Posts Tagged ‘quotes’
Act Like You’re Listening
Ethel Merman, a well-known and over-the-top performer in the mid-20th century, asked a young chorus member what he was doing staring at her. He replied, “I’m listening to you Miss M.” She gathered up her most indignant self to say, “I don’t listen to you, don’t listen to me.”
Humorous as that might be, listening is crucial for actors.
Here’s what a bad actor does instead of listening:
- Waits for cue and does not interact with other actors. Acting is like a ping-pong match where all players “hit” back and forth to one another. There is not a pause between preparation and execution. If an actor just waits for the signal that it’s time for him to say his lines, the performances will be hollow. It will mean a dropped ball.
Listening is not merely hearing. Listening is reacting. Listening is being affected by what you hear. Listening is active. – Michael Shurtleff
- Memorizes lines without absorbing meaning. It’s really cute to attend an elementary school play to watch the children perform. But would we pay $100 per ticket for such a privilege? Bad actors can recite the lines, but if they don’t listen for what the lines mean and impart that meaning, they are not much more rewarding to watch than those children, and they’re not cute either.
Acting doesn’t have anything to do with listening to the words. We never really listen, in general conversation, to what the other person is saying. We listen to what they mean. And what they mean is often quite apart from the words. When you see a scene between two actors that goes really well you can be sure they’re not just listening to each other — they’re feeling what the other person is trying to get at. Know what I mean? – Jack Lemon
- Imposes self on character instead of listening as the character. That actor is listening to his ego rather than to the role he is playing. It’s a form of narcissism that overshadows the character and what we get is an actor who is the same regardless of the part he plays.
There’s nothing more boring than unintelligent actors, because all they have to talk about is themselves and acting. There have to be other things. – Tim Robbins
The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has to work on is his mind. – Stella Adler
Then what is good acting? I think it is presenting the playwright’s truth. What about you?
Listening Like a Heat Seeking Missile
A reporter sent an email today asking how listening factors into organizational change. I immediately thought about the following quote of Dr Terry Paulson, a very intelligent contributor to a LinkedIn group I participate in.
Part of the challenge is that even visions have to change and adjust on the move. It would be easier to plan if the target would stand still, but today change is like a heat-seeking missile having to hone in on a plane doing evasive maneuvers. So movement and course-corrections are at a premium.
That’s what we mean by being a Fluent Listener.
Think of the incredible number of listening contexts a working person finds herself in per day. Let’s call her Luba. How is it even slightly possible for Luba to adjust her listening to the person, moment and message?
Each person in Luba’s audiences enters the communication process with expectations. If Luba doesn’t meet those expectations, she’s assigned a “poor listener” label. We know that being considered a “good” listener correlates highly as a predictor of leader effectiveness, promotes productive relationships with followers and influences motivation and job satisfaction (Sandy Kimmel, 2011). In other words, if an executive is not considered a good listener, it is unlikely others will follow by choice.
So how do the Luba’s of the work-world use fluent listening to affect change?
- Listen, not for how to get to the future, but for how we are in it at the time we are listening - do not dwell on the past nor worry about the future.
- Practice having a listening style and delivery that engenders engagement and trust. They are more important than the rhetoric.
- Intense listening can disarm speakers, especially ones who are passionate.
- Use storytelling to demonstrate depth of understanding and to be additive.
- And most important, be a supportive listener. Go where the speaker goes, not where you want the conversation to head—be that heat-seeking missile.
Gertrude Stein said, “A genius is someone who can talk and listen at the same time.” Yet, that’s what’s expected of us in our demanding lives.
Assumptions about What Makes a Good Listener
A person on a Linked In discussion I participate in stated that it’s necessary to be empathetic to be a good listener. The author went on to explain that no one will share information or ideas if the listener doesn’t display empathy.
I thought about that assumption a lot and just wasn’t convinced I’d agree. Then I went back to my research that led me to develop Hear! Hear? Your Listening Portfolio®.
The first piece of research that I returned to was from Chris Argyris and Donald Schon:
The words we use to convey what we do or what we would like others to think we do, can then be called espoused theory.
