Everyone Wants to be Heard, but Why Not Listen More?

Nowadays we connect and communicate with each other through various medium — virtually and physically. That being said, interpersonal communication has developed as well. We notice this through words, body gesture, and tone of voice. Furthermore, physical, cultural and language, creativity, emotional and semantic barriers precedents as a response of communication. We communicate by putting vowels and syllables into words and sentences.

Sentences that could be raw data, information, knowledge, and wisdom. In communication, there’s sender and receiver. Sender talks to give information to receiver. The receiver is listening or hearing the information. As response, receiver often gives feedbacks, then communication happens.

Is there a difference in listening and hearing?

Yes. As we will deep dive into the difference between hearing and listening, people seldom have acquired the necessary skills to use ears effectively to listen. Put it simply, hearing is our automatic brain response to sound, like collecting data (Gilliland, K., on Lindberg, S., 2018). We hear lots of sounds every day, the loudest to the most barely acknowledged sounds. Our brain trained to ignore those and filter the ones important in the daily context of living.

Listening is purposeful and focused action. It is intentional with voluntary behaviour taken by one to understand meanings, context when there is sound. Listening is the missing half of communication, said William Ury on his TEDx Talks (2015). With so many interactions and distractions, how do withstand the best possible way to engage in communication through listening and hearing? At the right time, context, and place?

There are things I believe we could learn together on how to understand better in listening and hearing. We will talk about how listening takes part in our lives, the humility in listening, and how to tackle biases in listening and hearing. This article will not discuss the segregation between hearing and listening but providing a broader understanding of the human ability to engage with one another. Through the ears, minds, and presence.

How Listening Plays Part in Life

Our mind hardwired to desires, so the way we listen and take actions does matters.

First is we only listened to the things we want to hear. According to research by American Psychological Association involving eight thousand participants, 2/3 people were in general most likely to select the information that supported their point of views rather than opposing ideas (only 1/3). This has something to do with traits of close-minded and open-mindedness, moreover, to a situation (Albarracín, D., et al., 2009). People were most likely to think of the opposing ideas when beneficial for them in a way. As a conclusion to the study, the way that human intend to stay with their own beliefs, traits, and attitudes are due to mitigation and prevention of changes. Understandable, right? To put another example, if the topic of a conversation is something intriguing to you, it is more enchanting than the topic that you know less or less interested.

Second, everybody wants to be heard, but do you want to listen to yourself? “We have so much noise in our mind, lots of distractions, and we do not have the mental and emotional space to listen well,” said Ury. That being said, the inability to always listen is not entirely human’s fault.

People, in general, do not know how to listen, with practically no qualification (Nichols, Ralph G., and Stevens, Leonard A., 1957).

While noting our capacity, tacit knowledge, state of mind and condition, listening and hearing is part of our essential skills and functions. The solution to declutter noises inside our mind and distractions is to listen to ourselves first, according to Ury. To put into context is regarding one’s mental state, perspective, emotions and feelings of the current situation. Have you ever had small talk with your friends, and you weren’t paying attention because you split your attention to listen while occasionally playing your phone?

So that’s one example. In this case, we have to prepare ourselves to be ready to listen and hear others first. Are you allocating your time to be present in someone else’s time? Are you in your best state to be a listener? The answer is contextual and personal. Maybe the reason why you weren’t paying attention is that you do not like the topic, and you just had a rough day, and being a good listener is the least you want to do. Maybe you don’t feel like you have all the time in this world to hear so much of 40 minutes of nonsense repeating stories! It does matter to acknowledge if you are ready to listen or not. I would like to highlight that this goes beyond our human senses. To listen within, the aural sense is unused. Listening to yourself does not belong only to those who physically hear.

Third, genuine listening moves the spotlight of understanding to the other person. This part is a bridge to our next section of this article. We often hear about being empathetic and sincere. But putting ourselves in another person’s shoes is not something one can do easily if not exercised. To accommodate this understanding, I’d like to put Ury’s quote; “In genuine listening, we listen not just for what’s being said, but for what’s not being said. Not just words, but beyond, the feelings, emotions, and needs”. Now, we know there’s something called ‘genuine listening’, that is an action of truly listening.

Just giving the benefit of the doubt and assume that she/he/they is right. By giving full attention in our interactions of communication, it may signal to the others we engaged with the person. That we care, and at least, able to convert our time to match their tune.

I believe when we start to listen, we open a door of curiosity and humbleness to be interested in others, to the external factors. Hence, you have more space to understand meaning before jumping to actions. It will lead one to be more knowledgeable, thoughtful, and humanistic.

