David J. Parnell’s Professional Listening Series | Part 2 of 4 | Bad Habits

As we determined in the previous post, when we reduce “listening” down to its purest form, it is the process of gathering information. When a communicator begins to CONSCIOUSLY determine for what purpose the information is being gathered AND what information specifically is being gathered is where they truly become an effective listener.

Before going any further though, I want to acknowledge and address the difference between EXTERNAL and INTERNAL listening.

•    Internal listening is the mental processes that someone uses while communicating to receive, process and internalize the information being conveyed by their communication partner.
•    External listening is the physical displays of communication, both verbal and nonverbal, that are given in response to a communication.
In short, internal is simply “within” the communication recipient and external is simply “projected from” the communication recipient IN RESPONSE (this is important) to the originator’s message.

External listening really only serves one purpose, and that is to keep the communicator “comfortable” during the course of the communication so that they will continue to convey information to you without inhibition. The more uninhibited information that you are able to receive from someone the better off you will be. You always want the option to filter and delete information rather than fill in missing information. This will go a long way toward placing you in control of the communication.
The proper term for keeping your partner comfortable is “rapport”… We will not be delving into that here as we will have a complete series on rapport in the near future. When you hear terms such as empathic listening, compassionate listening, active listening, etc… These are all labels placed on the physical manifestation the rapport process being executed in a particular environment.

The types of questions to use have been covered in our professional series on question-strategy. The types of body language to use have been covered in our professional series on body-language. I will put all of this together into a process for you in a rapport series at a later date.

As such, we will be focusing solely on how to effectively control and use our internal processes to produce effective listening skills. In part 2 of our professional series on sensory acuity we covered 6 concepts/processes/phenomena that can have a very adverse affect on our ability to objectively process information. They are:

1.    The Psychological Immune System. This is a mental “system” that helps us to evaluate information in particular ways so as to buffer the effect of trauma and other negative events.
2.    Cognitive biases. These mental are deviations from what would be considered statistically correct or rational judgments.
3.    Attentional processing. This is the automatically driven mental govern of what type of information our mind will sort for at any given time.
4.    Limited brain capacity. Our brain, as powerful as it is, can only handle and process a limited amount of information at any given time.
5.    Categorization. Our brain has necessarily evolved in a way that causes it to instantly “categorize” people, places and things without conscious evaluation.
6.    Working memory. Working memory is a temporary store for recently activated items of information that are currently considered important to the task at hand.

The result of these 6 processes/systems can in many cases produce negative side effects. The Pareto principle applies very convincingly to the portion of the population who is adversely affected by these. Your first step in remedying this is to become aware of the most overt and egregious habits that result from these processes. These habits are a major hindrance to effective communication and being able to spot them and apply control will go a long way in any discourse. So let’s discuss them below:

1.    Lack of Interest in the subject matter and/or focusing solely on their own agenda. This happens quite often and can detract greatly from your own effectiveness. The specific content of the subject matter IN the conversation may not be enthralling, but the hierarchically superior reason FOR having the conversation may be. It is important to realize AND keep in mind WHY you are having the communication in the first place. This should help to keep your mind focused. As an example, just because you don’t really care about how your wife picked out her hair color doesn’t mean that you don’t care about making your wife feel loved.

2.    The processing of ONLY NONVERBAL (body language and appearance) and/or their communication delivery rather than the combination of the aforementioned AND the information being delivered. This is basically the complete lack of conscious processing of the communication. In many cases the way a person looks or how they are speaking can greatly impact the validity of the information they are communicating. Unfortunately, this quick classification is not always accurate and can hinder our own effectiveness. As an example, A man being dressed in dirty overalls and tattered boots may detract from the impact of his business advice… Even though he is currently dressed like this because he is working on the farm that the multi-million dollar Executive Search firm he founded paid for.

3.    The processing of ONLY FACTS rather than the communication as a whole. The opposite of #2, this will generally happen with extremely emotional individuals and is a coping mechanism developed in response to the previous occurrences of significantly emotional experiences. As an example, if a man has been hurt a number of times in the past by ex-girlfriends he may only communicate at an auditory digital (purely informational) level and avoid processing anything else that may lend itself to emotional spiking.

4.    Emotion spiking and/or lack of emotional intelligence. There is an abundance of FMRI’s and Pet scan studies that have conclusively determined that when emotions become aroused blood will flow FROM the parts of our brain that produce executive control and rational thinking TO areas of the brain that control stimulus/response and subconscious/automatic mental processes. As an example, while you are speaking with a beautiful specimen of a human being and they are creating wonderful visuals in your mind with their verbal content your ability to apply reason and critical thought is indeed decreasing.

5.    Interruption during the course of another person’s communication. Due to very limited brain capacity and a propensity to be “right” rather than “effective”, many times people will interrupt during conversation so that they do not forget or lose their immediately occurring thought/concept. As an example, while the employee is describing to the manager why they were late to work, the manager interrupts to berate them BEFORE the employee is able to tell her that they saw the CEO in the diner on the corner and spent some time “talking the boss up”.

