unified, not conflicting, statements.

How does fusion and integration show up for you?

To read an interview with Stanley, read Downbeat Magazine, February 2012. In it he expounds upon the difference between Fusion and Integration and Friends.

~ Become a Better Listener ~

Take the Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio_® Assessment NOW!

I might be stretching the point a bit for people who enjoy bargaining at a bazaar in a far off land. I’ve been told that those people enjoy the haggling process, the game, more than actually getting the possession.  But, for most of us, we love the idea of greater returns on our investment, which defines Maximum Utility for Minimal Cost

So, how does Minimum/Maximum Utility apply to listening? Let me site a situation as an example:

Barbara, Rolph, Maria, and Sergei are in a meeting to decide on whether to expand their line of goods by purchasing items or making their own—the classic make/buy conundrum.

At the start of the meeting, Sergei says, “I have all the figures in front of me and there’s no question that we should buy the items.”

Barbara, almost levitating out of her seat counters with, “Figures aren’t the only thing that we need to make this decision. What about employee morale, brand identity, relationships with local businesses, word-of-mouth…”

Before she can get another thought out, Sergei comes back with more data and facts to support his argument. The two of them just debate while the other two sit in disgust and growing disinterest.

Finally, Maria asks, “You guys, we’re not getting anywhere, you’re wasting everyone’s time and we’re nowhere close to making this very important decision.”

Maria’s comments describe a situation with minimal utility and maximum cost: time, progress, decision-making, collaboration, relationships. Rolph brings them around with, “Obviously, you two have very strong opinions about how we should proceed. How about if we give each of us five minutes to talk, uninterrupted, about what we think is the real problem and propose a couple of ideas about how to address it?”

Everyone agrees and follows the process, which shifts the interaction towards maximum utility and minimum cost. Listening was the lynchpin that caused the shift. Utility soared when everyone paid attention to everyone else—the ping-pong negotiation match was replaced with open listening. Instead assuming their singular point-of-view was well reasoned and right, there was much more and better information on the table to inform their group decision.

The moral of this little case can be seen millions of times a day: listening is cost effective. Also, it takes less effort to listen the first time than it does to re-do mistakes.

When you are in a situation that might have some real ramifications, ask yourself,

How do I get maximum utility with minimum cost?

And to our bargain hunters you might ask yourself what you really want, the object, power, verbal sparring, or conveying respect.

To learn more about your listening style click here to take our short assessment.

My (The) half-hour session is entirely painless; the apparatus does not irradiate the brain but passively measures its electrical activity at different frequencies to assess my attention, emotional engagement and likely memory retention of each clip.

My electroencephalography (EEG) session typifies the experience of hundreds of subjects who have their brains scanned every day in laboratories around the world, in the cause of better marketing. As they look at product prototypes, packaging designs and advertising campaigns, neuromarketing experts read their brainwaves to glean insights into their unconscious likes and dislikes, which might not appear through questioning in conventional market research.

My thoughts:

• Suppose these neuromarketing techniques were applied to listening at work? Since we spend almost half our day at work in listening situations, wouldn’t it be powerful if we all had some device that was constantly measuring attention, emotional engagement and likely memory retention?

   A little too Orwellian you say?  Actually, we already do that, but the device is our    own powers of observation.  People who are trained to pick up signals can tell        who’s here and who’s somewhere else.

• Why does it seem to be more reliable when a machine (EEG, MRI) measures listening than when a person uses intuition and honed habits to make those determinations?  Research tells us that people yearn for definitive/right answers, and humans can make too many assumptions and mistakes; whereas a machine will provide objective, data-driven results.  I’d love to see a true comparison done at a workplace meeting.
• Is neuromarketing a flavor of the day, or does it supply solid, valuable information that can be used in positive ways?  Personally, I don’t care if the data are mined to sell people stuff—advertising has always been on the forefront of using new techniques to get to the consumer.
• But let’s turn the conversation to the transformational uses. What comes first to mind for me is to use it to differentiate teaching that will excite, turn on, engage students.  Can you imagine pairing teaching techniques with listening preferences?