Humility in Listening

So we have discussed that it is easier to talk and to be heard, but it’s harder to listen. Hence, I think it is worth adding that there is humility in listening to others. If one think the other person’s stories and messages less important than oneself, it is harder to listen. Especially in such a limited time and mental space. What we usually do is to control the conversation, so often we cut others in the middle of a conversation.

Profoundly, humility to listen is when one realizes the impact one bring while partaking as a listener, and a talker. What are the things needed to be said, or how to withhold the information while one listens? Firstly, to understand with an open heart and talk less than ended with a brief paraphrasing. So when someone listens, and give feedback, it is active listening. A study found that active listening resulted in greater conversational satisfaction and social attraction than simple acknowledgements (Weger Jr., H., et al., 2014).

In other words, the right listening in a conversation (regardless of negotiation, conflict, or in business to casual setting) might be empowering. Can you imagine the positive vibes it could bring when we just listen, without judgement? Can you imagine we could mitigate conflict due to inability to hear and listen with humility?

I don’t think listening without domination means someone is weak. Rather, it shows that the person have a big heart. To accept the vulnerability of others, to see others as a human being. Listening without domination is building rapport, it is to recognize a deeper side of emotions and dignity, to give a sense of respect. Furthermore, to have humility is to acknowledge if things get biased and irrational.

Everyone has biases, but good listeners learn how to be in the middle, separately placing themselves in juxtaposition. I’d like to bring Nichols, Ralph G., and Stevens, Leonard A. (1957) study here.

They found out that good listeners are regularly engaged in four mental activities, neatly coordinated when listening takes place. To highlight, these good listeners were those who know how to direct a maximum amount of thought to the message being received through four processes:

(1) Listener thinks ahead of the talker to anticipate the oral discourse is leading to, and what conclusions will be drawn from the words spoken at the moment.

(2) Listener weighs the validity and wholeness of evidence used by the talker to support the points made.

(3) Given a period, the listener reviews and summarize the points of talk mentally.

(4) During the talk, the listener listens between the lines, seeking meaning that is tacit, nonverbal to seek if ever adding meaning to the words spoken, while also analysing the behaviour made by the talker.

Tackling Biases on The Message While Listening and Hearing

I would say there are four ways to train ourselves so that we could get the whole picture, details later. This is to put a benefit of the doubt, to work on our ability to listen and hear others like we are exercising a muscle.

One, put the judgement aside. This is important as we often reflect on our state, and try to connect the dots with the talker. As listeners, we ought to have self-control and persistence to practice. The objective as listeners here is to conceive the whole story until the talker finished sharing their part.

Two, reviewing the points of talking and assess them. Obviously? Now we are judging. But not in that negative way, as listeners, this is how we rationalize what has just been conveyed to us by the talker. So to assess is to shoot questions, is the story in chronological orders? Why the talker always looked up when talking about a name? Why the tone used sounds annoyed?

Three, self-remind the position and stances. When we listen, it is normal to feel like every side of the stories are convincing. Because, most often than not, it is not about right or wrong. But noting which position we are at as listeners and what stances we are facing makes the listening process efficient. Better, even mitigate the possibility of miscommunication and conflict.

Four, collect contradictory facts. Understanding well the objective of the conversation, the listening process could be more directed to a rightful context that is serving us as listeners. We do our part, the talker is doing their part. Mind our mental note on what are the facts in our favour and not, which ones worth noting or supporting in other occasions.

What is tricky is how a person can convey the message with instinct through knowledge and wisdom. To have a good intention, with utmost good faith, not misusing the honourable opportunity as a listener.

To sum up, the more we acknowledge the benefits of listening, we may understand when to listen and hear. We can start to work on this as our additional human being superpower!

“Listening can be a chain reaction, in which each person who is genuinely listened to feels naturally inspired to listen to the next”. (William Ury, 2015)

References

Albarracín, D.,et al. (2009). Feeling validated versus being correct: A meta-analysis of selective exposure to information. Psychological Bulletin, Vol 135(4), Jul 2009, pp. 555–588. Accessed April 23th 2021. American Psychological Association, PsycyNet Database.

Lindberg, S. (2018, September 27). What’s the Difference Between Hearing and Listening? Accessed April 24th 2021 through: https://www.healthline.com/health/hearing-vs-listening.

Nichols, Ralph G., and Stevens, Leonard A., (1957). Listening to People. Harvard Business Review Magazine September 1957 issue. Accessed April 23th 2021 through: https://hbr.org/1957/09/listening-to-people.

Weger Jr., H., et al. (2014). The Relative Effectiveness of Active Listening in Initial Interactions. International Journal of Listening, 28:1, pp. 13–31. Accessed April 24th 2021. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group Database through: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10904018.2013.813234?needAccess=true.