When the stakes are low, it’s not that difficult to just be present and listen. Yet great listening is most impactful when the stakes are high—and that’s when “simply listening” becomes not so simple.

Thus I’ve been thinking about ways to support myself in being a good listener, particularly in situations that are emotionally “hot,” for instance listening for a friend who is in a tough relationship, or for another friend who is faced with a major career decision.

I’d like to share with you a surprisingly powerful tool I’ve created that helps me to stay present as a listener. This tool has its origins in the roots of Supportive Listening.

Ever since Eran and I started Supportive Listening in 2007, we’ve been asking ourselves, “What are the key beliefs that bring about great listening?” And one of the beliefs that we’ve surfaced again and again is this: a belief that simply being heard is extremely valuable.

So why have a tool just to remember this one simple idea, that you’ve most likely heard many, many times?
Here’s the thing: while you might understand intellectually that “being heard is powerful,” as a listener it’s very easy to forget that notion, especially in the heat of the moment when it’s needed most.

When your emotions start running, it’s so very easy to jump in, pass judgment, and tell the other person what to do. This emotional “take control” impulse, which often has negative consequences, then wins out over the intellectual belief of “being heard is valuable.”

So what can you do to support yourself in being strategic and “just listening” rather than being emotional and “taking control?”

One approach is to create a simple reminder card. I’ve created a wallet-sized card, about the size of a business card, which says “I trust that being heard is valuable.”

I keep this card by the phone, and when I’m talking to friends and family I hold it in my hands and glance at it every so often. And whenever I see the card, I have a small moment of recognition which helps me breathe, connect, and offer that powerful “being heard” experience to the person I’m listening to. It works wonders.

I invite you to give this a try. Get a small card (the back of a business card works well) and write this message on it:“I trust that being heard is valuable.” And keep the card by the phone. When a friend or family members calls, hold your card and occasionally glance at it.

See if this simple tool can help you to be more present, and more effective, as a Supportive Listener.

Best regards,

Paul.

ps: Give it a try and let me know what happens—I’d be delighted to hear from you. You can contact me at contactpaul@supportivelistening.org

We’re very good at telling other people what to do. “Why don’t you just talk to her about it?” is a personal favorite of mine, as is “don’t make such a tragedy out of it.” In fact, being directive comes to us so naturally that we do it even when it’s not really helpful – which is most of the time. There are, of course, times in which being directive is appropriate and even morally imperative.

Nevertheless, we are often directive at inappropriate times, without even realizing that we are being directive. Directiveness is sneaky, and comes in many flavors. Different people have their own favorite ways of being directive, sometimes without even realizing that they are being directive. Here are a few examples of ways we can be directive – do you recognize any of these as things that You do?

Directing Action: This is probably the most obvious, blatant form of directiveness. “I think You should quit your job” and “have You thought about telling her how You feel?” both qualify as examples of directing someone’s actions.

Directing Thinking: This is a more subtle form of directiveness, which attempts to guide someone else to focus on something they weren’t paying attention to, or to change how they evaluate something. Telling someone “let’s think about what can go wrong if you do that” is a pretty clear example of directive thinking. Another example is “do You think this has something to do with how your parents treated You when You were little?”

Directing Emotion: This is another subtle form of directiveness, which aims to change how the other person feels. “I would be really sad if that happened to me” could be a way of influencing another person to feel sad. “Well, at least nobody got hurt” is a way of trying to make someone feel better.

Non-directiveness: This happens when You provide the other person with the space, time, and support to guide their own thinking, feeling, and action.
Non-directiveness can be achieved by relating to the other person’s present experience, without adding advice and without trying to change what they are thinking about or how they are feeling.

There is nothing inherently wrong with directiveness, and nothing inherently right with non-directiveness. Each has a place and time, and each can be helpful or damaging.

However, it is important to be able to choose how directive You want to be when talking with someone You care about, so that You can control your level of directiveness, rather than being a slave to your habit.

- Eran

Most people think of supportive listening as something that occurs between two people. Most of our training workshops are for individuals or pairs of friends, where we focus on training one person at a time. We have seen wonderful things happen as a result of this training, and we are now ready to take our training to the next level.

People are embedded within communities, and the benefits of supportive listening can extend beyond individuals and transform entire communities, when the culture of that community incorporates principles of supportive listening – respectful, connected curiosity that does not wish to own other people’s problems, but rather seeks to provide a supportive structure within which people can come up with their own solutions to their own problems.

