{"id":40273,"date":"2023-10-20T15:07:15","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/five-characteristics-of-bad-listeners-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:07:15","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:07:15","slug":"five-characteristics-of-bad-listeners-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/five-characteristics-of-bad-listeners-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Five characteristics of bad listeners – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bad<\/div>\n

People\u2019s listening skills are worsening, thanks to the myriad of distractions all about them. And people wearing earbuds pay little attention to others\u2019 cues and may be missing the subtle signals that we all rely on to survive.<\/p>\n

At work, with pressures mounting, technology dictating the pace, and the churn rate increasing, many of us are becoming impatient with each other in the way snarling New Yorkers were previously notorious for.<\/p>\n

So what are the characteristic flaws of bad listeners?<\/p>\n

1. Interrupting<\/h3>\n

Many of us are too predisposed to soundbites and fail to courteously allow another person space to express themselves.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s best not to jump in and finish the other person\u2019s sentences, even though they are taking what feels like forever to \u2018spit it out\u2019. It\u2019s easy to leap to conclusions about what the other person\u2019s saying just because you think you know what they\u2019re on about, but maybe more information or research is needed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s human nature to detect patterns as a way to categorise and therefore \u201cunderstand\u201d the astounding complexity all around us. Being able to recognise causality and correlations in raw data is key to excelling in the sciences and also data analytics, but this is some way away from extrapolating accurate conclusions.<\/p>\n

Not leaping to conclusions is possibly doing you both an enormous favour.<\/p>\n

Television shows like Sherlock<\/em> are entertaining because the inimitable detective is both capable of instantaneous observations that others miss, while prepared to reserve judgment until he\u2019s sure (particularly when the evidence confounds him).<\/p>\n

Put simply, don\u2019t think you\u2019ve already heard something before and rudely interrupt. Looks and sounds can fool.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost interesting, Watson,\u201d Holmes would remark, meaning \u201cthere\u2019s more to this than meets the eye\u201d. We would do well to restrain our \u201cheard this one before\u201d reflex.<\/p>\n

2. Closed mind: \u201cMy mind is made up\u201d<\/h3>\n

This is when we have already decided. Many of us do this in a given situation at work or in our personal relationships. You might choose not to listen because you don\u2019t care for who\u2019s talking to you, the tone of what they\u2019re saying, you\u2019ve \u201cheard it all before\u201d, or because the message doesn\u2019t accord with your beliefs and experience.<\/p>\n

So there is a wall of \u201cmy mind is made up\u201d, which blocks you from listening. But is this fair?<\/p>\n

It is certainly not a positive, open way to listen. It means you have pre-judged about the other person\u2019s issues and assumed you are right, and at no point are even considering what they have to say.<\/p>\n

3. Too busy: \u201cI have way too much to do\u201d<\/h3>\n

Someone is trying to talk to us and we keep working and keep looking at the screen we are working on\u2014we don\u2019t stop. We \u2018pretend\u2019 to be listening by glancing, but the person soon realises you have far more important work than to stop and listen.<\/p>\n

Maybe you are <\/em>too busy, but you could at least say to the other person, \u201cI need to finish this, but I would like to speak with you\u2014can we make a time shortly and then I can give you my full attention?\u201d How hard is that?<\/p>\n

Of course, sometimes a person needs to be cut off, particularly when they\u2019re time-wasters or are failing to respond to your cues. Not all people who short-circuit conversations are bad mannered (although it\u2019s best to be polite if time\u2019s an issue or if you\u2019re not the person they should speak with).<\/p>\n

4. Match back<\/h3>\n

You hear someone\u2019s thoughts and ideas, or troubled story, and you think you are being responsive, but in fact you are launching into alternative ideas or a story about you, a similar illness, a similar challenge, or advice on how it should be tackled\u2014all over-riding the person who hoping to be listened to openly. It\u2019s not always about me, me, me!<\/p>\n

5. Blinkers to cues<\/h3>\n

When people have trouble speaking about difficult issues, or they deny feelings, they may say it\u2019s all okay, but it may be that you are not \u2018listening\u2019 to their visual cues or their tone \u2026 and just accepting the words they say.<\/p>\n

They may be angry and fearful to voice it or deeply hurt. Use your eyes and ears to \u2018listen\u2019 and respond with empathy if you become aware of problem areas and concerns.<\/p>\n

Listening and speaking is a two-way street at all times.\u00a0We need to listen and<\/em> understand what the other person is really saying. Focus on talking with, rather than to or at, another person. It\u2019s give and take, and resembles learning to dance with another.<\/p>\n

You step on each other\u2019s feet at first, but gradually you acquire a rhythm and then productive conversation, yielding but purposeful, is the wonderful result.<\/p>\n

Eve Ash<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is a psychologist, author, filmmaker, public speaker and entrepreneur. She runs<\/em>\u00a0Seven Dimensions<\/em><\/a>, a company specialising in training resources for the workplace. See the rest of Eve\u2019s blogs\u00a0<\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on SmartCompany<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and iTunes<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People\u2019s listening skills are worsening, thanks to the myriad of distractions all about them. And people wearing earbuds pay little<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}