  And then there’s our political systems.  People are protesting around the world       because they want access to decisions, policies, fair rule-of-law, information,         technology, speech, and many more.  Many of the U.S. politicians are out of             touch with their constituencies. If they really want to represent their                           constituencies, they’d use neuromarketing to discover what their people value         and create programs/policies that matter instead of projecting their beliefs, value   systems, and antiquated party lines onto everyone else.

What ideas do you have for positive uses of neuromarketing?

By Perri Klass, M.D.

Published: October 10, 2011

Over the past decade, Ellen Bialystok, a distinguished research professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, has shown that bilingual children develop crucial skills in addition to their double vocabularies, learning different ways to solve logic problems or to handle multitasking, skills that are often considered part of the brain’s so-called executive function.

These higher-level cognitive abilities are localized to the frontal and prefrontal cortex in the brain. “Overwhelmingly, children who are bilingual from early on have precocious development of executive function,” Dr. Bialystok said.

Dr. Kuhl calls bilingual babies “more cognitively flexible” than monolingual infants. Her research group is examining infant brains with an even newer imaging device, magnetoencephalography, or MEG, which combines an M.R.I. scan with a recording of magnetic field changes as the brain transmits information.

Differences in Listening Between a Man and a Woman

By Ashley Black, eHow Contributor updated May 23, 2011

Gender differences exist, and scientists are still discovering more differences. Besides being physically different in size, shape and strength, men and women often react differently to medications. Women also have better night vision and have better visual memory while men have better distance vision and depth perception. Are gender differences present in the act of listening as well?

1. Listening Style ~ According to Larry Barker and Kittie Watson, authors of the book “Listen Up,” men and women typically employ different listening styles. Men are more likely to be action-oriented listeners, which means they focus on listening to information pertinent to the task at hand. Action-oriented listeners have little patience for speakers who ramble off topic or include unnecessary details. Women are more likely to be people-oriented listeners. They connect with the emotional message and undertones of a conversation and are more concerned with the occurrence of the conversation than with the pertinent information discussed.
2. Response Style ~ Men and women in listening roles during conversations tend to express their responsiveness in different ways. Women often interject with small acknowledging remarks such as “yes,” “I see,” and “mm-hmm” to show the speaker that they are actively listening and processing the contents of the conversation. Men tend to listen silently, interjecting sparsely and usually only to ask clarification. The difference in response style can cause women to assume that men aren’t actively listening to them in conversations, while men tend to think that women over-listen.
3. Brain Activity ~ The difference in listening habits of men and women is more than just perceptual. A study by Dr. Micheal Phillips, a neuroaudiologist at the Indiana University School of Medicine, found gender differences in the brain activity of men and women. Brain imaging scans showed that the left brain hemisphere of men in the study was activated while listening, while both hemispheres were activated in women. This data suggests that there is a physical difference in listening between men and women.
4. Listening Ability ~ Despite all the research targeted at dissecting gender differences in listening, there is little to no evidence to suggest that members of one gender are better listeners than members of the other. Men and women listen equally well. Listening ability appears to be more due to individual differences and circumstances than due to gender differences.

What’s your experience that does/does not validate this research?

Here’s my answer:

• Listening is like a muscle that needs constant attention to build its strength and agility.
• Master listeners inquire five times more than they advocate.
• Our brains, bodies and emotions create the listening habits we rely on.
• The highest paid people are often described as being good listeners.
• The Golden Rule doesn’t apply to listening. Instead it might better be stated: Listen to Others as They Want to Be Heard.

May the coming year bring renewed energy to do what matters most to you in life and tremendous satisfaction for your contributions.

With best wishes,

Marian Thier and our Listening Impact Team

Keep in touch, and add your listening learning of 2011 to this list.

Forget about the sales you want to make and concentrate on the service you want to render ~ Harry Bullis

Make it easy for your customers to talk to you ~ Kevin Stirtz

The quotes made me recall a time when I was hired to coach Tina, a sales professional. She was recruited from a pharmaceutical company where she had a very good track record to this medical devices company where she was having a tough time.

Tina’s new company hired me to observe and coach her. They didn’t want Tina to become discouraged, had invested a lot to bring her on board, feared losing sales, but didn’t know what the problem was. Tina was glad to have a coach and not at all defensive about what I might see in her performance.