The University of Pennsylvania is now poised to embark on a brave experiment in the power of friendship. Together with Penn’s center for Counseling and Psychological Services, we are designing an educational program that aims to teach supportive listening to the entire Penn community. Penn students will learn how to be better friends for one another, by providing healthy, sustainable support that will reduce stress throughout the community. We are pleased and honored that such a high-profile university would partner with us in developing a community-wide program, and we are excited to see where it all leads.

Do You know of any other communities that would benefit from supportive listening training? Whether it is your neighborhood, your school, your office, your place of worship, or your soccer team, we would love to help develop a training program that would help your community become better integrated and more supportive. Get in touch, and lets think of ways we can spread supportive listening to more people and more communities!

– Eran

As a leader, there is a time to hang back and just listen, and there is a time to give structure and guidance to the speaker. Quite simply, if you make an intentional choice about which style to bring to a given context, your employees will feel better listened to, and you’ll make the best use of everyone’s time. But if you unintentionally “just listen” or “just guide” then you’ll run into trouble.

I recently saw the pitfalls of an unintentional listening strategy when I was observing a skilled listener in a business situation. “Bill” studied Supportive Listening with us a couple of years ago and since then has made great efforts to apply the skills to leading his business. But when I observed him using Supportive Listening at the wrong time in a business interaction, I realized that I needed to be more clear about when to use—and not use—Supportive Listening.

Let me explain. Supportive Listening is designed for “third-person” listening. Let’s say that my neighbor, “Fred,” is frustrated with his boss and wants to talk to somebody about it. In that case I can be that calm and neutral third party, I can do a good job of being present for my neighbor and just listening to what he’s going through. I don’t interrupt, I don’t guide, I’m just there on the outside, as the “third person.” Sounds good so far, right?

Now here’s the twist, which I observed in the meeting last month. What if I’m Fred’s boss, and Fred’s complaint is about me? And he is going on and on, jumping rapidly from one complaint to the next, with no space for me to interact? Do I just remain silent indefinitely and keep listening (and listening, and listening), even when I can no longer keep track of the issues? This is what I observed Bill doing in the meeting last month with one of his senior managers. It didn’t go well.

In the situation where an employee is complaining to a boss, Supportive Listening is a good fit for the first couple of minutes of the conversation. It’s important for the boss to clearly hear what the employee is saying, and to confirm that he understands the points he’s making. But at some point, if the employee is flailing, there’s no airspace to check for understanding, and the boss is just not able to track all of the different issues, just listening reaches it’s limit.

If the boss just can’t follow along any more, he has a responsibility to interrupt as needed, slow the conversation down, check for understanding, and when appropriate, share opinions and decisions on an issue by issue basis. Otherwise his efforts to be a patient listener will have the opposite of the intended effect—the employee won’t get answers to his concerns, plus he’ll get a sense that he’s *not* being heard.

The key is to see how different third-person listening is from first-person listening. In third-person listening, where the problem doesn’t involve you, it’s very reasonable to let the speaker guide the direction and pace, and just focus on being present and connected. As the listener, you don’t need to come up with any answers, nor do you need to make anything happen. You’re just there.

But in first-person listening, especially as a leader, the expectations are very different. The leader needs to interact, and thus needs help provide enough structure for a successful conversation. What starts as a listening conversation often *does* need to segue into a real two-way exchange. In short, it’s a different creature than third-person listening, which can work as a mostly one-way conversation.

So my point is this—to be a skillful leader, be intentional about choosing the right communication tool for current situation.

* Listening to a friend talk about an issue with his boss? Supportive Listening.

* Listening to an employee talk to me about an issue with *me?* Start with Supportive Listening, and then segue into a more interactive, problem solving discussion. Choose the right tool for the right moment.

– Paul

OK, so the news is that somebody is noticing this phenomenon, of patients reporting adverse side effects of medications, and basically being ignored. If you’ve been on heavy duty medication before, you know this to be true. Now it’s being researched more carefully?

Why? Because for pharma companies developing drugs, they want data that’s as high quality as possible. Right now all they get is data that’s highly filtered through doctors and nurses.

The net of it is “listen closely and take your patients seriously.” Here’s the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/health/13seco.html

Paul.

