Listening in Action

Every time I read through Chapter 3 I am reminded of a very important process - Paraphrasing. This concept is part of Empathic Listening as discussed on page 60-61. I love this concept for a few reasons, but mostly because I try to practice this continually with family, friends, loved ones and even students. I think it's very important that people feel like they are heard, especially those folks who have close relationships.

I have found that most students think they practice Empathic Listening, but most listen for other reasons. Some folks listen just long enough to gain enough ammunition to fight back, but never really hear what the other person is saying. Deconstructing messages, and really trying to hear the other person is quite important when in a discussion, and even more important when two people disagree. Of course each party wants to be heard, but as I mentioned, a lot of folks listen just long enough to find something that they are able to respond to. Some folks do not listen at all, rather formulate what they are going to say next while the other person is expressing how they feel.

Have you ever actively engaged in paraphrasing when in a discussion? If so, what was the outcome of the situation?

There are many other interesting concepts that are covered in Chapter 3 such as, Improving Attention, Improving Interpretation, Improving Evaluation, Improving Responses and Improving Storage and Retrieval. Of course other sub-concepts in this chapter are really interesting as well such as Person Prototypes (page 51) and Responding (page 61).

At the beginning of every semester in my f2f (face to face) classes I discuss the idea that "One cannot not communicate". (I am not a big fan of Wikkipedia, but here is a link to Paul Watzlawick's page which describes his five (5) basic axioms. A quick read, and interesting if you have never heard about Watzlawick). Back to my point: On page 61 it talks about this very idea. It says, "...you are always responding in some way to the people around you, whether you are saying anything or not". Messages are constantly being sent by you and by those around you. I try to explain this to students by using their body language during a long lecture as an example. What does it say to an instructor when you lean back in your chair, are staring out the window, or my personal favorite - drawing pictures when you should be engaged in the lecture or discussion? Is this a message you would like to send? Or is this a byproduct of boredom?

In short, Chapter 3 is pretty cool for a number of reasons. It really breaks down the listening process and points out how we can improve this process if we pay a little more attention to our behavior.

What do you think about this chapter?