I don’t interrupt others or talk over them while they are speaking.This is one of the most basic facts of human psychology. We are flattered by other people’s attention. It makes us feel special. We want to be around people who show interest in us. We want to keep them close. And we tend to reciprocate their interest by showing interest in them.
—Dale Carnegie
Listening is an art, a skill, and a discipline, and like other skills, it needs self-control. As a leader, you must understand what is involved in listening and develop the necessary techniques to be silent and pay attention to what you’re hearing. You must learn to ignore your own needs and concentrate attention on the person speaking. Hearing becomes listening only when you pay attention to what is being said and follow it very closely.
Without question, listening is an absolutely essential people skill. Research shows that most people spend 70 percent of their waking hours interacting with other human beings in some way, shape, or form, and 45 percent of that time is spent listening. As with any activity to which you devote a large part of your day, it’s better to be good at it than poor. Assertive listening is being good at listening, and the first step in this direction is to understand what really goes on during a human conversational interaction.
Analogies are never perfect, but there is an analogy that comes extremely close to precisely and exactly explaining what goes on when people speak and listen. It’s an analogy between human communication and driving your car in traffic. Almost certainly, you’ve never met most of the people who are in their cars all around you, but when your cars arrive at a stop sign together, it’s understood that everyone will stop. By the rules of the road, the car on the right has the right-of-way, and most people respect this. They let the car on the right proceed into the intersection first. Sometimes people even give a little wave to urge the other driver forward, and usually the other driver will give a little wave of thanks in return. This is just how it works, and after people have been driving for a while, they understand the various protocols and abide by them.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some people speed. Others drive too slowly. At stop signs, some people don’t yield the right-of-way, and others may blow through the intersection without even stopping. This is extremely irresponsible and dangerous behavior, and there are penalties attached to it. There are traffic tickets and license suspensions, not to mention the possibility of a life-threatening accident.
A conversation works in basically the same way, although the stop signs and traffic signals are a little subtler. You may not know the person you’re speaking with, but experience has taught you that there are moments when it’s your turn to listen and times when it’s your turn to speak. There are no physical stop signs to indicate these places, but you’ve learned to sense them and respect them. Just as certain intersections can be complex and congested, conversations involving several people can require greater awareness on everyone’s part. Even if there are four or five people talking, things can go smoothly if all parties obey the rules.
Once again, however, there is the problem of people who don’t obey the rules. There are conversational speeders, whose verbal rpm are always in overdrive. There are people who talk so slowly and softly that listening to them is like being stuck behind an old farmer in a pickup truck on a two-lane country road. Then there are the really dangerous conversationalists, who seem determined to cause accidents through rudeness and insensitivity. The unfortunate thing about these rule breakers is that there are no traffic cops to get them off the road, and they take full advantage of that fact. Since there’s no law enforcement mechanism for verbal traffic patterns, they indulge themselves to the fullest.
When you’re driving your car, chances are you’d like to drive as fast as safely possible in order to get to your destination in the shortest time. You don’t actually drive that fast, but maybe you do go five or ten miles an hour above the speed limit on the interstate. What about when you’re engaged in a conversation? Do you go 60 in the 55 zone? Do you come to a complete halt at the stop signs, or do you just slow down and glide through?
Just as you may drive a bit above the speed limit, there’s also a high probability that you’re more focused on talking than listening. To become an assertive listener, you first need to become aware of that tendency, and then you need to change it.
We all want to speak, and we all want to be listened to. Do you know what it means, though, to listen, to really listen? It is more than just hearing the words. It is truly understanding other people’s messages as well as their circumstances and feelings. This is the meaning of empathy, and empathy is a basic element of assertive listening. Empathy means understanding other people so well that, at least for the moment, you experience their feelings. It’s listening so intently and identifying so closely that you experience the other person’s situation, thoughts, and emotions. Good friends do this; so do good doctors, and so do good leaders.
Assertive, empathetic listening shows that you care and understand other people. When they sense this on your part, they’ll naturally feel more comfortable and confident in their communication with you. They will trust you and open up more. If they feel you’ve misunderstood them, they’ll sense that it’s okay to correct your impression. As a result, you’ll get a clearer and more accurate sense of what’s really being said.
In short, assertive listening lets you learn more about your team members. It cuts through the superficiality of conversation and brings out what’s really on people’s minds. As an assertive listener, you’re able to direct the conversation toward important topics without ever needing to do so in a formal way. Since the speaker knows it’s safe to talk about these subjects, he or she can express real feelings. This is not just good business practice on your part, it is genuinely caring behavior.