When someone is asked how he would behave under certain circumstances, the answer he usually gives is his espoused theory of action for that situation. This is the theory of action to which he gives allegiance, and which, upon request, he communicates to others. However, the theory that actually governs his actions is this theory-in-use, or what he does. (Argyris and Schön 1974: 6-7).
Their writing made me wonder if the Linked In person is himself an empathetic listener who both theorizes and models the behaviors that lead him to be regarded as a successful listener. In other words, if we observed his listening, would he “walk his empathetic talk?”
Next I went to an interview with Srini Pillay from the Neuroimaging Center at McLean Hospital. I’m only excerpting a little of what he said:
We know from brain imaging that the amygdala is stimulated when we are under stress – and a stimulated amygdala interrupts the functioning of the higher order regions of the brain (those involved in clear decision making). So, it’s an easy leap to say that you will make better decisions if you can quiet the amygdala (reduce the stress). Of course, stress cannot be just wiped away, but there are things that you can do to stabilize the amygdala – things like reframing the issue or refocusing attention on another element of the issue or decision. Anxiety is a very powerful emotion – even if you can’t see it, it is influencing the way you behave.
Dr. Pillay led me to think that not all amygdalae would be stabilized by empathy. As a matter of fact, being empathetic will only raise the stress of problem-solver or conceptualizing listeners (as described in my work). Only clarity, facts, data, and details will provide the problem-solvers with what they crave to settle their nerves. And conceptualizing listeners want space to generate ideas. To them empathy means freedom to think and interact without boundaries.
So we must be careful to acknowledge the needs of others and not lay our assumptions or projections upon them. One person’s empathy is another person’s nettle.
However, I did say in the Linked In discussion that no listener would fault by being respectful.
More Research to Share #1
This post is all taken from Discover Magazine, Fall, 2010 issue on The Brain.
Article:
Meet Your Secret Master “The rational part of your brain isn’t always in charge. Often, the automatic, unconscious side takes control—and you don’t even know it. By Carl Zimmer, pp 47-49.
“A number of networks in our brain process information without troubling our awareness….It may be that our conscious and unconscious minds are parallel systems, each specialized for handling different kinds of tasks….
The zombie mind may take over simple, repetitive tasks from our conscious mind, leaving the latter free to focus on the kinds of thought we do best with self-awareness. “
MJT: Maybe we can listen and do something else at the same time, but nothing complex. For example, I can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and talk on the phone to a friend about the weather; but I cannot read a recipe and try to make Peking Duck while talking to anyone but myself.
In another article, Mindless, in the magazine, pp. 64-65, Carl Zimmer also provides some worthy points from the work of Jonathan Schooler, psychologist, UC Santa Barbara, a leading researcher on mind wandering:
- On average, students in a research study reported that their minds wandered about 5.4 times in a 45-minute session.
- When given a new task, the less often the subjects’ minds wandered, but as the task became more practiced, the more mind-wandering increased.
- Mood affects mind wandering. When shown a sad vs comedy video, the sad video group experienced more mind wandering than the comedy video group.
- There are two kinds of mind wandering: when you are aware your mind is wandering and when you are unaware. Schooler call the latter state, “zoning out.”
- We spend about 13% of our time zoned out.
- When the mind wanders we are more likely to make mistakes, fail to encode memories, or miss a connection.
- Mind wandering is not a useless activity. It allows us to work through important thinking. Our b rains process information to reach goals. Some of those goals are immediate while others take reflection time.
MJT: It seems to me that the onus is on the listener to know when it is absolutely imperative to be tuned in and learn how to control mind wandering. When people have no-preferred listening habits, that is, when all four habits show up to be the same, they have to work very hard to keep their minds engaged. Brains tire and wandering happens.
Article:
Quick! Stop Thinking by Carlin Flora, pp50-51
“…there is work in clinical psychology showing that writing helps limit ruminative thoughts—those negative thoughts that are very hard to shake and that seem to grow the more you dwell on the, The idea is that you cognitively outsource your worries to the page.”
