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BY CHRIS DYER

The Top Barriers to Effective Listening and How to Overcome Them

HEAR ME

NOW?

In pursuing the Holy Grail of great working culture, we often hear calls for policies that promote transparency and accountability. Transparency levels the playing field and creates trust among both the workforce and clientele. Accountability has similar benefits, as well as empowering teams to do their best work. But how do we achieve these things? In part, by employing effective listening skills.

Listening isn’t a passive activity. Processing and comprehending what we listen to doesn’t just depend on hearing things correctly. In fact, successful listening usually entails removing the obstacles to both hearing and understanding. Only with these obstacles stripped away are we truly able to listen thoughtfully and to act on what we hear.

Some aspects of listening are under our control — others aren’t. However, we still need to deal with all of the aspects or risk misunderstanding, missing out on information, or leaping to the wrong conclusions. As you up your listening game, be on the lookout for these top barriers to success. Do they sound familiar?

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1. WHAT DID YOU SAY? “I was on my cell phone...” “I was multi-tasking on my laptop...” “I was listening to Jim tell Greta what he did last night.”

These are all excuses for not concentrating on the speaker’s words. Willful inattention, like taking an incoming call, riffling through social media posts, or even overhearing those chatting around you, prior-itizes distractions over the message you are meant to hear. Those infractions are the fault of listeners.

Forces beyond our control that intervene with attention and good listening must be recognized and fought off in the moment. That’s our obligation as audience members. But, meeting moderators and speakers can also take steps to minimize distrac-tions before taking the floor.

If you’re in charge, that might mean closing windows or doors to minimize noise, or politely rebuffing people who interject while you are talking. Setting ground rules ahead of time is the best insurance: Please turn off cell phones, use computers for note taking only and limit crosstalk or off-topic discussions. It’s not that difficult to put all listeners on the same page.

Even if you’re not responsible for the agenda, you can step up and eliminate distractions that arise while someone else is speaking. Close a door, shush your seatmates or pointedly put the focus back on the matter at hand by asking the speaker to repeat themselves after a disruption.

2. HERE’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT THAT!“That’s a lot like what happened to me the other day...” “What you said touches on my pet project...” “Where are the numbers to back that up?”

Often, listeners get ahead of themselves or lose the message thread because they are focusing inward toward their own thoughts, and not outward in the direction their ears are pointing. You may hear something that provokes a reply and strive to hold that thought until the second you can enter the conversation. In the process, you miss the gist of the overall message or stray off in your mind toward a more favorable topic.

These are cases of listening to respond, not to understand. It’s like a schoolchild who hears part of a question and shoots a hand in the air, eager to provide an answer. But, the second part of the question might render that the wrong answer. This is why test-takers are instructed to read an entire passage before choosing a response.

AND UNDERSTANDING.

SUCCESSFUL LISTENING

USUALLY ENTAILS

REMOVING THE OBSTACLES

TO BOTH HEARING

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Listening to validate our own opinions and knowledge is a common, if undisciplined, mode of audience participation. It takes some effort to be intentional in our listening habits. But again, with practice, it’s not all that difficult. The first step? Be quiet.

It’s OK to jot down reminders of what you want to say if and when you get the chance. But make that secondary to your role as interpreter. Only in hearing the full story will you be able to add value to a conversation. The one who demands back-up data that they missed because they were stewing over an unsubstantiated statement only wastes time and creates their own distractions.

Keep the meeting’s purpose and the speaker’s intention in mind while formulating a response. You do a disservice to others as well when you diverge from a point the speaker made to raise your own thoughts on something related, but not relevant — or something totally off-topic. Instead, train your notes and replies on understanding what you heard first, and promoting your ideas on the matter second.

3. I ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY.“He always thinks the worst of people...” “Here it comes ... am I going to get fired?”

Prejudgments have a high probability of being wrong. But, we often don’t even know we are employing bias in our interpretations. This doesn’t have to be personal bias regarding how you perceive the speaker or their ideas, but it is often cognitive bias specific to our personal history.

We tend to place what we hear into a known framework that we can easily relate to. For instance, if in the past we have endured criticism of our actions couched in personal terms, we may tend to take all critiques as character-ori-ented and react defensively. When we have an overriding concern about something, such as our job security, we may infer that anything said bears on that.

OWN PRECONCEPTIONS.

KNOWING WHERE PEOPLE

ARE COMING FROM AS

WE LISTEN TO THEM

HELPS US SHELVE OUR

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Knowing where people are coming from as we listen to them helps us shelve our own preconceptions. Management can help with this task. Does every employee know everyone else’s job description? This reveals a lot about people’s motives and why they say what they say. What else is coloring their point of view? Sharing results from human resources person-ality tests can give employees insights that may help them better understand their co-workers.

Cognitive bias doesn’t all come from within, however. It can be encouraged or reinforced by how others think and react to the news they hear. If the majority of those around us have a fixed mind-set regarding communication, prejudging outcomes, it’s contagious. On the other hand, if most of our colleagues are open- or growth-minded, we’ll be more likely to listen with less bias.

We are susceptible to influence in this regard, and this is where leaders and peers can contribute to better listening. Setting a tone of positivity and growth — as opposed to one centered around problems and the status quo — is also contagious. It places value on objective listening.

4. ARE YOU DONE NOW? CAN WE GO?“I’ve heard all I need to know...” “I didn’t really get all that, but that’s OK.”

Part of being a great listener is providing feedback at the right time. But it also compels us to request clarification when we’re unsure of how to process a message. And, if the speaker’s points were action-able, it’s up to the relevant players to take that action. The big obstacle here is silence.

Suppose it’s nearing the end of the day and the meeting is winding down. You may be more interested in beating the traffic home than in inter-nalizing what the speaker has been saying. Even if you were listening well, if you’re in a hurry, you probably just give a nod at the conclusion of a talk and head for the door. But you’ve left half of the listening equation unfinished.

Absent any response, the speaker may be left wondering, Did any of what I said sink in? Do the right people care? Will any action be taken? And, the doubt inherent in these questions makes your listening efforts less effective. It is the job of the audience to demonstrate their understanding, to let speakers know that they’ve been heard.

While routine interruptions undercut good listening, asking clarifying questions at the right juncture is a best practice. If your understanding is muddy, others may feel the same way. Drilling down on the subject will let everyone work from the same set of facts.

You can also paraphrase aloud what you heard and ask if your interpretation is correct. Or, if you still aren’t clear, ask the speaker to put their thoughts another way. Sometimes just coming at a subject from another angle is all that’s needed.

Finally, proof of your understanding will be seen after the meeting is over when concerns or action items can be addressed. If a grievance was raised, did you solve or attempt to solve the problem? If new ideas were embraced, have you found ways to implement or incorporate them?

Putting your understanding to work shows speakers that they were heard and that none of the obstacles to listening got in the way of delivering their message. Closing the loop like this creates transparency and accountability. It shows that intentional listening is an effective vehicle for pulling teams together and getting work done. ###Chris Dyer is founder and CEO of PeopleG2, a leading background check company. He also wrote the best-selling book, The Power of Company Culture.

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