6.    Mind Reading to finish a speaker’s thought before they do. Although our brains are amazingly powerful and fast, they will stall sometimes or struggle to find the right words. Our mental lexicon (storage area for language) is generally very efficient, sometimes finding just that right word or representation takes a bit of time. Our brains ability to think is considerably faster than its ability to speak and this can cause impatience on the part of the listener.

We also have a psychological propensity to mind read due to the existence of “mirror neurons” and a psychological drive to achieve predictability in another’s actions.

These two factors can drive people to finish their communication partner’s thoughts BEFORE they do by either simply filling in the gap or offering suggestions as to what they “might” want to say. Many times the mind reads are wrong and result in a hindrance to the effectiveness of the communication in two major ways:

a.    When someone begins to offer up “suggestions” for the person, they can create a priming effect in the person’s working memory and direct the flow of information. This is obviously very much like interrupting but this is the projection of your own thoughts onto the other person’s communication rather than simply supplying your own view. As such this is driven by fundamentally different processes. Let’s revisit the person buying the car above… The sales person asks them what they like about the car. The buyer likes the new technology in the fuel system and while he is trying to come up with the right terms to describe it (he read it online the night before) the sales person begins to prompt him with specific safety components such as air bags or a 5 star crash rating. As a result, now the buyers mind is now redirected toward safety features rather than the ACTUAL reason they wanted it in the first place.

b.    The conversation may unnecessarily take a turn in the wrong direction. As an example, let’s say you are talking with one of your friends and she is telling you about how she saw someone trip and fall yesterday… As she was starting to tell you what she did, you blurt out “and you really laughed your but off, didn’t you!” Unfortunately she was going to tell you how she help the woman up and now thinks you’re a complete jerk because you would laugh at a woman who fell.

7.    Focusing on incorrect levels of abstraction. While person A is talking at a more global level, person B just continues to focus on a more acutely specific level and as such “misses the boat”. As an example let’s say a home owner wants to talk about security of their entire home and family (doorways, garage, basement, windows, computer, in-house safe, etc…), but the security sales person continues to ONLY talk about securing the doorways…

8.    Internally filling in information gaps. Our brain is neurologically wired to fill in any blind spots or missing information during a communication in order to most efficiently make sense of it. This process alone is WHY language still works even though there are constant distortions, deletions and generalizations. As a result two potentially damaging things may occur:

a.    Automatically generated information. Many times when we hear or see something we don’t necessarily understand we will simply “fill in” the missing information ourselves. When we do this, we place information from our own perspective and as such is most likely NOT the same as what they are intending.
b.    Lack of clarification. We will also tend to allow misunderstood concepts pass by without clarification due to expediency factors and/or automatic filling from our subconscious.

As an example, while the potential car buyer is listening to the sales person tell them that “THEY say this car is the best” most people will just assume who “they” are. Meanwhile, “they” may only be the sales person’s team there at the dealership and as a result lose all credibility due to bias.

9.    Yes, but…. This is simple a conjunctive segue into the thought/concept that you have been mentally rehearsing inside your working memory. The actual, literal conveyance from this is twofold:

a.    “Yes” here is a faux-recognition phrase and only serves to let them know that you haven’t listened to a word they said, and
b.    The “but” means that you “disagree” with their concept, whether you do or not.
This is due to any number of factors ranging from disinterest to the need to be right rather than effective to limited brain capacity. Whatever the reasoning the connotations it carries are massively destructive in a conversation and needs to be remedied.

As an example, let’s say your girlfriend goes to great lengths to explain why she was late coming to your dinner party. Her car broke down, she was harassed by the tow truck driver, etc… Your response to all of the hardship she just went through was “yes, but you should have called to let me know…” That “yes, but” was a real slap in the face…

10.    The need to be “right” or show that you are “better” than the other person. Due to a number of factors associated with the psychological immune system and cognitive biases, as humans we have a perpetual drive to “validate” our existence and the choices we make. By doing so we in effect create the feeling of a more stable mental state. The problem that can arise from this is that people will generally argue to prove their own point or concept of what is correct REGARDLESS of whether it is or not. The end result is that a communication is not always effective as someone may “win” and “prove” their point even though it isn’t objectively correct. Take for instance the husband who is fighting with his wife about how to more effectively run her kitchen. Even though she knows it inside and out and is unquestionably more qualified to determine this, he won’t back down on how he thinks it “should” be done.

11.    Creating distraction and/or sending poor body language cues. This lends itself to the category of external listening but is important to mention never the less. If you are not creating an environment that helps them to feel comfortable, important and interesting you will indeed hinder the effectiveness of the communication. Fidgeting, losing eye contact, slumped posture etc… All are examples of poor listening habits.

In our next post we will begin to discuss the categorical types of information that can be processed and what functions listening can serve during the course of communication.