The Challenges of Listening are Complex
These two pages will cover a range of examples representing the challenges of listening.
On this page:
- Introduction: Read this to learn about common listening challenges and where they come from.
- The Dinner Guests: Caricatures of Listening Challenges is an illustrated guide to common listening pitfalls personified as characters. Each section offers a storied example, signs of each challenge-style, and a collection of antidote resources.
On the next page:
- Beyond the Dinner Guests: While the dinner guest list illustrates many of the fundamental hiccups we encounter in the land of listening and being listened to, there are other foundational fractures in the art of communication that are trickier to personify.
- The Third Ear: The Challenge of Listening to Ourselves
- Unmet Expectations: Our Unconscious Expectations of the Speaker
- Messy Listening: When We’re Not Ready to Listen
- The Threat of Curiosity: How Curiosity is Vulnerable, and Why it Feels Dangerous
- Cancel Culture: Social Media Issues as a Metaphor for Modern Dialogue
- How to Take Care of Yourself While Listening: Privilege and Personal Responsibility
People are poor listeners. Yes, you too.
Why is it so difficult for us to listen? Listening requires a complex series of skills that must be developed like developing a muscle. Not only do we need to train and build strength, we need to avoid some of our natural tendencies (like eating junk food or being lazy) that could get in the way of our progress.
For listening, the junk food and laziness show up as indulging in our egos and not putting effort into paying attention. Building up our abilities to get beyond ourselves and tune into the other person are challenging tasks—that are well worth the effort!
How well do you listen?
Take the Listening Assessment!
In this section, we’re going to explore a few challenges specific to listening.
To start, consider that we remember about 50% of what we hear, and that decreases over time1! We also face certain cognitive disadvantages: the brain is able to process 400 words per minute, while the average person speaks at 125 words per minute.2
If listening to someone only requires a fraction of the potential brain power we have, what are we doing with all that extra processing power?
We’re thinking about other things- which means we’re distracted, and not listening to our full capacity.
We could be using that extra capacity to focus on emotions, tone, inflection, what isn’t being said, how something is being expressed, the dynamics of the relationship, or the constraints of the circumstances. Instead, we’re often thinking about what to say next, remembering that delicious meal from two years ago that the speaker’s story reminded us of, getting distracted by our emotions, or planning what we have to do at work tomorrow.
What we think of as “Normal Listening” is a mix of the Cosmetic, Persuasive, and Attentive Styles
Since it is so hard to listen effectively, you may be wondering what even constitutes “normal” listening. What you’ll commonly encounter in conversation (and probably do yourself most of the time) are highlighted in the list of styles below. *If you haven’t yet, check out our Styles of Listening page for a more in-depth breakdown of these types!
Ignoral
Cosmetic
Intention
Attentive
Empathic
Deep
This essentially means that our “normal listening” mode is a mix of paying attention, trying to look like we’re listening, and listening in order to get a desired outcome.
And when we Listen “normally” we tend to make the same common listening mistakes.
Do you ever catch yourself doing the following things in conversation?
- Assuming you understand without confirming
- Giving advice
- Being distracted by how you feel about the speaker
- Not being intentional about how or why we are engaging with them
- Sympathizing
- Being unaware of your triggers or biases, and allowing them to influence the conversation
- Forming your response ahead of time
- Listening to what you want to hear
In day-to-day conversation, we’re often not intentional with our listening and thus end up making simple, avoidable mistakes. The list above is a sample of some behaviors that we engage in when we’re not consciously applying ourselves in Listening. Some of these may surprise you! We break down why these things are easy to do and why they don’t work below through the metaphor of a host of unruly dinner guests.
Common Things We Do INSTEAD of Listening
| Common Mistake | Example | Antidote |
|---|---|---|
| Advising | “I think you should . . .” “I wish you would . . .” “Why don’t you . . .” “The best thing to do is . . .” “Well go over and tell him to stop hitting you.” |
Wondering / Listening / Curiosity |
| One upping | “That’s nothing; wait’ll you hear what happened to me!” | Empathic shares / Listening |
| Educating | “This could turn in a very positive experience for you if you just . . .” “Let me just show you how to do it.” (not a request where open to a no) “Look, that’s the way he is; think about it; you know that, too.” |
Offering / Listening |
| Consoling | “It wasn’t your fault; you did the best you could.” “Why would anyone do that to you?” “Well, you have plenty of other friends, don’t let it bother you.” “You’re a beautiful / handsome / strong girl (boy), no matter what she said.” “Well look, in the end you don’t want to be friends with someone like that anyway.” “Oh well, come on over here and sit by me and we’ll color together.” “Tomorrow’s a new day, so there’s no sense worrying about it.” |
Reflect Reframe Validate Listen |
| Story-telling | “That reminds me of the time . . .” “I know what you mean, it’s just like when . . .” |
Empathic shares / Listening |
| Shutting down | “Cheer up. Don’t feel so bad.” “On the bright side, you still have . . .” “It’s time for a snack, that’ll cheer you up.” “Later, when you get older, you’ll understand.” |
Listening |
| Sympathizing | “Oh, you poor thing . . .” “That’s horrible that they did that to you.” |
Validate / Listening |
| Interrogating | “When did this happen?” “Who was it?” “What did you do to make him do that?” “Why did you say that?” “Why do you feel that way?” |
Honest ?’s / Listening |
| Explaining / Justify | “I would have called but . . .” | Self-forgiveness / Listen |
| Correcting | “That’s not how it happened.” “You mean last week.” |
Honor their story/truth // Listening |
| Evaluation / judging | “Weird.” “Crazy!” “Strange.” “Stupid.” “Fool, idiot, jerk” “What were they/you thinking?!” “That’s outrageous!” “Well, it’s not the end of the world after all…” “Oh, and I suppose it’ll kill you to sit next to your sister.” |
Curiosity / Listening |
| Commanding | “Calm down!” “Quit whining!” “Stop complaining!” |
Exploring / Listening |
You can learn more about the common mistakes YOU make by trying the following exercise:
Fly On The Wall
In this activity you will watch and analyze a series of movie clips. The prompts that follow the clips will help you reflect on behaviors and patterns in conversation and their impact. This will help you learn to notice some of these common mistakes.
After the exercise, pick one of the behaviors on the list and monitor your use of it for a week. Then try another one the next week!
The Dinner Guests
An Illustrated Guide to What We Do Instead of Listening
Really listening involves being fully present with another person and trying to take in everything they are communicating.
Noticing and absorbing as much as possible from what someone is sharing is hard work! Not only is there always a great deal being communicated, but as complex human beings, we all have a heck of a lot going on inside our minds and bodies that can distract us from being sensitive to it. We also have a lot of habits that can cut off connection. In order to simplify what’s going on when we’re not doing the best job listening, we’ve broken it down for you in terms of a holiday dinner party.