At first, assertive listening may require some focused attention and effort, but you’ll quickly see that it actually makes business conversations easier. It can reduce the impatience that is so often a part of business interactions. It can also eliminate mistaken negative assumptions, since you will have developed a greater understanding of what the other person engaged in the conversation is really like. Assertive listening is one of the more important people skills you will ever acquire. It’s amazing how few people do it well.
Assertive listening, as we’ve discussed, is based on truly wanting to know the other person. It also depends on avoiding some very common conversational barriers. Let’s look at a few of these right now.
First, avoid constantly comparing yourself to the speaker. Most people don’t come right out and say it, but when someone else is talking, their minds are filled with thoughts like “Am I smarter than this person?” “Have I had a rougher life than this person?” or, especially, “I can’t wait for this guy to stop talking so that I can tell an anecdote of my own—which, by the way, is much more interesting than what I’m now hearing.”
This last tendency is very significant. Once you become aware of it, you’ll be amazed how often it turns up both in your own thoughts and in conversations you take part in. Zig Ziglar calls it “playing topper.” It’s the impulse to immediately top the other person’s story. Someone says, “My plane was delayed in Chicago for two hours,” and you immediately flash, “I was delayed in Denver for three hours.” He says, “I broke my arm,” and you think, “I broke my leg.” She tells you, “I caught a big fish,” and you’re instantly scanning your memory for the biggest fish you ever caught, or maybe the biggest fish your brother-in-law caught, provided it was a really big one. That’s what playing topper is all about. It’s so common you’ll recognize it right away, and no doubt you can see why it’s the deadly enemy of assertive listening.
A second barrier involves trying to read the mind of the person talking, as opposed to listening to what he’s saying. If someone says, “I really like working here,” you interpret this to mean “He doesn’t like working here, but he says that he does because he’s afraid of losing his job.” This is mind reading, not listening. Once again, it’s concentrating on your own powers of interpretation instead of hearing what people are saying and, for the moment at least, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
The third obstacle to listening assertively is called filtering. Basically, it means perking up your ears when you hear something that interests you or that you agree with and shutting down your attention to the rest. A big part of all conversation, whether business or personal, is about establishing a sense of complicity or shared interest with the other person. If that sense of shared interest or agreement isn’t forthcoming, there’s a tendency to discount what someone is saying. Furthermore, if the speaker indicates an interest in something you’re absolutely not interested in at all, you may even decide to tune that person out completely. If someone tells you that he attends NASCAR events every weekend and owns a pit bull, you may devalue his ideas for your business simply because you’re not a fan of NASCAR and you prefer cats over dogs. This person may have some excellent ideas on marketing strategy, but you’ll never know.
Beyond these three barriers, there are many, many more. Lots of people are judgmental: They decide a statement is “crazy,” “boring,” “immature,” or “hostile,” even before it’s completed. Other people have a therapeutic approach to conversation, silently drafting their prescriptions and advice throughout the dialogue. Perhaps you experience every conversation as an intellectual debate, with the goal of defeating the opponent. Maybe you are convinced that you’re always right about business issues, so what’s the point of listening? If you’re afraid of having a serious conversation, you might keep making jokes in order to keep things light. For that same reason, you might just keep agreeing with the person in order to remain safely in your comfort zone.
As you read these obstacles to assertive listening, there’s an excellent chance that you saw yourself in at least some of them. That’s good. There’s no way to change a behavior until you first know that it exists.
Due to these and other barriers that are inherent in most conversations, people typically recall only 65 percent of what they hear twenty minutes after a discussion has taken place. Assertive listening isn’t easy. It’s not even natural, given that the obstacles we’ve just looked at are natural expressions of interpersonal psychology. Our concentration lasts only a short time before we get distracted. This happens to everyone, but assertive listeners make an effort to get back on track. They ask clarifying questions, and they reassure the speaker that the message is being heard and understood. Above all, assertive listeners guard against prejudices and biases, closed-minded opinions, and inner defenses that prevent us from hearing what is really being said. To keep this from happening, remember something that Mark Twain once wrote: “If we were supposed to talk more than we listen, we’d have two mouths and one ear.”
As you listen, you must also respond. Why? So that you can listen some more! Of course, even poor listeners respond in one way or another, but there’s a wide spectrum of responses that extends from outright hostility all the way to true empathy. Right now, let’s take a quick look at that spectrum from bottom to top, from callous indifference to genuinely assertive listening.
At the bottom of the listening scale, we find people who not only wish the topic would change but also who come right out and change it. Someone says, “I think we should have fewer meetings on Fridays,” and the listener says, “How about those Mets?”
One step up from this is the “I know better.” The speaker says, “My computer crashed,” and you say, “I doubt that. I’ll take a look at it when I have time.” Often the listener will add (or at least think) something further, such as “You should have read the instruction manual” or, “I can see that you’re technologically challenged.”
