Lesson 3

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Listening

We spend most of our lives listening. Your relationships – and the quality of them – are, for the most part, determined by your skills in listening. In fact, in the whole communication process it’s your skills as a listener that determine your effectiveness.

During any interaction there’s a dual status that you occupy. At times you’re either:

• listener or
• speaker.

If you’re typical of most people (hand-on-heart time) you prefer to be talking rather than listening. As Larry King, the former US television talk show host for CNN, once put it: ‘everybody’s fighting for airtime’. Noted for his listening ‘style’ as he interviews celebrities, politicians and businesspeople every day, he also commented that many other interviewers prefer lecturing rather than listening.

In our own everyday lives the majority of us love to hear ourselves talk and don’t really care to listen unless it involves ‘us’. Of course there will always, fortunately, be exceptions and you probably find yourself quite attracted to these people.

Active listening

When a person is speaking to you – and you occupy the role of listener – do you show with your body that you are listening? That you’re present? That you understand what they’re saying (even if you may disagree)? People who engage in what has come to be known as ‘active listening’ not only listen, but also are seen to be listening.

The elements of any speaker’s message comprises of:

• the words spoken
• the body language (visual)
• the non-verbal ‘paralanguage’ (auditory).

As we stressed earlier, of course words are important, but people make a decision about you and your message first and then decide whether or not to stay around and continue with any interaction. This applies to life and all its relationships. The message is usually interpreted through the visual body language and listening between the lines.

Visual and vocal cues

What do we mean by listening between the lines? It’s tuning in to the vocal aspect of body language – in other words, pitch, tone, volume, rhythm, rate of speaking and all those paralinguistic clues that reveal more than the words themselves (we’ll be looking at this later in this Lesson).

Time and time again, all the surveys show that the most charismatic, successful – or just plain popular – people are great listeners; and, more importantly, they show it. How do they do it? Through body language. Their empathy shines through and they’re sensitive enough to know when to speak and when to listen – and, more importantly, they show that they’re listening with their whole body. Result – rapport.

These people are also empathetic and look to see beyond the words that are spoken and listen ‘between the lines’.

They tune in to that second element of non-verbal language that makes up – along with the visual – more than 90 per cent of the meaning in any message (the 38 per cent, remember?). How you say the words – that vocal element.

We typically listen to the words that are being uttered but fail to tune in to the emotional meaning. If you listen with all your senses you’ll be more attuned to engaging your ‘sixth sense’, or ‘intuition’ or ‘gut feeling’, call it what you will. We’ll be talking about this paralanguage later in this Lesson.

It’s all too easy to blame the listener or ‘audience’ in a meeting or social setting when they disagree, or – in your eyes – have missed the point. Your ‘performance’ has not struck the right chord – you didn’t pick up the body language signals that suggested doubt, uncertainty or hostility on their part, and so your lack of awareness precluded you from even trying to rectify the situation.

Listening with all your senses

Listening and responding in a way that helps you to understand another person’s perspective – and at the same time shows that you are truly listening to them – is the first stage of establishing rapport. Yet it would not be unkind to suggest that most of us are poor – no, let’s be generous here – terrible listeners.

Equally, it would not be an exaggeration to say that for the majority of people, their lives are ruined by poor listening – and that goes for listening to words said, as well as the way that they’re said and the all-important body language that accompanies it.

We all have a tendency to ‘switch off’ or ‘drift off’ if we’re subjected to a bout of listening without being able to talk ourselves. Yet it’s important that we listen using all our senses since we know that the true message is often not relayed through the words that are being spoken.

There is a developmental condition on the autism spectrum known as Asperger’s syndrome and those afflicted have great trouble listening and also picking up on the body language of others. Like all autistics they have poor social skills and so there is a difficulty in interacting with others. Their inability to read facial expressions and their poor eye contact means they are oblivious to the feelings of others. The situation is made worse by the fact that the lack of ability to pick up on the vocal element of body language, tone of voice, means that the different nuances and meaning of words – based on the tone of voice used – is completely lost.