Imagine you find yourself going home for the holidays. The whole family is invited, including some close family friends. But as in most gatherings of people, not everyone agrees on everything or gets along perfectly well. Each one of the dinner guests is a caricature based on how they participate in conversation. Real people are more nuanced than the dinner guests below, yet these caricatures help highlight the very real listening challenges we all face. These types of listeners (or “non-listeners”) may be the reason it’s hard to go to family gatherings.
And, we hate to break it to you, but you’re probably one of them!
You can even be multiple of these styles at the same time. Many of them overlap one another.
*As a caveat, we feel it’s important to assert that this guide is intended to showcase common and very normal pitfalls in conversation and explain why we often slip into them (without shaming or demonizing these behaviors).*
The Volcano: Reacts Instead of Listening
The Example:
Glenda’s daughter showed up late for the holiday dinner. This evening was very important to Glenda because she always looks forward to the rare time when the entire family gets together. When her daughter was an hour late, Glenda was furious. She felt disrespected. Instead of listening to her daughter explain what had happened, she expressed her rage. Her daughter became defensive in return and expressed her own rage at her mother. The two ended up not speaking for the rest of the evening.
The Signs of the Volcano:
Raised voice, flushed skin, abnormal breath rate, “Always/Never” statements, stiff body posture, accusations, leading questions, no questions, interruptions, talking over, not giving the other person time to express, shutting down
The Volcano Explained:
In the above story, two people become emotionally reactive in response to an event and end up with a damaged connection and little understanding. Both Glenda and her mother embodied the Volcano style. In order to really understand the predicament of this style, we need to learn a little bit about the brain.
The human brain has two areas that are relevant to the Volcano: The Limbic System and the Neocortex. The Limbic System is responsible for our emotional experience, at the root of which is our Amygdala. The Amygdala controls our fight, flight, or freeze response, and is the oldest part of our brain. On the other hand, the Neocortex is the youngest part of the human brain to have developed over the course of our evolutionary history and is responsible for higher-level reasoning and logic.
| Amygdala | Survival. Helps us survive by forcing the reactions of fight, flight, or freeze in the face of threats. | Oldest part of our brain (ie the earliest to have evolved) |
|---|---|---|
| Neocortex | Higher level functioning. Helps us reason, analyze, and understand. | Youngest part of our brain (ie the latest to have evolved) |
When we get upset, our Limbic System is activated because it is wired to respond to stressors. This activates our Amygdala, but may not always fire it up completely. If we feel really triggered by something, our Amygdala can essentially take control of the brain, kicking in to help us survive. Even though reactions like fight, flight, or freeze aren’t exactly relevant to a row with our kids, our more primitive hardwiring doesn’t immediately know the difference. This reaction works great when confronting a wild tiger but can royally interfere in our relationships with our friends and family. When we’re operating primarily from our Amygdala, we aren’t able to reason or think as creatively as we can when we’re emotionally regulated. Higher-level reasoning of such a nature takes place in our Neocortex, which we cannot access effectively while upset.
Daniel Goleman calls this an “Amygdala Hijack” – offering that the Amygdala takes over our ability to respond consciously to a situation. *You can learn more about this on our page about the Creative and Reactive Brain. Mark Goulston, author of Just Listen, suggests we keep the Amygdala at a “simmer” by regulating our emotions.
Once our Amygdala begins to boil over, it becomes much more difficult to re-center ourselves.
So what does all of this have to do with Listening?
Well, effective Listening is a higher-level cognitive task.
This means it requires executive functioning, which means we need access to our frontal lobes that are located in the Neocortex.
The point is that when we get upset, we can’t listen to our full potential because we get swamped by emotions that effectively damage our ability to reason.
We are far better at listening when we are calm and grounded. We’re more capable of solving problems, paying attention, and understanding where the other person is coming from. We dive more into this phenomenon in our piece on The Red Balloon.
Below are some Antidotes to use if you struggle with the Volcano Style.
Antidotes to the Volcano
Practice and Exercises for the Volcano
This print-out is a master list resource of self-regulation techniques to help you get in the zone to listen better. Pick one or two to practice with for a week and re-evaluate what is working for you.
In this activity, you have the opportunity to list and analyze the different beliefs and biases you may carry about yourself and others and examine how those beliefs affect YOUR behavior.
Better Listening skills require practice! Here, we encourage you to engage in an Elevated Conversation with a partner. With this detailed guide and the Elevated Conversations model in front of you, you both will work your way through the stages of conversation.
Need a little cheat to help center yourself before entering a tense conversation? This printable card has two acronyms for what to do and what to avoid. Keep it in your pocket or wallet while you’re learning!
Relevant Site Sections
If YOU are the Volcano
If THEY are the Volcano
Additional Resouces for the Volcano
- The Red Balloon
- Creative Vs Reactive Brain
- Regulation
- How Deep Listening Can Make You More Persuasive From Greater Good Berkeley
- Bridging Differences A Guide to deep listening in conflict situations by Greater Good Berkeley
The Affirmer: Seeks Agreement instead of Listening
An Example:
In America, gun rights are a hot button issue. Amongst this family, there are a diversity of opinions on the topic and Grandpa knows that. He actually knows exactly where everybody stands on the issue. He’s not really interested in talking to folks who disagree with him because he doesn’t think they know what they’re talking about, and it makes for some uncomfortable conversation to navigate their differences of opinion. However, he really, really wants to talk about the latest legislation. He gravitates towards the people he knows understand his point of view in order to talk about it and any related topics.
Signs of the Affirmer:
Doesn’t engage with everyone equally; favors certain people that have similar beliefs and lifestyles. Talks fervently about things they are in agreement over with others; rarely engages in talk about things they disagree with or are unsure about: selective listening.
The Affirmer Explained:
We get to choose who to listen to. Oftentimes, we show up as an Affirmer in our listening style by choosing to listen most to people who already agree with us. This makes sense because it validates our worldview, opinions, beliefs, and identity. This also helps us avoid the discomfort of confronting views that may challenge our beliefs or ideas. In this sense, the Affirmer may be less curious and interested in connection with others, instead in a repeated pursuit to meet their need for affirmation.
By listening to what we already believe to be true, we limit ourselves from learning and possibility.
Even though we may be using effective listening techniques with these people, we’re not getting the full picture because we are actively choosing not to listen to someone else. We rarely have to practice effective listening when having a conversation about something we already know. By doing this, we do not give ourselves the opportunity to understand others more deeply.