We agreed that I needed to see her in action, so we scheduled two half days for me to ride along with her on sales calls. On the way to the first customer I asked Tina what she liked about her last job and what she thought contributed to her great success there. She had no trouble answering:

• Trustworthy products
• Good customer relationships
• Supportive leadership
• Well-designed sales training
• Easy-to-use software

Before I had a chance to ask her to rate the new job on those criteria, we arrived at the first customer’s site, a large private clinic. Tina had forewarned the client, Mika, about my presence, so he was not at all surprised see me. He even said, “I’d sure like it if my management thought enough about me to hire a performance coach. Maybe they see me as a hopeless case.” Mika chuckled at that last remark, so I knew he wasn’t threatened.

Tina started the conversation with Mika by questioning him about how business was going and new developments since they last met. Mika responded with superficial answers and Tina got stuck. She didn’t seem to know where to venture next with Mika. She made a nice connection between one of his points and an updated feature on a leased machine. He was interested and asked some technical questions about the feature. Tina answered, Mika said he had to run, and we left.

When we got back into her car, Tina was upset, “I came here intending to sell him another device, but there wasn’t time. Bummer. Where did I mess up?”

“What would you have done if this was one of your old clients at your other company?”

“We’d have talked about his kids or golf game or vacation. You know, something personal. Then I’d have asked something specific about his challenges or handed him some research that I’m pretty sure he’d be interested in.  But, I don’t know this guy well enough to make small talk. And you saw, he only gives reps a few minutes.”

“What do you guess he thinks about you?”

“All business. New kid. I don’t know, doubt he thinks much about me—another vendor.”

While driving from one client to the next Tina and I talked about changing her mode from being a salesperson to being a serviceperson. We practiced opening conversations, increasing inquiry, identifying pain, paraphrasing and listening a whole lot.

Tina grew more skilled and confident with each client visit. I tried to boil down my coaching suggestions to very simple and clear ones for her to practice: Use the time to learn about the person and the business. Refrain from trying to sell anything.

“You know, Marian, this is Sales 101, but I forgot it. I was so anxious to prove that I could sell their products and make them feel they’d made a wise choice bringing me on board, that I ignored how I built relationships in my old company.  My new mantras are ‘Serve, Don’t Sell. Listen More than I Talk.’

Rarely is there such a fast turnaround. Tina and I only met six times over two months before we agreed she no longer needed a coach. Once she was able to live her mantras, her words and tone-of-voice were that of a caring person, and her focus was on the client.

Not surprisingly, Mika no longer rushes out of meetings with Tina. He’s not much for talking about himself, but he does like to brainstorm with Tina about things that are going on in the clinic that could use some fresh eyes. She serves, customers buys.

This book argues the following ideas and more:

1. Your conscious mind is the “tip of the iceberg” and the rest of the iceberg (your brain) is what is really running the show
2. The vast majority of your brain’s processing which leads to what you do and what you think is not accessible to your conscious mind
3. Your brain contains many modules that overlap and compete as rivals
4. “You” are your biology, but you can’t be understood by simple reductionism
5. You have little if any “free will” and what that means
6. Your neurobiology is a result of a constant interplay of genes and environment

One of the more intriguing facts revealed in this book is that one part of the brain invents stories to justify what another part sees or feels. Our brains constantly look for order and reason, even when there is none, leading us to regularly reach erroneous conclusions.

Bee

…extremely well documented, exploring the limits of sensory perception, the learning that is automatic and burnt into our circuits

Jo Ryan

Incognito is a book of answers and a book of questions. We learn that 15% of women have four color receptors, not three like the rest of us. These tetra chromatic women actually see colors that others can’t. Then again because of the variations in our individual brains, reality can be subjective. When we look at something red, are we seeing the same thing? Are our perceptions of size, color, and light universally the same?

According to Eagleman our brain constructs our reality. We may think that we’ve just had a brilliant inspiration, but our subconscious had already come to the realization minutes before sharing it with our conscious mind.

Spudman

An example: “Your consciousness is like a tiny stowaway on a transatlantic steamship, taking credit for the journey without acknowledging the massive engineering underfoot” (pg 4).