Hearing and listening

Most of us – and it’s a problem that stems from childhood confuse hearing with listening. Time to make you feel a little guilty now. Are you aware of the difference? Well, let’s start by saying this:

• one is a physiological process
• the other is a psychological process.

Hearing is an auditory activity in which the sensory process through the ears makes a journey to the brain – a physiological approach. Listening involves the interpretation and understanding of a message after it’s been through the hearing process – a psychological activity that makes sense of what’s been heard. The two processes work together to give meaning.

It also means that it’s possible to hear something without actually listening to it. You know the situation well – it probably happened to you at school. You’re busy daydreaming with half your attention given to the teacher who’s talking about ‘stalactites’ that grow from the ceilings of caves, interrupting your thoughts about last night’s episode of Sex and the City. The teacher, noticing your slouched posture, asks you to repeat what she just said and you reply, with a startle: ‘stalactites grow from the ceiling’.

Phew ... Out of trouble for now, but you didn’t take in the meaning, you just recited it while it stayed in your short-term memory and it will dissolve in the next 50 seconds or so – to be forgotten. There’s no psychological activity of true listening and making meaning and processing, and therefore ‘storing’ the information. You were merely ‘hearing’.

So, I think we’ve established that listening is something we all take for granted. In reality it’s not that easy setting aside the concentration even to listen to the words. But, as we know, it’s important to listen not only to the words, but also to how they’re said – listening to all those paralinguistic cues. Also, we have to observe what we see – and show that we’re listening.

‘Listening’ body language

So let’s have a look at ‘listening’ body language:

• making good eye contact
• using head movements
• mirroring (in a natural way) body language.

We’ve spoken about eye contact in the previous Lesson. You’re well aware of the unwritten rules of eye contact etiquette. Eye contact helps a speaker to be confident that they’re being heard and that you’re taking an interest. Nobody likes engaging in a conversation with a person whose eyes are continually darting around (cocktail party style). That’s why people who are good with their eye contact are perceived as more likeable and interesting.

Head movements are an interesting area in relation to encouraging people to speak and generating rapport. It’s mainly through the ‘head nod’. Five different ‘yes’ types of nod have been identified:

• the encouraging nod (‘Yes, how fascinating’)
• the acknowledgement nod (‘Yes, I’m still listening’)
• the understanding nod (‘Yes, I see what you mean’)
• the factual nod (‘Yes, that is correct’)
• the agreement nod (‘Yes, I will’).

The bowing action of the nod appears to be an inborn action, just like the head shake. The head shake, signifying no, is thought to stem from our time as babies when the negative response to being spoon fed is to turn the head first to one side and then to the other.

Many people fail to develop rapport with others by not showing through the body (usually a head nod) that they are fully engaged. As we saw above, there are five possible messages we can convey to the speaker. It’s a simple action and as a gesture performed by the listener it can help the conversation to flow.

Lack of nodding (not listening with your body) can stifle a conversation because the speaker may think one of two things:

• You’re not paying attention to what they’re saying.
• You’re not interested.

If you’ve watched experienced chat show hosts on television, you’ll notice that there’s a lot of nodding activity as an encouragement for the guests to ‘open up’.

What’s the message from the ‘head nod’?

Generally, the speed of the head nod indicates what the listener is conveying. Many people are confused about this – and have never bothered to delve into the meanings. Let’s get this straight now, because it will really help in your future interactions and avoid confusion – and also annoyance on the speaker’s part when you don’t get the message!

• Slow head nod – is usually an encouragement nod to get the speaker to carry on talking. (They’re also indicating to you – the speaker – that they don’t want to switch roles yet.)
• Slightly faster – they’re telling you that they understand.
• Very rapid – either that they totally agree (arousing emotions in them) or possibly that they want to interrupt and become the speaker.

You, as the speaker, need to check for other bodily clues as to which of these is the one that the listener is trying to convey.

Jonathan Ross encourages Sir Bruce Forsyth to open up

If you don’t currently use these head movements it would be worth trying them out in your future interactions. See what difference it makes. You’ll find that conversations will last longer, be more open and that the ‘turn taking’ will be much more natural.