You may be thinking that it isn’t always worth listening to everyone, and you might be right. There are a number of reasons why we would consider someone an untrustworthy person to devote our attention to (we talk more about Cancel Culture here). However, if our reason is that we disagree with their views, it’s useful to ask ourselves what bothers us. Chances are, if someone else’s perspective deeply bothers us, we don’t fully understand it.
And if we don’t understand views that differ from our own, how can we be fully confident that what we’ve chosen to believe is true?
Antidotes to the Affirmer
Practice and Exercises for the Affirmer
In this activity, you have the opportunity to list and analyze the different beliefs and biases you may carry about yourself and others and examine how those beliefs affect YOUR behavior.
Better Listening skills require practice! Here, we encourage you to engage in an Elevated Conversation with a partner. With this detailed guide and the Elevated Conversations model in front of you, you both will work your way through the stages of conversation.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
Relevant Site Sections
- Curiosity
- Mindfulness
- Humility
Additional Resources
The Generalizer: Uses Stereotypes and Assumptions instead of Listening
An Example:
A brother and sister have made their way over to the buffet table to suss out the dish options for the evening. Having tested a few already, the brother recommends his sister try the octopus soup that his wife brought, assuring her it’s delicious. His sister declines, citing her vegetarian preferences. He feels slightly annoyed at this, “It’s ridiculous that some people refuse to eat certain animals. People with finicky eating preferences are so irrational.” The sister is offended by this and re-asserts her stance, “Octopuses are highly intelligent animals. I don’t believe it’s right to eat them and that doesn’t make me irrational.”
Signs of the Generalizer:
Speaks of groups of people as a unit with certain beliefs/practices. Expresses judgments of large groups. “Always/never”. Blanket statements. “People who __ are ___.”
The Generalizer Explained:
The Generalizer likes to lump people into categories. We all generalize. In fact, we need to generalize to a certain extent. Our brains are wired to be efficient by categorizing and simplifying things we experience. This makes judgments and decisions easier for us. Unfortunately, in order to do this we may over-generalize without realizing it. Generalizing can cut us off from seeing the complexity and uniqueness in a given situation and prevent us from understanding what is truly there. This is especially true when it comes to people.
We spend our lives amassing information in order to better navigate the world. The data that we store helps us make quicker decisions, which is typically an efficient and accurate strategy. However, individual human beings are extremely complex, and no matter how badly we want to use stereotypes or make assumptions based on things we think we already know, we can never have the whole picture.
These generalizations end up blocking us from seeing someone authentically, because we impose our own ideas of who they might be—based on our experience—onto them first. This can be alienating for the other person and prevents us from really knowing them. Over-generalizing also gives us a tempting, but often false, sense of knowing.
We filter people along many categories. Some of the most common are Gender, Generation, Nationality, Education, Emotion and Age.
| Gender | Generation | Nationality | Education | Emotion | Age | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Assumption (“Story”) | “Women are emotional and irrational.” | “Older people are stubborn and closed-minded.” | “Americans are self-centered.” | “She has a Ph D so she must be really smart.” | “He’s depressed and won’t wanna go out with us.” | “He’s twenty and twenty-year-olds are immature.” |
| Resulting Behavior | You may not take her complaints seriously and may dismiss them. | You may expect to get into an argument everytime politics come up. Your defensiveness makes an argument more likely. | You may feel annoyed around them and don’t take them seriously. | You ask her a great deal of questions and ask for her advice constantly. | You don’t invite him to outings, diminishing opportunities for him to say yes. | You may dismiss his input or underestimate his ability. |
Another common way to generalize people is based on our past experience of them as an individual. While this is often a great tool for predicting future behavior, holding people to their past behaviors ignores the possibility that humans are dynamic beings with the potential to make different choices. We may miss their growth with our assumptions, or worse, interfere with it by imposing our expectations of their past abilities or behaviors onto the present.
For example, let’s say your son disobeyed you when you set limits on how long he could play video games. When he played for too long several times in a row you chose to take the games away. Perhaps you’ve developed the story that he is characteristically disobedient and cannot be trusted. If he is not given the games back in the future, he may not have the opportunity to learn self-restraint in this context and thus earn your trust back. By expecting him to fail again and not giving him the opportunity to do otherwise, you rob him of the possibility of succeeding.
Ultimately, generalizing doesn’t leave room for people to be who they actually are. It projects our assumptions onto them. Our brains have worked very hard to come up with systems that are efficient to help us navigate the chaos of life, but sometimes these systems leave out important details in their quest for effectiveness. Listening requires that we leave our shortcuts behind- that means being aware of and open to letting go of our assumptions about a person or situation. It means being completely present with them as they are showing up in that moment. Our lack of curiosity can cause us to miss a great deal about others.
And by the by, people don’t particularly enjoy being “figured out.” When we get lumped into categories or labels we often feel as if someone over-simplified us. When someone tells us who or what we are, it misses the grander picture. It doesn’t acknowledge our uniqueness, our potential, or our agency. It imposes a static label that leaves a rift in understanding. Without being approached with curiosity, openness, and empathy, we often don’t feel known at all.
Antidotes to the Generalizer
Practice and Exercises for the Generalizer
In this activity, you have the opportunity to list and analyze the different beliefs and biases you may carry about yourself and others and examine how those beliefs affect YOUR behavior.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
This print-out includes a list of some mindset tricks for helping you shift your perspective in conversation. Refer to it when you start your week and choose one to practice. You can re-evaluate and pick a new one later to see what works best for you.
This print-out shows the layers we can listen to while listening: Or Self, the What, How, and Why. It includes examples and a blank version to use for personal situations.
Relevant Site Sections
Additional Resources
The Righteous: Knows instead of Listening
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell, British Polymath
A Common Example: “Some Life Choices Are Better”
Jack and Jill are recently out of college and discussing their future plans. Jill is about to enroll in law school while Jack is going to take a year to travel. Neither of them think the other person’s plan is of the most benefit to their future.
While talking about it, Jill keeps wondering how Jack will take care of himself and his future family if he is “just messing around all the time,” and therefore doesn’t fully hear him express how he thinks this will help him develop more as a person and know what he wants.
Likewise, while listening to Jill, Jack keeps wondering if she is going to bypass figuring out “what she really wants” by diving straight into a highly demanding career, and doesn’t leave space to hear how important it is to her to be able to work in an industry that can make significant impacts on people’s lives.
Instead of listening to what is underneath each of their choices and finding a moment of connection, the friends casually advise one another against their chosen course of action.
A More Extreme Example: “How Could You Possibly Believe That?”
