If you want REAL INFLUENCE – start practicing CONNECTED LISTENING
“You are not listening to me, you’re just waiting for your turn to speak”
“The questions you ask are biased and self-serving”
“You give me solutions, while I just want you to be with me and listen”
Have you ever heard such words from your loved ones or your customers or colleagues?
Have you ever reflected on your listening skills?
Today, I do invite you to do so.
Why? I deeply believe that listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to other people and one of the most important social skills that a leader, consultant, partner should develop in order to lead a satisfying and successful life.
Mark Goulston, and John Ullmen, co-authors of “Real Influence: Persuade Without Pushing and Gain Without Giving In” state that
To invite genuine buy-in and engagement, we need to listen with a strong personal motive to learn and understand. But we have a “blind spot” in our brains that gets in the way. What we hear is easily distorted with our own needs, biases, experiences and agenda, even when our intentions are good. We often hear what others say without understanding what they mean. We hear what it means to us, not what it means to them.
In their research they outlined four different levels of listening, and the first three fall short of what’s needed for achieve real influence.
Level One: Avoidance Listening = Listening Over
Listeners who listen over others are the people who say, “Uh huh,” while clearly showing no interest in what the other person is saying. Sometimes they don’t even stop checking their e-mail or texting on their phones while they’re “listening.”
Level Two: Defensive Listening = Listening At
This is listening with your defenses up, preparing your counterpoints while the person is talking. Such “listeners” are often seen as high maintenance, and over time, people avoid them because they’re exhausting.
Level Three: Problem-Solving Listening = Listening To
This is listening in order to accomplish things. Problem-solving listeners listen in order to move things forward. If people want your solutions, this is the right approach. But people will feel frustrated, misunderstood and even resentful if you presume to offer “fixes” they don’t want or need.
Level Four: Connective Listening = Listening Into
This is listening of the highest order, and it’s the human listening that all of us crave. It’s listening into other people to discover what’s going on inside them. It’s listening on their terms, not yours. It’s understanding where people are coming from to establish genuine rapport.
To master the art of Connected Listening, resist the urge to be right, explain yourself, or offer quick fixes.
There are 3 techniques which can help you in connective listening:
- Start asking open-ended questions about what people feel
- What does that mean for you?
- How do you feel about . . . ?
- What was your first reaction when you heard?
- Paraphrase not only facts but also emotions
- Am I right to say that you felt..?
- What I am hearing from you is…
- So in other words, what you are saying is…
- Give acknowledgements to person’s feeling
- I can really relate to what you are saying about..
- I can only imagine what it must have been like..
- I hear you
In the Story Seekers practice we help leaders, salespeople, consultants develop “Connected listening” and story tending skills. Contact me if you want to work on your influencing and sales skills.
In this article I quoted parts of the article “For Real Influence, Listen Past Your Blind Spots” by Mark Goulston and John Ullmen published on March 19, 2013 at https://hbr.org/2013/03/for-real-influence-use-level-f