While we’re on the subject of head movements during listening and how people show that they’re interested in what you’re saying, you’ve come across what’s known as the ‘head tilt’ during conversations (we discussed them briefly in Lesson 2). If we go back to Darwin, for a moment, his interpretation among humans and animals was that it was a ‘non-threatening’ head movement, which indicated interest in something.

If we roll the years forward, studies show that, of course, he was right – we tend to do this subconsciously when we’re listening attentively because something has caught our interest. You’ll see it in audiences in cinemas, theatres, in meeting rooms at work, during training sessions and, of course, in conversations with all and sundry. Like the head nod, it is a submissive gesture. It’s thought that for some of us it recreates the feeling we had as a baby when resting our head against our parent’s body, when looking for comfort or rest. Think for a moment of someone you know who uses this head tilt. What feelings does it evoke in you? Do you use it yourself sometimes? Consciously or subconsciously? I’m sure the answers are very revealing.

Mirroring or synchronising (to build rapport)

You’ve probably come across the term ‘mirroring’ when it’s used in the context of interpersonal activity. It does cause confusion. Think of it, for now, as being in synchronicity with another person – when you’re getting on well. Being ‘on the same wavelength’. You don’t mirror the other person’s body language exactly. You make yours similar to theirs and you try to adopt their general posture, in a completely natural way.

After a while, your body language instinctively becomes similar to the person you’re with, as do the ‘vocal’ aspects like rate of speaking and loudness of voice. You don’t try to match another’s paralinguistic style exactly. The head nodding becomes ‘in sync’ and other postural movements and hand gestures all seem natural and follow a similar rhythm. You lean forward to show you’re listening. Eventually they do the same. There’s a rapport through body language.

‘My kimono is open’

We instinctively tend to do the opposite – in other words, display negative body language – when we’re experiencing discomfort or don’t agree with what somebody is saying, or when perhaps in a work/business interaction we’re listening to somebody who speaks in jargon or corporate buzzwords with irritating clichés – ‘My kimono is open’, for example, meaning I’ve disclosed everything (I’ll just give you a little time to recover from that!) We’ve been through much of the ‘pushing the envelope’ and ‘blue-sky thinking’ phase, but new monsters keep regenerating from MBA schools and the like. But if these words stop people listening then it hasn’t enhanced communication – it has impeded it.

Either way it stops people listening, and so it’s the reading of ‘listening’ body language that alerts the speaker that it’s time to change tack, and also maybe explain what something means, before completely losing the audience. We may sit further back in our seats, for example – as opposed to leaning forward. This can cause a similar reaction in the other person. So you have matching or ‘mirroring’ – but of negative body language.

If you see this happening, be aware of your own emotions and get back to an ‘open’ posture. If you try to resist closing up and continue to adopt an open style then there’s more chance of a favourable outcome and less chance of them staying in a ‘closed’ body language position. Non-verbal language is quite contagious – for better or worse. If they’re stuck in that mode, hand them something to look at to unlock their arms.

Vocal aspects of body language

‘It ain’t what you say’ – it’s the paralanguage. The vocal part of body language relates to the 38 per cent that we spoke about earlier. We can vary tone in a number of different ways:

• The pitch of the voice can be varied – we can go from high to low and move between these two levels during a conversation.
• The speed of speaking can be varied – we can speak rapidly or at a slower pace.
• The loudness of the voice can be varied – going from soft to extremely loud.
• The rhythm of the voice can also be varied.

The term for this non-verbal aspect of speech is paralanguage. The para comes from the Greek denoting ‘alongside’ or ‘above and beyond’.

Let’s talk about pitch first because it’s capable of expressing a wide range of different meanings. So its importance as a part of non-verbal body language is huge. For example, it’s easy to see how the pitch can indicate a contrast between making a statement and asking a question – ‘They’re coming back already’ as opposed to ‘They’re coming back already?’ We could add a third – ‘They’re coming back already?’ We can signify a bored state by using a monotone, or we can express surprise by increasing the pitch.