Caleb is an Atheist and his brother-in-law Jamal is a devout Christian. Whenever they touch on the topics of science or morality, Caleb gets riled up that Jamal doesn’t trust the scientific community. He assumes that you have to be stubborn and unintelligent not to take science more seriously than traditional teachings and can’t fathom a fully rational person believing in God. Although Caleb sees Jamal as intelligent, he dismisses Jamal’s perspective and spends their conversations doling out facts and statistics, citing popular Atheist arguments against the existence of God and trying to show Jamal the faults in his logic.
Signs of The Righteous:
Generalizing, Advising, Changing the topic, Getting distracted, Dismissing/shrugging off. *Shutting down/disengaging, *Anger, *Arguing. Speaking in absolutes (“Always,” “Never”). *Cutting people off. Thinking the other is uninformed, *incompetent, *corrupted, *wrong. *Irritation, disinterest. “So how would you explain…?” Inquisition instead of inquiry. Questions are leading. *More Extreme Sign
The Righteous Explained:
While the above signs might come off as extreme, playing the role of The Righteous doesn’t always look like yelling and rage. It is most often quite subtle.
The Righteous is very common and often goes unnoticed by the person with the mindset. When we believe in something, we see our viewpoint as valid, reasonable, thoughtful— and right! You may regularly fall into this mindset yourself while not considering yourself an extremist or unbalanced in any way. That is totally normal.
In many ways, ‘being right’ is important for our survival. We are biologically primed to determine truths about ‘reality’ and be able to follow through on them confidently. While being curious is fundamental to learning, being constantly plagued by doubt would make it difficult to live our daily lives!
The Righteous is often a combination of the Generalizer and the Volcano. Righteousness can lead us to approach situations with “black and white thinking”- the idea that things are ultimately one way or another, and not in-between. In its more subtle (and popular) variations, righteousness inspires us to lean heavily in one direction and decline exploring different options. The Righteous sees a single opinion or belief as more/most correct and typically dismisses others as wrong, misguided, unsupported, or perhaps silly.
This 1967 Study Explored Our Likelihood to Pay Attention to Contrary Opinions or Information
Our lack of receptivity to differing opinions or information contrary to our current beliefs was demonstrated in a 1967 study by Brock and Baloun. Participants were asked to listen to speeches over a radio that were staticky, but they had the option to press a button and clear the static momentarily if they wanted to hear better. During speeches about the potential harm of cigarettes, non-smokers were more likely than smokers to push the button. During a speech contesting the link between smoking and cancer, smokers were more likely than non-smokers to push the button. The same pattern of selective attention to non-dissonant information occurred in speeches promoting or attacking Christianity with people who were either more involved with prayer and church versus those who were less religious.
Caleb is an extreme example and sees it as one or the other: you believe in God or you believe in Science. In the more common example of Jack and Jill, both of them are confident that their approach to life is most serving to their well-being and that their friend is making a mistake. While they aren’t going to have a fight about it, their strong opinions likely interfere with their ability to fully understand each other.
Seeing the world in this dichotomous manner (even in its less intense manifestations) brings with it a slew of drawbacks. It limits us from learning and connection. Caleb’s opportunity to develop a deeper bond with his brother-in-law is limited by the fact that he won’t take him seriously. This listening style lacks the same essential ingredient that the others above are also missing: curiosity. Absent curiosity, we can enter conversations without intentional openness to different ideas. We may even have the (conscious or unconscious) agenda to prove ourselves right and others wrong- both of which lead us to missing the opportunity to listen (and hence learn) all together.
The absence of curiosity may not be a direct refusal of learning, and yet it often results in maintaining what we already believe we know.
In the same way the Generalizer uses assumptions for efficient decision making, The Righteous can use righteousness to protect their identity and values, a crucial component to feeling secure. Caleb may have a subconscious need to prove Jamal wrong (or get Jamal to agree with him) because he has framed his world view and identity around the idea that God does not and cannot exist. Someone important in his life believing in God could feel like an unconscious threat to his morality. There are a wide range of reasons that the human animal is driven to be moral. One of them is because being moral feels good4. When we know our beliefs are correct (and therefore good) it affirms who we are.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world. But no one thinks to change himself.” – Leo Tolstoy
“You’re wrong,” often correlates with “I’m right.” In our inner-dialogue, it may sound more like:
- “Sure…”
- “Maybe they haven’t been taught well.”
- “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”
- “They don’t realize what they’re saying.”
- “It’s not worth trying to change their mind.”
- “They’ll understand some day.”
- “Pfft.”
When this premise inspires a conversation we’re primed not to listen, but rather to spar. The conversation has become about us and our views, rather than listening. It becomes about affirming Caleb’s reasoning, reality, and values. It becomes about listening only to find information to disagree with and dismantle in our next response. There is typically little openness to taking the other person seriously and showing them the respect of genuine curiosity.
Granted, it is hard to listen to someone we don’t agree with, especially because it is easy to confuse listening to someone (giving your time, attention, and openness) with agreeing with them. Instead, the conversation may become a debate, which is rarely transformative. Genuinely listening to people we disagree with is a vulnerable act because it requires intellectual humility; it requires us to be open to the idea that we could be wrong and we may not know everything. And that’s a big ask when Caleb spent the past ten years dismantling his belief in a higher power. It asks us to consider that the person we’re engaging with could have something to teach us.
Such ideas can be scary as they undermine our convictions and potentially our sense of security. Caleb might think that even giving Jamal the time of day on this topic is akin to disrespecting himself by disregarding all the years of deep questioning and research he put into his belief system. But for the record, Jamal perhaps has done the same.
“Truth springs from arguments amongst friends.” – David Hume
When we respect someone, we’re more likely to listen to them. This quote from philosopher David Hume captures how truth is more easily reached when we respect someone enough to listen to their perspective.
We have much more to say on the topic on our page, “How to Change One’s Mind,” about the value of doing just that, the challenges along that journey, and how to go about it yourself. In the meantime, some tricks to cultivating openness to opposing views can be as simple as how you choose to perceive your conversation partner.
Some example perspectives include:
- Know that they are right from their perspective. They’ve spent their entire life developing their beliefs.
- See them as the expert of their life. You cannot possibly know what they know.
- See them as a teacher, as someone from whom you can learn.
- Find something about what they are saying that you’re genuinely curious about.
And you can find these explained in more detail in our Perspective Tricks printout!
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” – Voltaire
Antidotes to The Righteous
Practice and Exercises
In this activity, you have the opportunity to list and analyze the different beliefs and biases you may carry about yourself and others and examine how those beliefs affect YOUR behavior.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
This print-out includes a list of some mindset tricks for helping you shift your perspective in conversation. Refer to it when you start your week and choose one to practice. You can re-evaluate and pick a new one later to see what works best for you.
