Many of us think that communication is talking - and we talk. We interrupt, advise, reassure, judge, analyze, criticize, etc., etc. But, good communication requires good listening as well as talking. In fact, studies show that listening is the most important skill in effective communication.
We’ve all have had someone say to us “You just don’t understand what I am saying or you’re not listening” and you may have felt you were listening just fine. Truth is all conversations occur within ourselves first. Another words, we may think we are seeing people as they are but in truth we are seeing people as we are. This means that real listening cannot occur until we challenge the perceptions we hold about ourselves and other people. Perceptions are the lens or filters we see the world through.
What happens in relationships is we tend to think we know what the other person is going to say so we hear what we expect the person is going to say but often not the actual words that were being spoken.
According to Inscape Publishing there are 5 Realities of Communication:
- You cannot not communicate
- Whenever contact is made, communication occurs
- Meanings are in people, not in words
- Meanings cannot be transferred from one mind to another; only words can be transferred
- All communications are received but 70-90% are screened out or changed by the receiver.
Real listening is what can create a powerful conversation and we create that possibility through understanding the filters that have around the individual speaking and the topic of conversation.
According to Albert Mehrabain there are three elements of communication; words, tone of voice and body language. Interesting, though is that he attributes the following weights to those elements:
7% to the words
38% to the tone of voice
55% to the body language
Another way to view this is through the Three Levels of Listening:
Level One – Awareness of the words the speaker is using and listening to those words only. This is the level where you the listener would be thinking of your own agenda as well – what am I going to say next – what am I going to cook for dinner etc. The focus is more on themselves than the speaker.
Level Two – Awareness of what the speaker is saying and how they are saying it. The attention is on the speaker and we are able hear more of what is not being said through body language and tone of voice.
Level Three – Attention is only on the speaker with a subtle awareness of what is happening in the room and environment around them which is impacting communication.
These studies allude to the importance of understanding yourself and the potential lens or filters that you view people, situations and events through. Because after all effective listening can be very situational – I listen very well in some situations but poorly in others. Becoming conscious of the type of events or people that we easily engage with and those we don’t can be a powerful start toward creating impactful conversations.
The tool that I highly recommend to better understand your own listening approach is the Personal Listening Profile. For more information – click here:
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