The speed or tempo, as it’s sometimes called, can indicate different meanings. We know that something expressed at rapid speed indicates urgency of some kind, while slower or more deliberate speech conveys an altogether different meaning. It can be indicative of a person’s state – nervousness or insecurity, for example. There are of course differences in personality types resulting in some people adopting a more impatient style of speaking, which is quite rapid in its delivery. Equally, at the opposite end of the spectrum there are perhaps the more ‘introverted’ types who may be more guarded in their delivery.

Loudness is another aspect that conveys different meaning. Generally, we regard a very loud voice as conveying anger. This brings to mind the booming voice of an actor I once saw in a play – playing an actor – and his constant refrain to his wife, in that booming voice was – ‘I warn you. I’m in a mood.’

These three aspects of speech together provide a rhythm to the voice. People with attractive voices have a package that proves pleasing to others (more about that later).

So it’s plain to see that unless we’ve had the benefit of being trained in voice production, as actors inevitably have been, we don’t tend to give that much thought to how we sound – and how others are perceiving us. If you’re losing out in the working world on job interviews, promotions, effectiveness in meetings or selling a product – or just about anything – then could it be that there’s something you’re not being told? Maybe you don’t sound right.

Along with breathing, all the elements that we’ve discussed contribute to clarity and good diction. If you never pause for breath, for example, it can irritate and grate on the nerves of the listener.

• If you breathe deeply from the abdomen, it gives you a more relaxed and confident sound.
• If you shallow breathe, with shorter breaths, it’s because you’re nervous or anxious.

Remember that good posture is essential for good speech. Hunching your shoulders, or just generally slumping, is not good for your delivery; neither is tension in your throat or stomach. Before that telephone call, or before you walk into an interview room, breathe in slowly and deeply through the nose – make sure you hold for a few seconds as you inhale – then release the breath gently through your mouth.

Voice is obviously important to us in our liking and disliking of people. Think about radio presenters, specifically those DJs that provide chat and play songs as part of their radio show. They’re unable to provide us with any visual body language. We determine our liking, in the first instance, from the voice. Was BBC’s long-running Terry Wogan show so popular simply because of the songs he played? Then there’s the legendary Tony Blackburn recently back on BBC radio (and reunited with award-winning radio presenter Phil Swern). Few decades on and still pleasing listeners. Or John Humphry’s on Radio 4’s Today? Is it just the music or the news? No, we subliminally know which voices are pleasing to us.

So, if you think you’re doing everything else right and you can’t understand where you might be going wrong, check the non-verbal element of your voice.

Formula for a perfect voice

Research from the linguistics department of Sheffield University in May 2008 – in a paper entitled Formula for a perfect voice – produced some interesting findings. The researchers were trying to create a new formula for the perfect female and male voices. The formula represented the subtle blend of tone, speed, delivery, words per minute and intonation. Analysing the highest scoring voices, sound engineers and academics hatched a mathematical equation for elements that the ideal voice should contain.

Researchers found that the ideal voice should utter no more than 164 words per minute (wpm) and pause for 0.48 seconds between sentences that fall in intonation. The result was that a combination of Dame Judi Dench, Mariella Frostrup and Honor Blackman make up the perfect female voice. Dame Judi speaks at 160 wpm breaking off for 0.5 secs between sentences; Mariella Frostrup speaks for an average of 180 wpm and pauses for 0.5 secs; Honor Blackman articulates herself at a more considered 120 wpm.

How did the men fare in the findings? The most appealing voices were a combination of Alan Rickman, Jeremy Irons and Michael Gambon. Jeremy Irons talks at 200 wpm; Alan Rickman at 180 wpm; and Michael Gambon at 160 wpm.

Researchers also concluded that the vocal traits associated with positive characteristics such as trust and confidence scored higher – and so these produced the perfect voice.

As was said earlier – it’s not just what you say ... it’s the paralanguage.

BODYtalk

Q I’m not a bad listener, I don’t think, and after what you’ve just been telling us I think the problem must be that I don’t show that I’m listening. People don’t tend to share information with me and I’m not having much success at work either. Surely, if I sit there and maintain eye contact, that shows I’m listening?