Relevant Site Sections
“Everyone is entitled to my opinion.” David Brinkley
“Ideological certainty easily degenerates into an insistance upon ignorance.” Daniel Moynihan
“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.” Terry Pratchett
“Reality is an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” – Albert Einstein
“Win the Battle, Lose the War.” – Timeless Wisdom
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” – Rumi
The Egotist: Focuses on Themselves instead of Listening
“For the most part people are not curious except about themselves.” ― John Steinbeck
An Example:
While seated at the dinner table amongst several guests, your uncle asks your cousin Meg about the cast on her arm. Meg begins telling the story of their recent car accident and the surgery they had as a result. Suddenly your aunt cuts in, “Oh my goodness, I have been in so many car accidents, they’re the worst!” She launches into a story about a series of fender benders. When she finishes, your uncle brings attention back to Meg, “You were talking about your surgery?” Your aunt begins again, “Gosh, surgeries are so hard. It must have been rough for you. I’ve had three surgeries and they were awful…” and begins again to tell her personal stories.
Signs of the Egotist:
Interruption, “Omg me too!”/ constantly relating. Asks leading questions so they can tell their own story. May monologue. Regularly redirects attention to themselves. May have an inflated sense of self/are overly confident.
Our Ego is our sense of self-importance. The Egotist Listening Style can accidentally conflate their importance over those they are listening to.
We’ve probably all been there. We’re telling a story and someone we’re talking with cannot wait to relate and share their own experience before we’ve finished. You’ve also probably been the one to do this to someone else!
It’s easy to lose awareness of cutting someone off, especially when there is constant chatter in our minds inspiring us and we tend to assume that relating is a way of showing that we’re listening.
Your aunt in the above story may very well have been well-intended, but she ended up subversively taking control of the conversation. Was she aware of this? It’s possible. But it’s more than likely she wasn’t. She wasn’t listening to Meg (or your uncle’s interest in Meg’s story), she was listening to her internal dialogue and imposing that on the conversation.
Do you have a “Healthy Personality”? Try Scott Barry Kaufman’s Healthy Personality Test to find out.
Per his website: “The Healthy Personality Scale measures healthy personality functioning based on an analysis of existing items on the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). Those scoring high on the Healthy Personality Scale are more likely to have good self-regulatory skills, have an optimistic outlook on the world, and have a clear and stable self-view. They are also more likely to be low in aggression and meanness, are unlikely to exploit others, are relatively immune to stress, and are more self-sufficient.” This scale may help you reflect on your view of yourself in relation to employing the Egotist style.
The Egotist listening style is autobiographical.
This means that they frame what they take in with regards to themselves. They listen with their own personal experiences, preferences, and ideas at the forefront of their mind. This is totally natural to do! The vast majority of us are relating to the world through our own sense of self. We automatically (mostly unconsciously) relate new information to our personal narrative so we can develop who we are and understand the world better.
Unfortunately, (and even though it is often unconscious) when our own selves are our primary focus, it limits us from effectively listening to others.
Genuinely listening to another person involves considering them and their experience as our main focus while putting ourselves and our errant thoughts to the side until they’re relevant.
It means your aunt listens rapturously to Meg’s story, anticipating its uniqueness and wondering how the experience could have impacted Meg while expecting to be surprised.
We’re naturally going to have tangential thoughts as we listen to others, so developing your listening skill of attention is important here. As with mindfulness, we need to build our focus muscle while we learn to monitor and let go of distracting thoughts.
Your aunt choosing to tell her story over listening to Meg’s avoids acknowledging Meg’s experience as important or unique. Shifting focus away from someone who is sharing can feel invalidating.
When relating to others by telling our similar personal stories, it is common to feel like we’re actually validating them and fostering connection. Relating certainly has its place and can do just that, but its place typically isn’t every time your mind wanders and you feel compelled to share.
You can help yourself by checking your agenda. “Why do I want to share this?” (The popular THINK acronym pictured can give some more guidance.) “Is it a good time?” “Is it relevant?” “Does it shift attention to me unnecessarily?” “What will I get from sharing this now?”
It’s easy to mistake sharing a personal story with Empathizing. Often, however, we end up Sympathizing.
Egotists may tend to Sympathize rather than Empathize.
While the difference between Empathizing and Sympathizing isn’t what was going on with your aunt, it is still a habit related to Egotistical listening. In psychology, one of the defining aspects of a Narcissistic personality disorder is the inability to Empathize (for the record, we are not suggesting that those who engage in this listening style are narcissists. Not only would that be most people, but it grossly misconstrues a complex disorder. Rather, we intend to demonstrate how primary concern with the self interferes with listening). Someone with a Egotistical listening style may not engage in Sympathizing either. However, Sympathizing is a way of relating that prioritizes the self, and thus by our categorization falls into the realm of the Egotist style.
“We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.” – Criss Jami
There are a few ways to distinguish Empathizing from Sympathizing. Speaker, coach, and author Will Wise breaks it down this way:
Empathy
Putting yourself in their shoes and imagining their feelings, thoughts, and experience while staying grounded yourself. The focus stays on them.
Sympathy
Putting yourself in their shoes to the extent that you experience their emotions and become ungrounded. Your focus shifts to your own experience.
Brené Brown on Empathy
In this video Brene Brown explains Sympathy in a Cognitively Empathic manner. Sympathy becomes a judgment of another person’s experience in which their experience gets minimized and/or invalidated.
We want to avoid this type of sympathizing because it again makes things about US; our emotions and our experience take precedence over the speaker’s. When this occurs, our Limbic System dominates our minds and we aren’t as capable of the higher-level cognitive activities involved in listening. Staying grounded and regulated is essential to fully Empathizing. We talk more about Empathy in our section on Empathic Listening.
Egotists Prioritize Expression Over Listening
This one may seem obvious, but another reason someone with an Egotistical style falls prey to poor listening habits is that they are prioritizing expression over listening. They could be doing this because they think that what they have to share is especially interesting, important, or entertaining. Clearly your aunt was doing this with Meg. This is probably a big ol’ ‘Duh!’ to you, but you cannot listen effectively and talk at the same time. Those with a Egotistical style may be prone to monologuing and not aware of how they are impacting their conversation partners. *Read on to learn more about Monolinguist Listening Style.
“Out of all the addictions in the world, Attention is slowly but surely becoming one of the most dangerous.” ― Saahil Prem
Antidotes to the Egotistical Style
Practice and Exercises
The following meditation prompts are designed to help you practice mindfulness while addressing focus, awareness, and intention.