MJT: Over-thinking can shut down listening, especially for inner-personal listeners who run a negative internal conversation that grabs attention away from the listening interaction.
Research Implications for Listening
This post is going to abstract some of the very intriguing current research that may have implications for listening:
Music Makes Us Happy:
Results indicate that intense pleasure in response to music can lead to dopamine release in the striatal system. Notably, the anticipation of an abstract reward can result in dopamine release in an anatomical pathway distinct from that associated with the peak pleasure itself.
Nature Neuroscience (2011) doi:10.1038/nn.2726
Received 07 October 2010 Accepted 25 November 2010 Published online 09 January 2011
Implications for listening:
This research demonstrates that music makes people happy. When we are happy we tend to be open and responsive. Listening depends upon an open brain and attitude. So, if you feel your attention waning, try music to re-engage your mind and spirit.
Third Order Listening:
In his book The Management Myth, Matthew Stewart describes the listening style of one quite brilliant consultant as follows:
He does not focus on what you are saying. Rather, he tries to figure out what you want to get by saying it. And then he tries to figure out why you think you want what you want. And then he tries to figure out what he can do about the things that make you think you want it.
How often do you try to figure out what the other person wants by paying attention to the words he uses and the number of times he repeats something?
The Listening Club:
The Listening Club, a burgeoning Harvard organization, is now seeking members at Harvard. Members will cultivate and hone vanguard listening skills in both subjective and objective contexts; form a vital resource body of listeners performing campus and broader community service; research listening in applied fields of study; and invite active collaboration with other Harvard entities to both liaise with the club and partner on special listening events and activities.
Harvard Gazette, Janaury 13, 2011
FYI, I’ve contacted the founder.
Brain Regions:
Theprefrontal cortex is this brain region where the juggling act occurs. This area is important in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, decision making and moderating correct social behavior.
Yet in order to accomplish tasks and make decisions–otherwise known as executive functions–the brain tends to filter out new generative impulses and stimuli that are deemed as incongruent or interfering with the focus of our attention.
Executive function is key to higher level analysis and critical thinking. It relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social “control” (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes).
From The Center for Graphic Illustration
Implications for Listening:
We have to be in control of our prefrontal cortex when we listen or be at its mercy.
More to Come. I enjoy sharing my learning with the listening community, and appreciate it when you chime in.
Listening and Improvisational Theater
A friend is taking improv classes, and when we were talking about her experience, I immediately connected what she was saying to my work on listening. Of course, a major part of improvisational theater is a person’s ability to listen.
Following are some thoughts on the matter:
“One of the things I love about improvisational listening skills is the concept of the “yes.” Your job as a listener in improv is to accept all offers, say “yes” and add on. There is a habit of competitive listening in our culture that disrupts the fecundity of group thought. In improv our job is to make everyone’s offer look good – and say yes to unknown possibility.”
Kirsten Wilson, Improvisation for Work and Life: Playback Theater, Boulder, CO
The key to improvisation is the “Yes, and” principle, and it’s an idea that is particularly relevant to business. In performance improvisation it means listening to what someone else says, accepting what they say, and then building on that. In business terms it means accepting any idea that’s brought to the table and then taking that idea further.
Robert Kulhan, adjunct assistant professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Lakshmi Balachandra teacher of Improvisational Leadership at MIT Sloan School of Management
Kuhlan goes on to say that there’s a misperception that we have to 100% correct 100% of the time. While we only have to be correct about 10-15% of the time, we do need to be listening at least 50% of the time to make good decisions.
Improv Principles – Listening
From: newchoiceimprov.com/principles/listening.html
Improv can be scary and intimidating.
That’s why this site approaches improv with an emphasis on scene and character creation, rather than emphasizing “getting the laugh”. When the performers do the work of establishing who, where and complication, the humor will appear as a naturally-occurring by-product.
So, focusing on the scene and the characters takes the pressure off of you, the player, to ”be funny”. Another way to make the improv easier is to Listen.
