Listening Between the Words
I was planning to move on to another topic this week but your comments about listening pushed my thinking a bit. I want to suggest that “hearing the words” is important but not sufficient. Increased opportunities for building relationships, for opening to new ideas, for aligning for action come from listening between and around the words.
You may be aware of a study by Albert Mehrabian that showed non-verbals were particularly important in conversations conveying feelings and attitude. Mehrabian found that three elements account differently for our liking of an individual: words account for 7%; tone, 38%; and body language, 55%. (This explains why when words and body language don’t align, we trust the body language! And it certainly has a lot to say about how people are observing and interpreting our leadership. Perhaps that’s a future conversation.)
When we are fully listening, we note the tone, we observe the non-verbals and we get curious when we sense that they are not aligned with the words we’re hearing. When we are fully listening, we observe what’s not being said and wonder why. We notice that pace and tenor of the conversation. I’m not suggesting that we do this in an analytical, judgmental way. Rather, I’m suggesting that we listen with a strong desire to understand more fully.
In discussing how our brain works, Thomas Lewis, MD, notes that our limbic brain specializes in detecting and analyzing the internal state of others and adjusting our physiology to match the situation. ”The limbic activity of those around us draws our emotions into almost immediate congruency.” This explains a lot about the excitement of live concerts - or the contagious anger of a mob. But in the context of our discussion on one-to-one listening, limbic resonance suggests that we can ”listen” to the feelings of others by considering how their feelings are reflecting in us.
As I consider listening between the words, it’s pretty clear to me that this is a focused, open, fully-present, single-task activity where I intentionally decide to set my own stories and egoic needs aside for the purpose of trying to understand what’s important to another person. I wonder what possibilities might emerge in that space….