Professional Listening Series Part 1 - 4

The true functionality of “listening” to someone really is an elusive concept. When I talk about listening, you most likely think of hearing someone talk… Although this is a PART of the overall equation, it ISN’T THE equation. Webster’s online defines listening as “to hear something with thoughtful attention: give consideration.” This definition is pretty good, but where the proverbial rubber meets that road is in the term “thoughtful attention”.

What I mean to bring to light here is the consideration of what “thoughtful attention” means exactly. Now as you can see from my previous posts, there are A LOT concepts and much content present while someone is communicating… Feelings, thoughts, actions, facts, presuppositions of space/awareness and time, values, beliefs and the list goes on… The harsh reality of the matter is that your conscious mind will ONLY pick up and work with a small percentage of the information being given to you at any given time.

When you’re communicating with someone, you are almost exclusively in a stimulus response mode… Now I can hear everyone out there yelling and pointing their fingers at me saying “I am not, I am always thinking and I control what I say and hear…” Well I have news for you… you’re not. I am actually going so far as to say that the more certain you are of your control over your listening and communication, the more likely that you are completely stimulus/response and apply almost no cognitive control over your communication.

Like an addict, the first step to recovery is admitting that you “have the problem”… Hopefully by now, you should be learning that there are a ton of things going on while you speak with others and it takes quite a bit of training if you are going to be able to apply an actual level of control during a conversation.

Due to a number of psychological, neurological, developmental and social factors, your brain will automatically process and respond to the information that it “thinks” is important. The rest either gets scrapped or stored away until it is needed. Now, when I say “your brain”, I am referring to your old or “reptilian” brain. Although your entire cerebral cortex is used during the processing of communication, your reptilian brain is comprised of the neurological components that drive the activity of your subconscious, stimulus response system. Your subconscious is the engine that is driving your filtering process.

It is important to realize that the filters and mechanics that govern WHAT information you are “working” with are not always functioning in your best interests. Remember, most of these filters are set up solely to keep you alive and safe while hunting and gathering on a dangerous landscape. Do these filters always work appropriately while you are arguing with a spouse or negotiating in the board room? Usually not…

What can help to remedy this is to use your new brain, your prefrontal cortex to decide what information is being processed. By using your prefrontal cortex… your conscious thought processes can allow you to apply “thoughtful attention” to the conversation at hand and this makes all the difference in the world.

Unless you actively apply your own consciously chosen filters during a conversation, they will be chosen for you automatically. As a communication expert you don’t want to leave this to chance. So in this series we are going to talk about what categories of information are conveyed during a conversation and how to appropriately determine which ones you want to sort for. This way you can more successfully acquire the information you need in order to become an effective communicator.

My next post will talk further about typical issues that arise while someone is listening so you can begin establishing a cleaner channel of communication moving forward. This will provide a great segue into setting up our subsequent frame work for becoming a listening expert.

The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell