An Exercise in Listening

Dec 02 2007

Published by Roger at 5:00 pm under Personal Development

There are 2 previous posts in this mini-series about listening

Today I want to finish this series with a 2 part exercise.

Exercise 1

You will need a partner to work with in both these exercises. One of you will be the speaker, the other, the listener. Please decide now who will take which role.

So, speaker…please decide on something you are going to speak about for 2 minutes. It doesn’t have to be anything personal. It could just be what you did yesterday or where you would love to go on holiday - anything you like.

These next instructions are for the listener. Best if the speaker doesn’t read these. Not Listening Listener…when your partner is speaking, please don’t listen ! Look disinterested, look around, no eye contact, check for messages on your phone, say nothing to the speaker, do anything apart from listen ! Start the speaker off, tell them they have 2 minutes to tell you all about their subject, then avoid listening.

People are rarely able to complete a full 2 minutes of this exercise. Speaker…how did that feel ? I imagine that it didn’t feel too good. I’m sure you didn’t feel heard, maybe you felt insulted, offended, humiliated ! Whatever emotions you experienced, I doubt they were positive ones.

Lesson - don’t listen in this way ! It is not a positive experience for the speaker.

Exercise 2

OK, now swap roles

So, new speaker…you need to decide on something you are going to speak about for 2 minutes. Again, it doesn’t have to be anything personal. It could just be what you did yesterday or where you would love to go on holiday - anything you like.

These next instructions are for the listener. Best if the speaker doesn’t read these. Listener, really listen, really go over the top ! Lean forward and invade the other person’s space a bit, stare at their eyes. Lots of uh-huh, lots of nodding, really ham it up. Start the speaker off, then go for it.

Again, I’d be surprised if the speaker can manage 2 minutes of that treatment. Speaker…how did that feel ? Not that great ?

Lesson - don’t listen in this way either. It’s not a positive experience for the speaker.

Conclusion

These 2 exercises role play different extremes of listening. Clearly, neither is appropriate. When really listening to someone, sensitivity is needed regarding the extent to which you should say anything, use body language, have eye contact etc. If you are genuinely interested in listening to what they have to say and you can hold yourself back from commenting until they have finished, then, I suspect you will know how to be. The key word here for me is congruence. If you are being genuine in your interest then your internal feelings will be reflected in the way you are externally.

So, go ahead, go and really listen to someone today.

Thanks for reading.

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