An extension of this is the judgmental response. To a person who says he ate too much at lunch, you respond, “Obesity is a national disgrace, and it’s driving up the cost of health insurance.” This is an extreme example, of course, but the impulse to judge is very strong in many of us. Assertive listening demands that we take off our judicial robes, at least for the duration of the conversation.
Next comes the advising response, which is a less moralistic form of judgment.
A colleague of yours tells you he is afraid about asking for a raise. Instead of responding to what he wants you to hear (that he is afraid), you tell him what to write in a memo to the boss. Or, along the same lines, you could devalue what he’s feeling under the guise of reassurance. You might say something like, “Oh, everybody gets nervous about asking for more money. Just don’t let it get to you.” In other words, I don’t want to hear any more about it.
Once again, most of us are guilty of some of these unempathetic responses. If it happened on only a few occasions there would be no problem, but poor listening skills seem to be habit-forming. We become habitual topic changers or advisers. Of course, the best way to end a bad habit is not to suppress it but to replace it with a good habit. Let’s look at how to move up the scale of listening responses toward the positive and assertive options.
The first of these options is to correct any assumed understanding of some of the other person’s thoughts, feelings, or circumstances. You may hear some of what’s being said or implied but not all of it. In turn you formulate some conclusions in your head. If the speaker picks up on this, it may discourage him or her from saying anything further. Since this limited understanding is often an unconscious process on the part of the listener, it’s important to train yourself to ask for clarification and elaboration, even if you don’t think it’s really necessary. Don’t assume that you’ve heard everything you need to know. In fact, assume the opposite.
Above this response level we begin to approach really assertive listening. Now you respond with genuine empathy. You really put yourself in another person’s shoes. Your comments reflect what the speaker has told you. As you listen, your comments are brief and accurate. You paraphrase and mirror what you’ve heard, but you do so in your own words and in a way that seems respectful and natural. As a result, the speaker knows you are listening closely and that you care about what he has said. What we say is a reflection on our listening skills.
All this takes some real skill and technique. It’s best, for example, to phrase your comments somewhat tentatively, because empathy questions are actually statements. When you ask, “Are you feeling down?” you’re really saying, “I can see that you’re sad about something.” Even when you’re slightly off the mark, a tentative approach gives the speaker a chance to set the record straight and get you precisely in tune. For this reason, it’s important to make frequent comments that reflect your understanding of what’s just been said. If the speaker gets no comment from you for two or three minutes, he or she may conclude that you’ve lost interest or disapprove of what you’re hearing or don’t understand it.
As you become more experienced and adept with assertive listening, you’ll reach a totally new level of response. Here something really amazing will happen: You’ll often be able to understand what people are thinking and feeling sometimes before they themselves know it. In fact, you can help them to gain that level of insight through the questions you ask. More often than not, they’ll appreciate your feedback and will embrace your interpretation and analysis. As an assertive listener, you’ll know exactly when to present your ideas in this way. It’s not something you’ll want to do too soon. If you give an interpretation too quickly, it may seem too personal, critical, or premature. So once again, it’s wise to be tentative. Phrases like “I’m wondering if . . .” or “It sounds to me like . . .” can be very useful.
Genuinely assertive listeners can often share insights that are not only useful but positively life transforming. Dale Carnegie was certainly such a listener, and the tools and techniques he mastered have been brought to the world through his books and training programs. You may wonder whether you can ever achieve that level of people skills. Don’t worry, though. Nothing that Dale Carnegie accomplished is out of your reach, and that’s especially true in the area of listening and assertive communication.
To complete this chapter, let’s sum up some of the central points of this topic. These are basic listening techniques you can use to improve your assertive communication skills.
Remember, for example, that paraphrasing is a good way to show the speaker that you’ve really listened. It will often foster a better understanding on your part, while also showing the speaker that you value what he or she is saying. When there’s a natural pause in the conversation, state briefly what you heard your partner say by rephrasing in your own words. Then ask if this is correct.
Ask questions and request clarification of anything you don’t quite understand. Asking people to explain their feelings helps draw them out to be more open and can help lead them to greater insight. Make sure you understand what you’ve heard before you react to what’s been said. Remember, both you and the speaker are probably unaware of the subjective filtering process that takes place in your talk, so be sure to ask for clarification even when you don’t think you really need it.
As you listen assertively, you should also be assertive about giving feedback. Feedback is simply telling the speaker your reaction to what you’ve heard. Make it clear that this feedback is based on your understanding of what has been said. If the feedback is negative in any way, be sure to add that your understanding might need adjustment. Always bear in mind three key rules for feedback in any business conversation: It must be immediate; it must be honest; and, while it can be negative in content, it must always be emotionally supportive and never mean-spirited or aggressive.