Not really – a stuffed dummy with well-manufactured eyeballs (and clear irises) could probably match you by the sound of it. It’s not enough just to ‘receive’. The ‘transmitter’ wants to know that you understand what they say, that you’re actually ‘still in the room’ (not ‘running your own tapes’ in your head) and whether they have agreement or interest. Is that too much to ask? Wouldn’t you expect the same in the opposite situation?

Q Yes, I suppose. How do I look enthusiastic then?

As we said earlier, you have to show you’re listening with your whole body. A good listener is worth their weight in gold. People perceive those who listen to them in a very positive light. Try nodding because it encourages people to carry on talking, and the slight head tilt (common with women) shows you’re paying attention. Lean forward in your chair to show open body language – this often encourages the other person to do the same. Obviously facial expressions, showing empathy at the right moments, confirm that you are paying attention. Right? Now see how your interactions with people change.

Q The matching of body language during an interaction ... I think you also called it mirroring. How does that work? I know what you said, but isn’t it a bit false?

Only if you misunderstand the purpose of it and forget its naturalness. Studies have analysed people in a state of rapport (you can use your own terminology for this if you like, call it ‘getting on well’ or ‘on the same wavelength’, it doesn’t really matter). What matters is that when movements and speech eventually – and naturally – get to a stage when two people are almost mirroring vocal and non-verbal aspects, there’s a good state of rapport. When you have that, the relationship flows – there’s a synchrony or rhythm with the other person’s actions and gestures.

For example, you’ll pick up on the speed at which a person normally speaks, the way that they gesture and their seating posture. When the subconscious picks up that nothing ‘jars’ then movements and conversation flow. So if your tendency is to speak loud and fast, for example, and the other person speaks more slowly and softer, you adopt that style in a natural way.

Q I was really interested in that section on ‘paralanguage’. I’m not that great with words and articulation. If I sharpen up on my – what I think you psychologists call – ‘impression management’ skills in presenting myself and spend more time on that, I should be okay. That’s given me hope. Am I interpreting that right?

Err ... (excuse the speech disfluency) no. ID 10T error. You have to understand one thing. If you don’t get the visual body language right a person is not going to ‘stick around’ even to hear your words. If you get the visual right – okay, well done for that – but then when you open your mouth you’re an absolute turnoff, you’re finished. So it’s not a substitute that we’re after. We’re looking for congruence – words and visual matching up to create the right impression.

Q I agree with what you’ve been saying. I know that sometimes when we interview women for PA jobs they’re perfectly dressed, their greetings body language is good and they seem controlled when they first sit down – and then when they open their mouth it’s downhill all the way.

Exactly. I’ll just read out the conversation that the head of personnel for a city bank – who was looking for someone for a front desk position – had with her boss:

‘One girl we spoke to had one of the most dreadful voices I’ve ever come across. She didn’t vary the tone the whole conversation and so came across as someone lacking in energy or being very bored. When working on front line reception, as she would have been, that’s not the impression we want clients to receive on walking in.’

Coffee break ...

• Your relationships in life are determined by your skills in listening.
• Active listening involves ‘listening with the whole body’; you need to show you’re listening.
• Time and time again, studies show that the most charismatic and successful – and popular – people are good listeners – and are seen to be listening – and this conveys empathy and promotes rapport.
• Many people confuse listening and hearing because it’s possible to hear something without actually listening to it. The first is a physiological process and the second is a psychological process.
• Good ‘listening body language’ is:
  • making good eye contact
  • head movements
  • mirroring – in a natural way.
• Many people fail to achieve rapport because of the lack of any head nods and it can convey (sometimes mistakenly) that you’re either not interested in what’s being said or not paying attention.
• Listening beyond the words spoken constitutes the 38 per cent of meaning (remember 55, 38, 7) that we derive from any communication.
• The vocal aspect of body language is known as ‘paralanguage’ and refers to the pitch, speed, loudness and rhythm of the voice.
• If you breathe deeply from the abdomen you achieve a more relaxed and confident sound. If you shallow breathe – with short breaths – it’s (whether you know it or not) because you’re nervous or anxious.
• Recent studies have shown that vocal traits associated with positive characteristics such as trust and confidence score highly.