This is a collection of five simple games for improving basic listening skills. Each game encourages different listening skills including: asking clarifying questions, listening without interrupting or interjecting, reading non-verbal cues, and reflecting, reframing, and validating someone.
Want to practice your listening skills, ability to ask quality questions, AND have a great opportunity to reflect on the process? In this activity, you will be guided through an interview with a friend about how listening has played out in their lives. You can record the interview to listen back yourself (or ask someone else!) and get feedback regarding how effectively you listened.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
This print-out includes a list of some mindset tricks for helping you shift your perspective in conversation. Refer to it when you start your week and choose one to practice. You can re-evaluate and pick a new one later to see what works best for you.
Relevant Site Sections
Additional Resources
- The Loving Others Scale
- Attachment Styles
- Empathy in Listening
- Curiosity in Listening
The Monolinguist: Talks instead of Listening
An Example:
Phil’s Dad loves to talk. Everyone at the dinner tonight knows it and is wary of getting stuck with him alone. Sometimes he’ll start gossiping about the neighbors, which will result in a fifteen-minute tour of everything he knows about their lives and pasts. Sometimes he’ll get stuck telling an old historical story that no one is interested in, or perhaps delves into all the details of how he figured out what was wrong with the air conditioner. While sometimes his stories are engaging, it grows old after a while. The worst part is that he doesn’t notice when people stop listening. Phil and the rest of the family sometimes feel held hostage when his Dad gets going. They quietly find ways to exit from his long-winded monologues, doing their best not to be the last one left at the table with him.
Signs of the Monolinguist:
They go on and on. Don’t ask questions. Lack of awareness of those that are listening, even when they stop. *The difference between a Monolinguist style and a Egotist style is that a Egotist may not go on ad nauseum and a Monolinguist may not be talking explicitly about themselves.
In this clip from the show, “Big Bang Theory,” Sheldon is on a rant about XBox gaming consoles. He does not pick up on the fact that his friend Amy is not interested in what he’s talking about and continues on without regard for how it is affecting her. This lack of awareness is a hallmark of the Monolinguist challenge style.
The Monolinguist has a lot to express. They talk. And talk and talk. They don’t exactly engage in the exchange that defines conversation. And, most importantly, they aren’t aware of how they’re impacting their listeners, and this lack of attunement often leads listeners to disengage.
It might seem strange to call this a listening-style since it is about how someone expresses themselves- and, the hallmark of the Monolinguist is that they express themselves at the cost of listening. Their need to express is so high that it overshadows their ability to listen.
How does it happen that someone ends up talking so much without awareness of how others are receiving it? There are a few possible explanations. It could be anxiety, the glorification of extraversion, or a well-intended attempt to entertain or support others.
People may blather on in response to their own anxiety. This could have to do with discomfort with silence. Following the guidelines of social grace, silence is often misinterpreted as a sign of failure in a conversation, and the conversing parties may therefore feel awkward and be compelled to fill the void. Unfortunately, we sometimes choose to fill the void with irrelevant or shallow commentary.
Another idea is that extraversion is a valued characteristic in many western cultures. There is pressure to assert ourselves and be expressive and outgoing. Sometimes in the process of proving ourselves to others, we lose sight of whether or not our strategies are actually working. That isn’t to say that all Monolinguists are making a misguided attempt at winning friends and influencing people. Some folks are naturally more outgoing, although that may not correlate with talkativeness. Another possible reason for monologuing is that we may not feel heard in the first place. By continuing to share, we may unconsciously believe we’re more likely to feel connected and understood.
Some folks think that they’re helping. There are some confident people out there who believe one of their strengths is their social prowess. Whether or not this is true (some people are genuinely funny and entertaining to listen to!) they can believe that by talking at length they are providing a service to those around them. And maybe at times they are- maybe they are helping relieve the pressure to say something and maybe they are helping some people feel like they have a place to be. However, you can provide that service best only when you’re aware of your conversation partner’s state. The trouble with the Monolinguist is that they don’t notice when they’ve over-stepped these bounds.
Monologuing is an absence of listening because there is a lack of attunement, awareness, or intentionality. It “abuses “ listeners by failing to accommodate them. In the end, going on a monologue is not participating in conversation.
Antidotes to the Monolinguist Style
Practice and Exercises
The following meditation prompts are designed to help you practice mindfulness while addressing focus, awareness, and intention.
This is a collection of five simple games for improving basic listening skills. Each game encourages different listening skills including: asking clarifying questions, listening without interrupting or interjecting, reading non-verbal cues, and reflecting, reframing, and validating someone.
Want to practice your listening skills, ability to ask quality questions, AND have a great opportunity to reflect on the process? In this activity, you will be guided through an interview with a friend about how listening has played out in their lives. You can record the interview to listen back yourself (or ask someone else!) and get feedback regarding how effectively you listened.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
Relevant Site Sections
Additional Resources
- The Unconscious Expectations of the Speaker
- Empathy in Listening
- Curiosity in Listening
- THINK Acronym
- Is what I’m saying True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, Kind?
The Distracted: Splits Attention instead of Listening
An Example:
June is excited to welcome her family into her home and is busy coordinating the meal while her guests are present. She is trying to keep up with cooking the main dish, monitoring the status of the snack table, catching up with her brother, texting with a family member running late, and delegating table-setting to her children all at once. Doing all of these tasks at once prevents her from giving her full attention to any one of them. She cannot be fully present with the story her brother is telling her and is not listening as effectively as she is capable.
Signs of the Distracted Listener:
Misdirected questions, false-sounding responses or overly enthusiastic responses, interruption, apologies, “one sec”, multi-tasking, lack of eye contact, lack of response/lack of appropriate response.
“You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.” –M. Scott Peck
The Distracted Explained: Multi-tasking is popularly regarded as a positive skill in Western culture, where productivity and “success” are lauded as sacred ambitions. However, studies indicate that multitasking impoverishes the quality of our work. Our attention is a precious, limited resource. Listening attentively, empathically, and deeply all necessitate our full attention. We cannot get the same depth of understanding or connection when our attention is fractured.
The modern landscape is increasingly filled with more distractions. Not only that, but the distractions have become more sophisticated in their appeal due to their design. Our phones ping at us constantly and public spaces are plastered over with advertisements. Our muscle for focus in this atmosphere is constantly being tested.
In any given conversation, we can be distracted by our own passing thoughts, our physical sensations, a passing car, or a notification from our phones. One study showed that even the presence of a phone at the table diminished people’s enjoyment of their interactions with others due to distraction by 11% (Dwyer et al 2017). Eliminating distractions and staying present is a skill (and a challenging one at that!).