Be aware of body language. Up to 90 percent of interpersonal communication is visual. You’re receiving not only words but also information through posture and what’s called social distance (how close the other person is standing to you, and whether he is looking toward you or away from you). Most often body language prevails over words. Position yourself in a way that suggests empathy, openness, and attention. Nod your head occasionally as you listen, and maintain appropriate eye contact to show interest. Some people feel that nods and eye contact from the listener help them feel heard. Others find this body language distracting and prefer the listener to be still and attentive. Use your own judgment. Mirroring the speaker is a way of making that speaker feel comfortable. If you sense a discrepancy between what is explicitly being said and what you see, ask for clarification.
Be aware that interruptions, advice, or judgmental questions are all barriers to assertive listening. In the context of friendship or a personal conversation, relating a similar story to what you’ve heard is acceptable. But in a business conversation, it can be distracting and is usually an example of playing “topper.” If you find yourself saying, “That reminds me of the time . . . ,” resist the temptation to go on.
In any case, sincerity is the most crucial element in all human communication, whether as a speaker or a listener. Most people are able to accept a broad range of styles in a listener, provided that your attention is truly present and directed toward them. As an assertive listener, you must learn to validate every person’s experience, regardless of your own beliefs or convictions. This doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everyone. It does mean that you will hear and accept their impressions, letting go of your personal reactions and bringing attention always back to what’s being said to you. This is a crucial people skill for all leaders.
At some point in the conversation, once a trusting relationship is well established, you can indicate that your own experience or that of others has led you to a different conclusion. But even as you do this, it’s vital to stress at the same time that you hear the speaker’s experience and the convictions that come from it. Don’t feel that you have to elaborate on your own position in great detail. Even if you’re asked to do so, it’s a good idea to suggest that that might be the subject of another conversation, but that right now you’d prefer to listen to what your team member has to say. Very often, when a junior person asks for the manager to take over the conversation, it’s really a way for the subordinate to back off and avoid confronting what he or she really wanted to say. Don’t go for this gambit, even if the other person seems to want you to talk.
Assertive listening can be a transforming factor in the relationship between a leader and a team member. People who have felt threatened or devalued in the past can get the sense that they’re truly unique and valuable, perhaps for the first time.
If conflict has developed, this can be a chance for both sides to learn about one another as colleagues, human beings, and even potential friends.
In general, our society doesn’t teach assertive listening skills. We usually operate on a confrontational model of debate and reasoned argument, rather than on a model of listening carefully to everyone and arriving at mutual understanding and respect. Our paradigm is “the best idea will win,” not “everyone has something to contribute to the best solution—which has probably not yet been thought of.” It’s important to note that both the confrontational model and that of assertive listening are searches for truth. They’re simply different approaches. In terms of people skills, though, the combative approach will invariably leave someone behind and may well sow seeds for future conflict.
In this sense, assertive listening can be not only a peacemaking process but a peacekeeping process as well. It’s been said that “an adversary is someone whose story we haven’t heard yet.” Once you truly hear someone else’s experience and understand their fears and aspirations, you will be unable to consider that person as anything but an ally. You may disagree with them, or even find their position directly contradictory to your own. But you will still see them as a contributor to a shared enterprise and as a valuable human being. As Dale Carnegie put it:
Thus you must learn to listen as well as to speak. Those who dismiss this as a mere platitude are already demonstrating an indisposition to listening: the phrase may be trite, but the message is hugely significant to your effectiveness as a leader. If you do not explicitly develop the skill of listening, you may not hear the secret which can launch you to fame and fortune.
ACTION STEPS
1. It takes commitment and practice to be completely present and attentive to another when listening to them. Go through this list of conversation rules and mark an X or check beside any that you may need to work on. Once you have noted the areas that require more attention, practice them until they become part of your routine.
I don’t interrupt others or talk over them while they are speaking.
I focus my attention completely on what the other is saying.
I wait my turn to speak.
I am an empathetic listener and make a point of trying to understand what others are trying to tell me.
I support and encourage others when they speak.
I do not compare myself to the speaker while they are talking.
I avoid mind reading when listening to someone.
I provide constructive feedback when spoken to.
I am sincerely interested in others when they speak.
2. From a self-esteem perspective, it can be difficult to be an effective listener when we feel we need to be appreciated, heard, or recognized for the good work that we do. What three things can you do for yourself that will support your feeling that you’ve been heard and honored, so that you can be more present while in conversation with others?
3. At least once a day, make a commitment to be the listener during at least one conversation. Surrender your agenda and simply be present for the other individual. Then make note of any insights you may have developed while practicing this exercise.
ACTION PLAN NOTES