David J. Parnell’s Professional Listening Series | Part 3 of 4 | Categorical Information

In revisiting part 1 of our series, effective listening is really about gathering information and the trick is in focusing your attention in a way to acquire the appropriate information. So what is the appropriate information? To help focus your mind let’s define “appropriate information” as whatever information will help advance your own interests in the communication. To think this way, you will need to first define what your interests are in a particular communication and second determine what types of information can help you to advance in it. If you don’t do this your primitive, subconscious mind will indeed do it for you.

There are 5 functional categories in any communication that will govern your own personal interests for engaging the other person or persons. They are Rapport, Persuasion, Conveyance, Negotiation/Argument, Socialization and Planning/Progression. There 2 separate but interactive categories that are necessary to facilitate the execution of the 5 main categories. Sensory Acuity is necessary as a barometric indicator on how or whether to move forward in the communication. Rapport is necessary as it provides the comfort and inhibition resulting in complete information disclosure. Let’s define them:

1.    Persuasion – In persuasion you are attempting to change a person’s thought processes for the purpose of achieving a desired end result or action. Persuasion, although there are an infinite number of methods that can accomplish this and it can be interactive, the end result is generally a unidirectional communication. In other words your mindset doesn’t change while theirs does.

2.    Conveyance – This is the simple extension of information from one party to the other. This again is a unidirectional communication and is relatively nonreciprocal aside from simple verification. In other words, “you take your second right after the light and the house is the third down on the left… do you understand?”

3.    Negotiation/argument – This is a bidirectional communication that matches two unidirectional communication styles (both sides trying to persuade each other) and results on both parties moving their original conceptually held position of truth to a new compromised position of truth. Basically, both parties change the way they think because of the information they received from the other party and they meet in the middle.

4.    Socialization – This is a bidirectional form of communication and is used for the purpose of establishing hierarchies and networks. The root of this is in creating protection and gaining access to the goods and services of other people. This is simply making and establishing friendships or reciprocal relationships.

5.    Planning/Progression – This is the unidirectional process of simple information elicitation. When this occurs it is for the purpose of planning WHETHER to move or progress in a certain direction (this could be socially, professionally, geographically, etc…) and if so, then HOW to do so. In other words, “Do you want to go to Outback or McDonald’s? Which one do you think is closer? Should we drive the Porsche or the Ferrari to get there?”

6.    Sensory Acuity – This is the processing of both verbal and nonverbal signals for congruity so as to determine both WHETHER to move forward in the communication and if so, then HOW.  This is a unidirectional communication and consists of simply accepting and processing outside information. As an example if person A is trying to Romance person B and person B is fidgeting, continues to fiddle with their pen and keeps returning to the subject of their nausea… Person A’s sensory acuity should be telling them to switch subjects.

7.    Rapport – This is the matching and mirroring of both verbal and nonverbal communication content and style for the purpose of creating comfort during a discourse. Again, this is a unidirectional form of communication and only consists of signals being sent. Sensory Acuity is the other side and consists of the processing of the signals being received. As an example, when person A is sitting and facing person B while they are talking about football, person A should be attempting to match their posture, leg and arm position, breathing rate, etc… while pacing the content of the conversation (football) prior to leading.

This is a solid frame work in which to place and categorize each of our communication attempts. What we need to determine now is which unique informational components can help in facilitating the advancement of each categorical agenda. Obviously any and all information that you receive can potentially help to advance your position. That being said, fundamentally there are varying classes of information and information-strategies that can be acquired through listening that are almost conclusively necessary for communication to be effective.

Communication is a dynamic, changing, fluid process and the above groupings do interact with each other and as such are not necessarily exclusive.  Attempting to place rigid parameters around each category that are too strict will result in failure. That being said, there are generally accepted and occurring fundamental informational attributes that can be used in order to greatly increase the probability of your effectiveness while functioning within each one.

Now obviously raw informational content is assumed within each category. Without this the communication basically wouldn’t exist. With that out of the way, let’s highlight the types of information that are most important to pay attention to in each category one at a time.

• Persuasion - Values/Beliefs, Meta-programs, Cognitive biases and Fallacy usage (For exploitation).
• Conveyance – Language of Specificity, Adjectives/Adverbs and TFB (Thinking, Feeling and Behaving).
• Negotiation/Argument – Language of Specificity, Abstraction Levels, Body Language Incongruity, Values/Beliefs, Meta-programs, Cognitive Biases and Fallacies (For exploitation).
• Socialization –Body language, TFB, Predicates, Content Congruity and Values/Beliefs.
• Planning/Progression – Language of Specificity, TFB, Cognitive Biases and Fallacies (To ensure quality information).
• Rapport – Body Language, Predicates, content, TFB and Content Congruity.
• Sensory Acuity - Body Language and Content Congruity.

Will all of these attributes be necessary every time? No. Can other informational attributes come into play? Yes. By understanding the fundamentals of each and using them while communicating you will indeed be as effective as you can ever hope to be.

As an analogy, take the concept of training to be a fire fighter. It is incredibly practical to train yourself in fundamentals such as how to properly assess a building, how to check a door before opening it, how to properly carry an injured person or how to quickly connect and use a water hose. It is impractical to train yourself exactly how to handle each type of housing floor plan, how to handle a fire where there are 2 victims instead of 5, How to handle a fire in a pet shop, etc…

There are simply too many possibilities. But if you train the fundamentals you will be as prepared as possible for any scenario you are posed with. With that in mind you can feel very confident that these classifications are not rigid, but flexible to a degree and will act as a strong compass for you to plot your course.

Part 4 of our series will discuss effective listening habits (both internal and external) and two effective preparation strategies for effective communication.

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