Each one of us is much more than what we can ever think – it is amazing that we are aware only of a very small part of our brain. All of us strongly believe that we are in control of ourselves (at least most of the time) and so responsible for our actions. However our conscious self is more like the CEO of a large company that coordinates and supposedly directs the various divisions. The CEO may set the goals for the company, but he gets only a summary view of the situation and is seldom aware of the details. Similarly different sections of the brain work more or less independently – some through hard wired circuits that evolved over millions of years and others through culture and habits. We believe we are in charge but we are actually driven by what our brain (or more importantly different parts of our brain) perceives and tells us – surprisingly including what we see!

Sam Santhosh

Fascinating take aways?

• Implicit Egotism – Why we tend to mate with people who remind us of ourselves.
• Illusion of Truth Effect – We are more likely to believe a statement we have heard before…even when originally told the statement is false.
• Subliminal priming of beer paired with an image of a woman causes her to be seen as more attractive.
• Multiple memories are “recorded” for some of life’s events.

Kevin Hogan

• women and older age groups tend to be better listeners
• a fair amount of people continue to practice listening “faux pas” like interrupting, finishing other people’s sentences, and otherwise not giving someone their undivided attention
• women can tell when someone isn’t listening. They recognize that distant, glassy look, the misplaced “Uh huhs,” and fidgeting

“Most people will probably state that they’re pretty good listeners, but that’s because a lot of us think that listening is a passive process – that it just requires us to hear what others are saying,” explains Dr. Ilona Jerabek, president of the company. “Listening is active. We need to be mentally present, which means avoiding distractions, refrain from prematurely judging what the speaker is saying, or focusing on coming up with the perfect comment. We also need to be physically present – this means eye contact and open body language – and no fidgeting!”

Women seem to grasp this active listening concept slightly better than men do. Women are not only a little better at using body language to show that they are listening, they were also more likely to let a conversation flow rather than interrupt a speaker. Age comparisons reveal that older age groups are not only better listeners and good with body language, but also have longer attention span, are more likely to hear a person out, and less likely to get distracted.

Queendom’s data also reveals that while listening to others…

3% admitted that they don’t make eye contact.

12% will finish someone’s sentences.

16% will correct the speaker if they mispronounce a word.

17% have a tendency to interrupt.

19% will purposely divert or end conversations that don’t interest them.

20% admit that they perform other tasks at the same time (e.g. watch TV, cook).

23% fidget (play with hair, look at watch, tap feet, drum fingers).

27% make disapproving faces if they don’t agree with the speaker.

31% are thinking about how they will respond to the speaker.

40% admit that their mind wanders if they find the topic of conversation boring.

“Our study also showed that people with good listening skills had better grades in school and higher performance ratings at work. Listening takes effort, however, and a willingness to give our undivided focused to someone, which isn’t always easy.”

For further information about the study:

No matter how many books you might read about listening, or even surrounding yourself with superb listeners won’t build your listening abs. Following are some exercises that will develop your listening muscles.

1. Close your eyes and listen to sounds.  First, listen to and identify the sounds outside of the room.  Second, listen to and identify the sounds inside the room.  You should be able to get better and better at differentiating where the sound is coming from and provide some details about what it is.

2. Instead of listening to the sound and rhythm of a song, listen to the lyrics.  I’ve noticed I can sing along with songs I grew up with, but have little idea about the words to new songs; yet, my grandkids can sit in the back seat and sing in sync with the radio. When I really focus on the lyrics, I stop hearing conversations, tires on the road, and traffic. That could be dangerous, so work on hearing lyrics in a safer place than the car.

3. Similarly, listen to a news piece on the radio, and pick out the key points.  It’s similar to being in school and selecting what to take notes on, or listening intentionally to what’s important.  It’s quite a surprising experience when two people listen to the same news story and tell one another what they got out of it.  Often there will be differences of opinion and interpretations of the content.  That mirrors most interactions, still people will insist they were listening and understand what was said.

To be a well-muscled listener, you have to be able to pick out the same key points as the other person in the interaction.  In other words, you have to understand what the other person listens for, as well as what’s important for you. It’s like being able to lift equally heavy weights with each arm.  If you only listen for what matters to you, you will never have well-developed listening abs that you need to be agile and strong when making decisions and collaborating with others.