One of the magical effects of improv is the group chemistry and collective unconscious that develops among the players. Inevitably, someone in the game or exercise will say or do something that sparks an idea or reaction in you.
This is serendipity, the gift of improv, the valuable and lucky idea you come across by accident.
You will miss it if you are not listening.
You will miss it if your mind is racing ahead in the scene to the next time you get to say something.
You will miss it if you fail to admire the creativity of your fellow performers.
Train yourself to listen by doing the following:
- Incorporate something the previous speaker just said into your responding comment or action
- Maintain eye contact with the other players
- Expand on what the previous speaker just said
Improv isn’t about being funny or comedy; it is about being present and listening.
How Do You Know?
My dear friend and colleague Allan Ackerman, replied to me (not on my blog) after my last post on multitasking:
“When I’m on the phone with someone who’s typing I can tell because I can hear them typing. Also, their replies get very mechanical and less frequent, and make less and less sense in relation to the conversation, stay on the surface and never go either to an especially insightful level or to any kind of free association.”
That response prompted me to search for information about what is being done to counter multitasking. Here are a couple, but not much going on:
A missed stop sign can have a devastating effect on more than one car or pedestrians at a street crossing; however by placing a solar powered stop sign with the flashing LED lights at each corner, more accidents could be prevented because the flashing LED lights could help attract the attention of distracted drivers and they will hopefully proceed with caution. Posted in Geeky Speaky by Kolleen, go to articles/computer technology/ technology for Dec. 2, 2009.
In The New York Times on June 6, 2010 there was this little bit of news that could be considered encouraging:
At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games can track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.
Back to Allan. He’s very insightful and expects meaningful conversations, so imagine how frustrating a fragmented conversation would be to him.
Let us know how you can tell when someone is multitasking and not focusing on you?
The Trainable Brain
In the article The Creativity Crisis in the July 10 edition of Newsweek Magazine, the authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman postulate that creativity can be taught (and untaught). They, like Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers argue that practice is at the basis of learning anything well enough to be proficient.
Bronson and Merryman say, “Is this (creativity) learnable? Well, think of it like basketball. Being tall does help to be a pro basketball player, but the rest of us can still get quite good at the sport through practice. In the same way, there are certain innate features of the brain that make some people naturally prone to divergent thinking. But convergent thinking and focused attention are necessary, too, and those require different neural gifts. Crucially, rapidly shifting between these modes is a top-down function under your mental control. University of New Mexico neuroscientist Rex Jung has concluded that those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better. A lifetime of consistent habits gradually changes the neurological pattern.”
Here we are again thinking about habits and the role they play. While they are talking about creativity, the same can be said about listening.
When I reviewed Gladwell and his claim that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of a competency, I started to run some numbers in my head:
- 50% of our day is spent listening = let’s say 4 hours
- We work 5 days per week = 20 hours of listening
- We work 5 days per week for 48 weeks (assuming 4 weeks vacation or other absences) = 240 days of work
- Therefore, we listen about 960 hours a year at work
- And, at least that amount in non-work settings = about a total of 2,000 hours per year of listening interactions
That’s enough time to develop some very bad habits or to become a best-of-class listener. If you need to be the latter, there’s no better time to start training your brain (it controls your ears and mouth).
Are We Our Brains?
Recently I was driving from Boulder to Golden, CO and noticed a new office dedicated to some sort of brain training. I’m not sure what the service is, but the parking lot was full. True, there are not as many brain development centers as those hawking medical marijuana, but the phenomenon has just begun.
Either my Reticular Activation System (RAS—Post#11) is in overdrive, or neuroscience and the functioning of our brains is on a lot of people’s minds these days.
In David Rock’s superb book, Your Mind at Work, he explains how we can increase our ability to be the director of our brain’s activities. He says, “when characters (people) have learned to think and behave with the ‘brain in mind… When they’ve developed the ability to understand their minds more deeply—to have what I call ‘mindsight’—they have a conscious choice over how to engage their brains, and now have the power to change their habits.”
