Mindful listening in a nutshell

The world is changing and so is the way we communicate. The last decade has seen us focus on building the skill to create effective communicators. While it is important to be able to stand up and talk, the importance of sitting down and listening cannot be undermined. As the world is moving towards a more digitized way of communication, the scope of the term listening too has to evolve to ensure completeness and comprehensiveness. It has become more important than ever to consciously train ourselves to become mindful listeners to deepen our understanding of the world and people around us, thus helping us build strongly rooted, fulfilling relationships in our personal and professional endeavours.

How can we become mindful listeners?

Listen to understand, not to respond

The idea of awarding bonus points to the person who starts the discussion at a group discussion has evolved to be widely misused when it is about ‘Listening to Respond’. We are in a hurry to respond to questions, not because we are equipped with the appropriate information or response but because we probably want to make our presence felt. And why not? After all, visibility matters. Little do we realise that by doing this, not only do we dilute the listening experience, we also put ourselves at great risk for negative publicity in case we don't get the question right. To be a mindful listener, it is very important to listen with the sole purpose of gaining deeper insights and understanding. 

Bring in some empathy

As judgement and bias are so closely placed, its best to avoid any form of judgment while trying to be mindful listeners. One of the effective ways is to empathize with the speaker(s) in the conversation. Empathy raises our Emotional Quotient and opens up our brain to the world of endless emotions that can be felt and decoded during the course of a dialogue, meeting or discussion, thus helping us to understand wholeheartedly and comprehensively.

Ask questions

Once empathy is in place, it is easier to establish a connection with the speaker. One of the ways to deepen our understanding and increase the level of listening is to ask pertinent, well-articulated, non-intimidating questions.  It’s important to be conscious of the reactions of the speaker when the questions are posed, in order to sense discomfort, aggression, relief etc, which will only help expand our understanding

Pre-conditioning the mind to listen

Often, prior to a social gathering or an important meeting, we pre-condition our mind to talk well, present effectively or network actively. On the contrary, how often do we tell ourselves to listen intently, remember accurately or understand comprehensively what we heard? Our brain is an amazing device - all we need to do is to train it appropriately to focus on the important activities which have lasting long-term impact, listening being one of them. Instruct the brain that it’s not only important to pitch yourself effectively at the next networking event, but it’s also important to receive information about the other attendees to build that resourceful database that you can tap into.

Why is mindful listening so difficult?

·     Bias: There is a thin line between judgement, experience and bias, which is why bias is one of the most difficult aspects to detect and deal with. Bias can include bias towards the speaker, situation, organization, idea of the kind of dialogue, bias towards the medium, such as a meeting, conference call etc. Bias closes the mind to the variety of possibilities that can be explored. Ironically, it’s also because of bias that we let our minds wander out of a certain situation or conversation.

Impatience: The pace of thinking of each individual is different and so is the rate of speech. Some like to rush their thoughts out even before they are completely conceived and comprehended, while others can’t even let out a sigh until they have formulated the entire sentence with the precise choice of vocabulary. As efficient listeners, we have to respect this difference and show patience, allowing them the required time to formulate their thoughts and vocalize it as. The temptation to complete somebody else's sentence may sometimes be so compelling, but we need to ensure we don’t succumb to it.

Jumping to conclusions: More often than not, we try to preempt the direction of a dialogue and what the conclusion could be. It is likely that we get so engrossed in this conclusion that we may start steering all conversation in this direction, completely missing out on the possibilities that could have been explored by an, otherwise, open mind.

Listening and emotional intelligence

With the world moving at a mercurially rapid pace, this era of evolution of mankind is becoming extremely complex. While technology has provided ease of operation; digitization and social media have whipped up emotions that are unmatched in their intensity and volatility. The web and the social media have taken complete control of our lives, shrinking the world into one large ecosystem where we live in a state of ‘constant feeling’, making instant gratification a way of life and a surge in emotions is just a swipe or a click/touch away.

It is becoming increasingly indispensable for people to acknowledge, comprehend and react appropriately, and become emotionally intelligent towards themselves and others. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the new IQ.

A gasp of breath, shift in eye focus, slight hesitation, pauses and distraction are all subtle ways in which people express their real story. Choice of words, difference in what is explained in detail and what is cut short, pace of speech are all subtle indications that only a mindful listener can grasp, understand and decode to get to the underlying crux of a situation.

Mindful listening, as Dale Carnegie says, is a skill that can be mastered only with practice and conscious application, where a listener whole-heartedly commits himself to the discussion at hand.

Listening in leadership

Leadership training has emerged to become a mandatory exercise for someone who is just stepping into the fraternity of leaders and aspires to sit at the high table. Leadership courses revolve primarily around different leadership styles, theories of motivation, team building etc. But one of the key skills every leader needs to develop and master is the art of listening.

Leaders not only need to listen efficiently but they also need to listen mindfully. What’s the difference? Leaders need to listen to not only what is said but they also need to pay attention to what’s NOT said. In addition to what is being said or reported, they need to pay attention to the body language of their team members to really understand the situation as a whole.

Listening in interpersonal skills

We are aware of how important it is to build strong relationships with our stakeholders to ensure success in our personal and professional endeavours. The communication pyramid is a very powerful framework to help people work on their interpersonal skills in a focussed manner. The foundation stone of this pyramid is ‘trust’. But how does listening help build trust?

When we listen to someone intently, we understand them at a deeper level. It builds confidence in them that we genuinely care. Hence, they find it easier to confide and give information that may be crucial to the project at hand. Studies show that active mindful listening, without bias, helps build positive and long -lasting relationships. Many successful sales people would agree that they could clinch that ‘important’ deal only when they could establish a genuine connection with the client.

Listening: The understated rocket science

It’s a lazy Sunday morning, and I’m sipping my morning coffee, more out of habit, than need. I reach out for my newspaper and find several local advertising pamphlets promoting camps and classes for kids - yoga, brain training, communication, personality development, storytelling, drama and theatre for expression etc.

While I glanced through each of these, one thing became increasingly obvious – the world has understood that exemplary communication skill was indispensable to becoming successful. It had emerged as the one thing everyone wanted to master.

We have been giving so much importance on learning how to talk well, and be an assertive communicator etc, but how much emphasis have we given to listening skills? We all know that listening is an integral part of communication. However, here’s the real question – Is listening just a part or should it be one of the most important pillars of soft skills?

Listening, as a term, has well been underrated for years, constrained by its literal meaning of attentive hearing. There may be a need to redefine this term to encompass the entire spectrum of associated activities that makes it such an inevitable skill to acquire.

In the current context, listening is not just about hearing what’s said attentively to ensure one has a factually correct understanding but it also includes associated subjective variables like comprehension of what’s been communicated in association with the underlying context, envision the narration, reading the body language of the speaker to be able to understand nuances and subtleties. In short, grasping what’s communicated, not only in terms of factual content, but also emotions. This is probably why it should receive the status of a complex skill that needs dedicated training.

With this evolved meaning to the term Listening, its not difficult to agree how listening ties back to almost all the soft skills that we aspire to hone and master.