Shut Up and Listen!

These are hard times for conversation. America has become a nation of bad listeners, so as a consequence, marriages break up, people get fired, friends become distant and people feel lonely and isolated. We are too preoccupied with our selves. Instead of hearing what is being said, many people often only wait to get their viewpoints across, but the other person isn’t listening either.

Listening is the glue of conversation. Listening and finding common ground opens doors of opportunity, creates friends and allies, heals wounds, gets us hired or promoted and creates trust. Noted Australian psychologist Louise Samways explains, “Many researchers believe that a values basis for acceptance or suspicion is genetically
programmed into human beings…We are bonded by what we can find in common, not by our differences.” (Samways, 2004)

There are three basic types of listening. In competitive listening, the listener is waiting to take the floor. He is disinterested in what others are saying and hears only the flaws in other peoples’ arguments, then launches into his own tirade. This person wants to win the conversation. Passive listening is more attentive and interested, but the listener gives no feedback and little eye contact is made. The listener seems aloof, and the speaker feels devalued and unsure if he is getting across. Active listening, giving the user feedback to verify that what is being said is understood, leads to goodwill between speaker and listener. The active listener seems more understanding and caring, and the speaker is more willing to listen to what the listener thinks.

We are in the fourth decade of what sociologist Tom Wolfe calls the “Lets-Talk-About-Me-Movement”, which began during the “Me Decade”, the 1970s. An unprecedented four-decade economic boom resulted in the quest self-actualization, as defined by psychologist Abraham Maslow, and the individual, already greatly valued in Western culture, became the center of the universe. The individual’s thoughts and feelings became supreme. It was no longer enough to feel your own ambition, wants or pain; everybody else had to feel it too. (In Tom Wolfe’s story “Me and My Hemorrhoids Star at the Ambassador”, a woman describes her painful hemorrhoids to her Erhard Seminar Training class then hears the entire ballroom screaming and moaning in sympathy. Wolfe, 1976) It was all about me, and listening habits deteriorated.

Conversation became a tool for obtaining self-actualization, and many books and articles were written on a set of techniques, called Neural-Linguistic Programming, explaining the importance of mirroring, expressions, gestures, different modalities of speech and body language. NLP became a cornerstone of modern sales. The problem is you are acting and can easily slip up. Can you remember to watch for eye movement, clues that indicate if a person is more visually, audibly or emotionally oriented, match the pace of others’ speech or maintain the correct body language and still be involved? Body language and tone must be congruent in order to be believable. If your words don’t match your gestures, you will lose trust and rapport and appear manipulative.

Instead, you can allow your posture, gestures and tone and pace of your voice to be set by your emotions and attitude. Dale Carnegie taught about empathy in his book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, written more than three decades before the Me Decade. Carnegie was an old school people person, and never heard of NLP, but he understood what attracts people. His belief system had simple corollaries, such as:
"Speak ill of no man and speak all the good you know of everyone."
“Say ‘Thank You’.”
“Talk about what people want and help them get it.”
“Encourage them to talk about themselves and their interests.”
“Friendliness begets friendliness.”
“Smile!” (Carnegie, 1936)
Today, Mr. Carnegie might add, “Get over yourself”.

When we engage in conversation we decide if it is worth the time, depending on whether rapport is created or broken, either of which can occur instantly. Done effectively, conversation can leave a stranger thinking there is something about you that he really likes, but done ineffectively, you will have difficulty making friends. Ultimately, you are judged by the way you communicate with others. Take an interest in others during conversation, and you will find common ground and friendship.

And isn’t that what we want even with the “Lets-Talk-About-Me-Movement”?