That thinking is behind my work on listening habits—we might have habits that serve us well or poorly, but they are habits and can be controlled.
In an interview with Srini Pillay by Tom Atkinson and Robin Heyden of The Forum Corporation, Pillay says: “…neuroscience information is a very ripe area in brain research. One example: mirror neurons in the brain that function to help you pick up information when you are near someone else, when you are present. So this knowledge about the way the brain works can be used to inform managers about the importance of getting out of their offices and spending time with the frontline workers. By being present, you will acquire additional knowledge that you cannot acquire any other way.”
I also went back to notes I took in a presentation by the leadership expert, Ron Heifitz who said, “Assumptions drive the way we think and act. In the past we were subject to them. Now, with increased understanding of how our brains work, we see and guide the assumptions, thus being in greater control of how we think and act.”
Yet the brain wasn’t always revered. We recently attended the current King Tut exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. In one of the rooms there were gorgeous pots that were used to hold organs removed from the dead pharaohs’ bodies. They removed the organs so the rulers would have them as needed in the afterlife. The brain was different. It was pulled out through the nose and discarded because it was not thought to have any value.
What’s a Good Listener?
During my research I came across a couple of instruments that promised to tell me if I was a good or bad listener. Sign me up. I want the world to think of me as a considerate, interested and intelligent listener, so I answered the questionnaires accordingly. I responded by circling all the things I believe good listeners do and ignoring their opposites. My scores indicated that, indeed, my listening skills were world class.
Fast forward to reality. My one son, Alex, would often chide me by saying, “Mom, you’re not listening.” To show him he was wrong, I repeated the last words out of his adolescent mouth. He was not impressed. “Just because you can repeat my words doesn’t mean you’re paying attention to me.” He had me there. My ears and brain were working, but my attention was elsewhere (on the ringing phone, barking dog, hungry children, papers strewn over the dinner table, work deadline, tardy husband…).
Alex didn’t need me to make eye contact or even face him. I could’ve been picking up stray papers, or even feeding the dog. What he did need was for me to respond with a retort, question or acknowledgment to show I was connected and heeding his thoughts.
Good listeners do something with the information that another transmits. Message reception is not enough; the listener must respond. © 2007 Central States Communication Association
In my coaching practice, I’ve learned another attribute of the good listener: remain noncommittal while listening. In my early coaching years, I foolishly thought I was being paid to have answers.
A primatologist at the Bronx Zoo, who I begged to help me become a better observer, disabused that notion. He told me to watch the primates in one-minute intervals and note what I observed. At first I didn’t notice much unless they did something overt that anyone would see, such as moving position or taking food. Eventually my observation skills improved until I could notice small eye movement, sound differentiation, preparatory responses to others, facial expressions. After a fifteen-minute watching segment, the primatologist asked me what all the one-minute observations might add up to. Only then did I consider patterns and possible meaning.
His tutelage was invaluable. By remaining noncommittal while listening, it gives us the opportunity to gain new information or find out what the person is really thinking.
The third attribute flies in the face of what most of our parents, teachers, coaches, Girl/Boy Scout leaders (and on and on) taught us: obey the Golden Rule.
We definitely do not want to listen to others as we would have them listen to us. We want people to listen to us as we are, not as they are. I vividly recall an exercise in negotiation skills training that brought the point home to me. We were given a case study in which one person played a customer service agent and two other people played passengers, each of whom were vying for the last seat on a plane that was about to leave. One passenger had an important personal need and the other passenger had a pressing business commitment. The two passengers, ignoring one another, marshaled their best arguments, but the agent wasn’t compelled by either. He offered to flip a coin as resolution.
Only when the negotiation skills instructor told the two passengers to change seats as well as personae was it possible to reach for agreement. The role-play trio began to ask questions that indicated they were listening to one another’s plights and showed an interest in finding a mutually agreed upon solution. It took an intention to listen for meaning to come to agreement.
Thus the true Golden Rule for listening is: Listen to others as they would have you listen to them.
What anecdotes can you add to these three attributes of good listeners?