Cyndi thinks she's a good listener. After all, she's not interrupting or sharing her internal dialogue, is she? But what Cyndi is actually doing is "hearing" her friend. Like so many of us, she's just not listening.
As toddlers, we learn to speak and to hear what others are saying. As we grow up, we learn to read and write, along with other useful skills. But few of us ever learn one of the most vital skills of all - how to really listen.
To really listen takes our whole attention and focus. The rewards are huge though: happier marriages and families, better communication at work, fewer misunderstandings between friends and others, calmer and less stressful lives. And another bonus: when you listen well, you become someone other people want to listen to.
Real listening can be learned and it is a key foundational part of forming a powerful coaching relationship with any client, whether the client is a young woman in transition or the Vice President of a large corporation. At ACN we take the art of active listening to a completely different level by combining active listening skills with NLP, to train coaches to learn how to really listen to not just the words their clients are saying but the modality and language patterns they are speaking in: visual, auditory or kinesthetic, the meta-programs (subconscious mental and emotional filters) that clients view and interact with the world through and how to calibrate or match their clients tonality, breathing, postures and gestures to build a deep level of rapport. This level of rapport creates the safety and space for deep coaching to take place.
Research and books such as "The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships, "by Michael Nichols, and Mortimer Adler's "How to Speak, How to Listen" agree on these key points about listening:
ANYONE CAN LEARN TO BE A GOOD LISTENER. While some might be better at this skill than others, listening isn't about being educated, rich or popular. (Although being a good listener can lead to being well-liked.) Men as well as women can learn to listen, and some of the best listeners are young children who have the ability to drop everything and focus intently on something or someone.
LISTENING IS ACTIVE. Many of us think of listening as a passive act, just showing up. But real listening requires paying attention, not just to words, but body language and sometimes to what is not being said. It also means responding, not in words but with our facial expressions, head nods and exclamations ("uh huh") that show we are present.
LISTENING MEANS TURNING OFF THE NOISE INSIDE OURSELVES. To listen we have to ignore all those voices inside, those judgments and criticisms"Oh, I would never have done that "or" He just doesn't see how he's making a big mistake." It means ignoring the urge to advise and give suggestions (unless asked) and not trying to "fix" the problem or change the other person. Most people don't want advice, solutions, criticisms or our own stories - they just want to be heard.
LISTENING MEANS NO DEFENSES. Often, when someone tells us something we don't want to hear, we shut down. Or we lash out or justify. True listening requires putting aside our emotional responses and the need to defend ourselves. Perhaps we believe the talker doesn't have the story right or is being unfair; that's okay because it's his story and it's not about right or wrong, fact or fiction.
LISTENING IS UNSELFISH. Listening takes time - and who has a lot of that? It's about ignoring distractions and the urge to interrupt with your own great story. As author Nichols puts it, "Listening isn't a need we have; it's a gift we give."
Listening, like many coaching skills, does not just assist you in deepening your coaching skill set, it can literally change your life by taking all your personal and professional relationships to a new level of intimacy. I have been coaching for 14 years and believe the skills I have learnt over the years from a variety of coaching schools I have studied with has profoundly changed my life and relationships on all levels. Coaching is not just a profession, it's a way of life.
