interpersonal communication

Turn It Down Already! (The Essence of Listening Skills)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

I’ve struggled to accept this fact for almost the whole of my life, but for the most part, we are bad listeners. Communication problems are often at the heart of the issues most of us deal with – at the office, in the car with the kids, over dinner with our spouse, and pretty much everywhere we go.

Listening skills should NOT be a latent talent that only a few of us possess, something that is mocked or worse, both of those things. We need beacons of light to demonstrate the awesome prowess of listening, and I know examples exist – I’m looking at you Steven Universe, and your genius creators for one!

Why You Are A Bad Listener

I’m not going to pretend to know what makes people into bad listeners, but I can tell you that there are behaviours out there, which I am just as guilty of as the next person, that contribute to bad listening, and even moreso, bad communication. I’ve gone over the basics of communication already, and I’ve even dedicated some efforts to addressing the ever-so-subtle interpersonal communication, but stopping behaviours can be just as important as starting up new ones, dear readers.

Have you considered that you think of yourself too much, for starters? We all do it, we think of how information is going to impact us, but when you only focus on your own challenges, it just won’t jive in good listening. On top of that, your mind can wander from one topic to the next if you don’t concentrate, and when you do focus on what’s being said, you risk getting caught up in the topic, and completely missing the point at hand. Also, being distracted by other things can make it worse – deadlines, illness, problems in other life arenas all vie for your attention. You need to do yourself a favour and put a pint in it until the chat is over.

And we haven’t even considered how nurture, in the eternal struggle between nature, screwed the pooch on your listening training growing up. What, you say? There was training on listening skills? Well not exactly, etiquette isn’t a universal truth shared with all students.

Of course if someone decides to start cutting you down, you might get defensive, and that’s when you fail to hear what has been shared. On the opposite side of the equation are the helpers who assess a problem, and attempt to fix, without an invitation. And so Mr. Fix-it stops properly listening.

The Types of Listening Skills

Now that you’ve gotten a good dose of where we fail to listen, I think it might be a good time to address what kinds of listening you will need to apply to improve your social standing.

Critical – this for is when you need to evaluate information and either formulate a solution, an opinion or make a decision.

Appreciative – listening for the sake of personal growth and enjoyment. Movies, music and theatre all come to mind.

Discriminative – you need to determinate a dialect, members in a group, if a conversation is amicable or turning violent and a host of other nonverbal cues related to someones feelings.

Relationship – listening to understand someone, whether they need to vent or not, you have to show your support by retaining the details and feeling what they feel.

Comprehensive – focus on the speaker and the message they are sharing, in order to take direction and then apply it to your own role.

How To Become An Artful Listener

Ultimately, if you want to become an excellent listener you are going to have to learn how to be present. This is not a metaphor for becoming a present, but it is a gift nonetheless.

Forbes wrote a great article on the 10 key steps to skillful listening, and the brilliant thing about this post is that while you may need to practice one or all of these steps to get better, you can totally fake it till you make it, because so many of us are terrible at listening already.

But what are the steps you ask?

  1. Face the speaker and maintain eye contact
  2. Be attentive, but relaxed
  3. Keep an open mind
  4. Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying
  5. Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions”
  6. Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions
  7. Ask questions only to ensure understanding
  8. Try to fell what the speaker is feeling
  9. Give the speaker regular feedback
  10. Pay attention to what isn’t said – to nonverbal cues

You’ll notice that these steps all relate to the previous symptoms of bad listening AND simultaneously recognize the 5 types of listening skills we need to employ. On top of that, the author suggests that at the end of your conversation, to summarize any actionables and agreements that were made.

It might not feel comfortable at first, but over time it will become second nature to you. And lastly, while I didn’t spell it out above,you need to create a receptive environment for listening – turn off all the digital distractions and refrain from bad habits like yawning, frowning or fidgeting.

theories Summarized

Silence might be golden, but it is not guarantee of authenticity. Fool’s gold can look just as valuable to the untrained eye. The skilled person takes on listening as an active skill which will always need to exercised to maintain your health and wealth. It shouldn’t be a mere theory that there is gold in them hills, let’s get out there and level the playing field folks!

And that’s all the wisdom I’ll dole out today.

Tim!

Conjunction Junction (Interpersonal Communication)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Language sure is weird.

Did you ever hear the expression “all dogs are mammals, all mammals are animals, therefore all dogs are animals?” Well I’m sure you have dear readers, but I have to wonder if you know the reason why it’s used fairly commonly (read: not that commonly) in academics or by people who want to be academics.

This statement is a syllogism associated with predicate logic; a type of logic which shows how the subjects and predicates of such statements relate to those in other statements in an argument. To put it another way, syllogisms are an instance of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from propositions that share a commonality and one final statement that combines second terms of the initial propositions in a way to infer a conclusion.

Another very well known example is that “all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.”

Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.

The Challenge Of Language

Communication is exactly that though. Making sense of language, verbal and nonverbal, as well as written, in order to best exchange information, feelings and meaning between a pair of people or to a group of people.

This is where interpersonal communication comes in. It’s a communication process that happens between two or more people. It is a face-to-face interaction that further addresses two of the three previous topics we’ve already covered in the communication basics series. Verbal and nonverbal communication.

To Put In

Interpersonal communication skills really are the most essential of skills in life, in my opinion, of course. We deal with so many daily challenges, rare opportunities and unexpected encounters throughout our time on this spinning ball of dirt that we need to be prepared to communicate well, whether at work or in our personal lives. The truth of it is, well, the truth is that people who have invested the time in developing their interpersonal skills get further along in life.

Probably because those people are more charismatic and appealing. And if we’re being honest, we can all benefit from being more appealing. Also, you can’t stop interpersonal communication from happening. No matter who you are and where you are going in life, you just can’t stop interpersonal communication from happening.

Because even when we are silent, nonverbal communication works in full force. And just as the old adage says, once you say something, you can’t take it back. We make silent judgments of others all the time.

That person should go to hell. He looks fat in those pants. She wears too much makeup. Who raised this kid?

That internal dialogue happens whether we want it to or not. But as I’ve mentioned in the previous posts, it is possible to work on both your verbal and nonverbal communication skills. And even more importantly, it’s so necessary. The single best thing you can do to become better at both arenas is to work on your listening skills.

And that is going to be the next major topic we’ll focus on in another post. I don’t want to spend too much time today digging into it, but I will say this – The better of a listener you are, the less people will concern themselves with your verbal and nonverbal skills.

theories Summarized

When you learn to use your interpersonal communication skills effectively creative cuties, not only will you have excellent verbal and nonverbal communications down, but you will get more accomplished in life. I know that sounds like a quick fix, because it takes time, but you can expect a lot more discussion on this in future months. For now, I’m out of theories.

Tim!