We also may allow ourselves to be distracted when we don’t feel comfortable giving our full attention to something or someone. Being fully present with another person is a vulnerable and intimate experience, which can make us nervous for multiple reasons. Depending on our past experience with others or our particular relationship with a given individual, we may prefer not to be so open with them. This can happen with people we disagree with or dislike in some way, as giving them our attention may feel like we’re communicating approval or acceptance. *You can read more about how curiosity is scary here.
An Example: Amelia was on a first date with John who she’d met on a dating app. In person, she realized she was not interested- actually she even felt a bit repelled. While she did not want to be rude or hurt his feelings by being direct about this so quickly, she also didn’t want to give him the impression she was interested and lead him on. Thus, she chose not to fully engage with him during the date. She allowed herself to be distracted by her surroundings or other people she knew that she ran into.
Another element that can distract us in conversation is our agenda. What we hope to gain from the interaction can prevent us from being present by distracting us with a goal. This sometimes results in Persuasive Listening.
- You’re debating politics with an acquaintance. Because you want them to understand your perspective, you debate their points and try to present a compelling argument. You miss the opportunity to try to deeply understand their perspective.
- You call your friend to ask what the details of their potluck will be and miss their intonation that indicates they are not looking forward to the dinner.
- While interviewing a new employee you ask various questions about their employment history that are very pointed. You don’t end up giving them the space to speak about other applicable skills.
Antidotes to the Distracted Listening Style
Practice and Exercises
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
The following meditation prompts are designed to help you practice mindfulness while addressing focus, awareness, and intention.
This is a collection of five simple games for improving basic listening skills. Each game encourages different listening skills including: asking clarifying questions, listening without interrupting or interjecting, reading non-verbal cues, and reflecting, reframing, and validating someone.
Want to practice your listening skills, ability to ask quality questions, AND have a great opportunity to reflect on the process? In this activity, you will be guided through an interview with a friend about how listening has played out in their lives. You can record the interview to listen back yourself (or ask someone else!) and get feedback regarding how effectively you listened.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
Relevant Site Sections
The Savior: Tries to Fix instead of Listening
An Example:
Bill and his girlfriend of five years recently split up. His relative Charlie asked how it went down. Bill explained how things had turned south and expressed that he was having a hard time with the transition. Charlie responded to this by suggesting he take some time to invest in himself and then get back out in the field. Bill couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it didn’t feel helpful to him to hear that at that moment.
Signs of the Savior:
Advising: “You should…” “Maybe it’s…” “I would….” “Have you tried…” “You’ll be fine…”
The Savior Explained:
The Savior listening style cuts off the real opportunity for listening because their focus is to help or fix the situation or experience.
We want to help people we care about. It’s normal and healthy to want to help our loved ones (or even strangers!). The tricky part is in how we go about doing so.
Advising people is more often than not a counterproductive approach when we want to help or soothe the people around us.
When we believe that “fixing” needs to occur, we’ve already made a judgment, which takes us out of the realm of effective listening instantly. How? By not engaging in curiosity and openness.
When we start to advise someone, we stop listening to them because we begin to focus on our own narrative being fueled through strategizing how to solve the issue at hand. While well-intended, advising misses the opportunity to validate their experience and their agency. By simply hearing and asking about their experience and offering our emotional support, we create a container that allows for them to feel acknowledged. It can be more impactful to empower them to find their own solutions by not providing our own, as it shows respect for their ability to navigate their life effectively.
Charlie genuinely cares about Bill’s well-being in the example above and wants him to suffer less. However, Bill is fully capable of coming to a similar conclusion to what Charlie offered, and in that moment may have benefited more from an empathic response like, “I’m sorry dude, that sounds awful. If there is anything you need, let me know. I’m almost always down to grab a beer after I get off work.”
It’s Not About The Nail
This comedic clip highlights the pitfalls of jumping to solutions.
Typical Scenarios Where Advising isn’t Helpful
Advising Options
Your son is struggling with his math homework. You tell him how to do the problem before he asks for help.
- Why this doesn’t help: This approach jumps to solutions and neglects to empower your son to learn that he is capable of figuring out the math problem on his own. Advising and fixing here do not acknowledge his emotional experience or agency.
Your friend is trying to decide how to handle a problem in her relationship. She vents to you about what is happening and asks for your advice. You notice that this same situation has happened several times and she has not been taking your advice. You’re a bit frustrated by this but tell her again how you would handle it and make an excellent argument as to why.
- Why this doesn’t help: This approach jumps to solutions and neglects to empower your friend to find a new approach. Because your friend has been making the same choices repeatedly and not heeding your advice, she might be using getting advice as a band-aid instead of examining why her current approach is not working.
Alternative Approaches
You notice he is frustrated. You ask him what is going on and he tells you he hates math. You reflect back that he is feeling some anger about not knowing how to do the problem and ask some more questions about his experience. After empathizing for a while, he seems to calm down a bit. You ask him if he would like help and he says yes. You ask him what strategies he has tried and he explains. From there you help him find and choose other strategies.
- Why this helps: By empathizing with your son you can help him regulate and think more critically, helping him clear his mind to handle the problem better. On top of that, helping him find a solution himself aids him in building confidence that he will be able to handle similar solutions in the future.
Reflect back to her the emotion behind her venting without making judgments. When she asks you for advice, ask her what she has already tried and how it worked. If it wasn’t getting the result she wanted, ask her what other options she has and what results she imagines they would lead to. Patiently support her as she chooses an option.
- Why this helps: This approach helps her feel more heard regarding the situation she is in and redirects the responsibility back to her. She is empowered to make her own choice and consider what is or is not working more clearly when the information isn’t coming from someone else.
Why doesn’t advice work?
- Often when we’re upset we need empathy before we need solutions. We can get stuck in our emotional brain and are therefore not capable of higher-level reasoning at such a moment- so we need to regulate before we can strategize.
- Advising can invalidate someone’s experience. Have you ever confided in a friend to have them respond with, “Why don’t you just…?” A response like this can be very frustrating because it diminishes our problem as something easy to resolve. We’re probably hoping for comfort and validation instead of a strategy right away.
- Anyway, perhaps you HAVE tried “just doing…” already. When people make unsolicited suggestions, it can invalidate our agency. Agency is our personal degree of self-efficacy and sense of capability.
- When offering advice, you can not only unintentionally communicate that you don’t see them as capable of finding a solution on their own, but you can actually inhibit their agency and growth by interfering with their problem solving process. We can build agency and learn more about our capabilities by finding and testing our own solutions to problems. When we do this more and more, we become more confident.
- Also, it’s possible that we may give bad advice. You can never know the total and complete story of another person’s circumstances, no matter how much they tell you about it or how well you know them. Advising, by its nature, imposes our own narrative over someone else’s experience. Since people and situations are unique in subtle ways, our advice based on our own experiences can be misleading.
So why is advising so common if it’s so harmful?
- People ask for advice. Sometimes people do ask us for advice. However, they may be unconsciously seeking validation and comfort more than direction. This is evidenced by research that suggests we mostly seek advice from our close friends or very approachable people instead of seeking it from someone who could be an expert on the topic for which we need help. If we really wanted direction, wouldn’t we go to an expert? Sure, you’re friends and family may have wisdom, but they also probably know better than anyone else how to comfort you.
- Advice is for the advisor. It feels good to give advice! It affirms and clarifies our stories and wisdom, plus we get the warm-fuzzy moral bonus of helping someone out. One study showed that giving advice leads the advisor to feel powerful due to their perception that they had influence over another person’s behavior.
This isn’t to say that all advising is wrong or harmful, or that we shouldn’t give or ask for it. In fact, studies show that when offered suggestions, people report feeling more listened to. Additionally, the process of mentorship is often based around the sense that the mentor has valuable advice for you!
We may genuinely want advice sometimes. In such cases, we must remain conscientious of the fact that advice can never be completely tailored to fit who we are and our particular circumstances.
“…I respect your sincerity in asking my advice. I ask you though, in listening to what I say, to remember that all advice can only be a product of the man who gives it. What is truth to one may be disaster to another. I do not see life through your eyes, nor you through mine. If I were to attempt to give you specific advice, it would be too much like the blind leading the blind.” – Hunter S Thompson, in a letter to a friend
What to do instead of advising
While we don’t cover this at length here, there are some much more empowering alternatives for impacting and positively influencing the people we care about.
- Modeling
Show up in integrity while taking responsibility for your experience in your own life. Without telling people what they “should” do, living our own lives to the best of our ability will be inspiring and supportive to those we care for.
- Supporting their efforts
Telling and showing someone in our actions that we believe they are capable of figuring out their challenges can be done with a personal touch. How do you like to support people when they are trying to figure something out? Be careful not to “rescue” them– the point is to show that you believe they can do it themselves!
- Empathizing, Reflecting, Reframing, and Validating them
“RRV” is a technique for helping someone feel heard while also helping them understand themselves and the situation in an empowered way.
- Using the “Success Counseling” Technique
Success Counseling is an approach to empowering those we care for by helping them reflect on their challenges and come up with solutions to try themselves.
Antidotes to the Savior Listening Style
Practice and Exercises
A printable version of the Be Do Notice venn diagram for Better Listening. Print it out to reference as you’re learning!
This is a printable reference for learning how to Reflect, Reframe, and Validate (“RRV”)- and essential tool for communicating empathy. It also includes a little activity so you can practice with a partner.
This print-out details twelve ways in which a listener can fail to listen. Despite the listener’s best intentions, the recipient (person who wants empathy/to be listened to) is left wanting.
Relevant Site Sections
Additional Resources
- We Get, and Give, Lots of Bad Advice. Here’s How to Stop. Adam Grant for the New York Times
- Why You Should Stop Giving Advice (And What to Do Instead) Fantastically detailed article on the perils of advice giving and what we can do instead.
Additional Guests
These caricatures of ways we come up short in listening don’t cover the whole spectrum of challenges we encounter when connecting with other people. Attempting to narrow the nuance and complexity of communication issues into a small number of characters would (and does!) fall short of describing reality.
Ximena Vengoechea, author of “Listen Like You Mean It,” discusses similar characters in her book. Admittedly, she takes a more diplomatic approach in her descriptions, framing the styles along the lines of what each type listens for and how that determines the way they respond. There is overlap for many of the Guests with her “Listening Modes”, but there are a few more characters in her book that aren’t covered here- and are totally worth mentioning!
Do you identify with any of the following of Vengoechea’s Listening Modes?
The Explainer – Hears someone’s statement and explains why that is the case. Explainers are very rational people whose minds make quick deductions about situations. Unfortunately they may miss the underlying, more important message behind someone’s statements.
- Ex. Someone says something about her husband always being late. The explainer responds, “Probably because of his crazy job.” What was missed: The other person is feeling frustrated.
- Ex. Someone says their garden failed this year. The explainer responds, “Must be because of the late freezes we had.” What was missed: The other person actually didn’t know how to garden.
- Ex. Someone says they’ve been very emotional lately. The explainer offers, “That is normal in this period of a woman’s life.” What was missed: The other person is needing validation.
The Mediator – Vengoechea puts it best: “Mediators love to look at things from all angles and assume good intent, and make great company for mitigating conflict.” However, like the Explainer, Mediators often miss the underlying message and opportunity to empathize with the speaker in favor of offering perspective.
- Ex. You tell your friend your boss was especially rude to you today. They respond, “Maybe he was having a bad day.”
- Ex. Your dad is getting angry in traffic and cursing about how the other drivers are idiots. You tell him, “Maybe they have something hard going on in their lives and are in a rush!”
- Ex. You tell your sibling that your other sibling isn’t returning your calls. They say, “Yeah they’re probably really busy right now.”
The Interviewer – The Interviewer asks excessive questions. Sometimes this can help a conversation keep moving, and sometimes it can cause the person being asked questions to feel like they’re on trial. Vengoechea mentions that the Interviewer may also be avoiding attention by keeping it on their conversation partner.
- Ex. Continues to ask follow up question after follow up question and keeps you talking. When you ask them a question they may deflect and return attention to you.
Summary
Listening is hard!
- We’re at an ironic neurological disadvantage due to our large processing capacity.
- We haven’t been taught how to listen, or practiced it to increase our skill.
- The most common mistakes we make have to do with Self-focus, and lack of Curiosity and Awareness.
- We offer eight conversation styles that are defined by how they come up short in Listening: The Dinner Guests.
- The Volcano: Struggles to listen due to Amygdala Hijacks and lack of Self Regulation
- The Generalizer: Struggles to listen due to assumptions, a lack of Curiosity
- The Righteous: Struggles to listen due to righteousness, a focus on the self, and a lack of Curiosity
- The Affirmer: Struggles to listen due to seeking agreement, a focus on the self, avoidance of discomfort, and a lack of Curiosity
- The Monolinguist: Struggles to listen due to a focus on expression and a lack of Awareness of others and self
- The Distracted: Struggles to listen due to fractured or undisciplined Attention
- The Egotist: Struggles to listen due to focus on the self
- The Savior: Struggles to listen due to focus on the self (through the lens of being helpful)
Listening Challenges: Part 2
The next page will take us beyond the dinner guests, taking a close look at other listening challenges.