All About Listening

How to pay attention properly - and it’s not just for one-to-ones!

People tend to associate the Art of Listening, or Paying Attention as I’ll refer to it from now on, with one to one situations and concentrate on the skills and tips for improving those interactions. Whilst this is important, what about all the other situations where we are paying attention - we need to think about these too, we are doing it all the time, and need different skills in different situations.

Why is paying attention so important?

- It makes the person/people you are paying attention to feel important, and if they feel important to you, you will become important to them, and mutual trust and respect will develop.

- It is much less likely that there will be miscommunication or mixed messages.

- You’re much more likely to find out how the other person/people feels and what their opinions are, and you will learn more.

Listening

Listening is an important tool in the Paying Attention skill set. Let’s face it, with the exception of those of us who have physical hearing difficulties we don’t actually stop listening - even when we’re asleep. For those of you with children (even those that have grown up and left home) how often have you woken up to answer a cry in the night to soothe them, or get the sick bucket, or drink of water, or whatever it was that they needed? How many of you also slept through a thunderstorm? It’s not unusual to be able to sleep through loud noises but be woken by the small cry of a child (OK, in some cases they can scream the house down, but you know what I mean). So it’s not the volume that wakes us - it’s the cause of the noise - we are listening even though we are asleep.

How we listen depends on the situation, at work, for instance…

…we might be listening whilst in a one-to-one situation…

…or when part of a small group - perhaps a brainstorming session for the company’s next marketing campaign…

… or perhaps as part of a larger group like the weekly team meeting - and it can be very hard in this situation if it’s your leading the meeting, and take notes as well as listening…

…may be you’re listening as part of a very large group, for example if you are at a conference listening to a keynote speech on the latest regulations impacting your profession…

…which is completely different to how you will listen if you are part of a large crowd at an Ed Sheeran gig.

The term active listening means listening, and only listening, not trying to do something else at the same time (for all those of you who think you can turn off your camera in a virtual meeting and catch up on your emails whilst ‘listening’ - you’re fooling no one except yourself that you can multi-task). It’s actually concentrating not only the person who is speaking, but on what they are saying.

Don’t just listen for facts and information, listen to the tone being used, the emphasis of the words and in some cases the passion.

A good trick is to imagine you have to ‘report back’ to someone later, you need to be able to re-tell what you’ve heard. You don’t need to concentrate quite so much in informal situations as in formal ones - generally your subconscious is comfortable and relaxed and listening doesn’t take so much effort - but active listening can still be incredibly important away from work, especially when circumstances are tense, or there is a great deal of emotion.

If you need to make brief notes, as well as identifying key points, you can use them to ask questions later if there isn’t an opportunity at the time i.e. in larger group settings.

Non-verbals

Key though is that listening is only one tool in the box. Your body language is equally important, your non-verbal communication. Obviously facing the person/people you are paying attention too demonstrates you are interested, and it’s common courtesy not to stare into space, or around at other things.

Eye contact is another way of demonstrating your interest - and very useful in larger groups where there may be little opportunity to engage otherwise with a presenter. Or in group work situations where ideas are being debated, keeping eye contact with whoever is speaking will help your brain take in what’s being said so you will be better able to contribute when appropriate.

Depending on the situation leaning towards the person/group helps to show you are focussing on them. Nod as they speak, but not incessantly, you don’t want to look like one of those head bobbing dogs you sometimes see on the back shelf of cars, if you do it too much you will appear insincere.

Smile - not a cheesy grin, but enough for the other person to know that you are following what they are saying. Also, don’t ‘close yourself down’, try to avoid crossing your arms and legs. Don’t fidget - it’s distracting for everyone. If you’re a fidget, but don’t want to cross your arms to put a barrier between you, try just clasping your hands gently together, resting in your lap. Do try and relax. If you know you are about to go into a situation where you need to pay full attention try some breathing exercises first.

Speaking

What you say is also important - “hang on,” I hear you cry, “I thought this was about paying attention, surely you’re not paying attention if you are talking?” Yes, seems odd I know but if you are properly paying attention to someone, you need to contribute in order to keep them talking. It would feel quite unnatural if you kept silent all the time, if there were huge caverns of silence when they weren’t sure what to say, and you were just listening. The situation would quickly become uncomfortable, and the other person would look to extract themselves as soon as they could. 

The trick is in knowing what to say, and when, to keep the conversation flowing and stop it from feeling awkward. Resist the temptation to interject.  Don’t latch on to something said that triggers your need to be heard - until it’s not your turn. If the conversation lulls ask a probing question about what they’ve just said, ask them how they feel about it, what happened next, try not to turn things around so that the conversation becomes about you. In group situations you will usually be helping not only yourself if you can ask for an explanation of something specific, or further detail.

If they ask about you give a short response and turn the conversation back to them. Only once you think they have really finished should you, if appropriate, move on to something else - which might be a bit of a conversation about you.

Silence

It isn’t always golden!! Paying attention isn’t just about the person who’s speaking. In a group situation, especially smaller groups, is there anyone who hasn’t said anything?

You should always encourage (but not force) people to speak. If there are people who haven’t contributed, make sure that they have the opportunity to join in, ask what their views are, or if they have any ideas. People’s body language can be an obvious indicator of their disengagement, if you’re not successful in getting them to join in you may want to check in on them individually and see if they wanted to make a contribution but for some reason they didn’t feel they could. You can learn a lot from these conversations, not only about the individual but about why the team isn’t working as well as it could.

So - the Art of Paying Attention - it’s about how to listen, how to act, how to talk, and to watch out for silence, the combination of these will make the person, or people around you feel heard and important, and therefore valued. You are going to learn a lot more and have much more valued relationships than if you do most of the talking. The Art of Paying Attention is vital for successfully engaging with your superiors and peers, and for managing teams, but it is also with family and friends.

As Robert Baden-Powell said - “If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talking."