  My good friend Elka Vera told me about this fascinating interview on NPR with Dr. Lisa Sanders, who has written a book about the challenges of medical diagnosis.

The problem seems to be that many physicians, feeling pressed for time, interrupt, to move things along. But the result is that they often don’t come to understand what the real problem is, resulting in more follow-up visits, and even more time. Granted, doctors are balancing many factors–it isn’t easy. Nonetheless for some, the idea of “slow down and listen, in order to speed up” could be in order.

On a related note, a few months ago when I went in to see a specialist at Kaiser, I was astounded when he listened extremely attentively for 5 minutes as I explained exactly what I’d observed. He interjected a few small questions, but really left it up to me to guide. The result was that he heard all I had to say, we got on the same page with the situation, and I was able to really take in his point of view. It was great.

“Having the patient tell the story is thought to be the most efficient way of getting all of this data out. And yet we don’t do it.”

You can read the full transcript of the interview or hear it online.

I’ve put an excerpt of theinterview below:

DAVIES: Wasn’t there a study which actually recorded interviews by physicians and gave us a sense of what the interaction was like?

Dr. SANDERS: Absolutely. There’s actually been two that were a few years apart, and they showed the same thing, which is basically, doctors let patients talk for an average of 20 seconds before they interrupt – sometimes even less. In the most recent study, some doctors let a patient talk for only three seconds before they interrupted. And they interrupted with a very specific question, usually. But the chance that the patient would go back and finish that story is almost zero. I mean, it almost never happens.

They get distracted. New information prompts new questions, and people go on to, you know, describe other symptoms. But having the patient tell the story is thought to be the most efficient way of getting all this data out, and yet we don’t do it.

DAVIES: And do the studies also indicate that when doctors do interrupt, that they get an inaccurate picture of what’s going on with the patient?

Continued on the NPR website.

Underneath the mechanical techniques of listening, there is something much more powerful: the mindset, the set of attitudes, that you bring into a conversation.

If you’re like most people, you don’t go into conversations with a conscious mindset. Rather you leave it to chance, and find that while some interactions go well, otherwise go poorly—and you don’t know why. Because your mindset has a major impact on the conversation, it’s worth paying attention to.

And herein lies the good news: when you consciously bring your best “listening game”, with a great listening mindset, you’ll have a better experience. Here are two of my favorite mindset tips for enjoyable holiday listening.

Mindset #1: Goodwill
There you are, at a holiday party, talking with someone you’ve just met. Sometimes this is a person you take an instant liking to, and sometimes… it isn’t. I have news for you: they can tell. You may think you can hide it, but deep down, they can tell.

So here’s what you can do: leverage the power of mindset to find an authentic “source of goodwill” to bring into the conversation.

If you pause for a moment, you can find something to appreciate about anyone. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you can certainly make a point of noticing it, and using that appreciation to bring goodwill into the interaction.

Here’s an example. Once I was at a party listening to a young woman talk about her plans to start a new venture. I was taken aback by her bravado—while she outwardly claimed that she knew precisely how to make her venture a success, her ideas, experiences, and body language told me otherwise. I briefly considered asking her a tough question, but then thought “heck, it’s the holidays.” Instead I took a deep breath and looked for a point of goodwill.

And a funny thing happened—I found myself drawn towards her enthusiasm, energy, and positive thinking. That made it easy to project goodwill towards her and her efforts. I relaxed, I became more present and I had a new appreciation that wasn’t there a moment before. The resulting conversation was much more uplifting for me, and I think it was for her as well.

Mindset #2: Learning
There is a unique opportunity in really hearing somebody talk about how they see the world. While it sounds obvious, it’s easy to forget this simple fact: we all see the world differently. It takes a stance of humility to realize that there is much to learn from others.

This really hit home for me a few weeks ago when I was at a party talking with a guy who had extremely strong views… on everything. Although I was initially put off by his attitude, I had a niggling sense that there was something there for me to learn. Clearly he had a lot of passion for his work and for his world view.

So rather than walking away, I did something different. I made a conscious effort to channel a learning mindset. I strove to see his ideas from his perspective, without needing to have a debate about what was right. Sure enough, as I got more interested in exploring his ideas, he shared and developed them to a deeper level. I gained several great tidbits about how and why he’s successful in his business, that I wouldn’t have gained otherwise. My learning attitude, combined with his strong opinions, resulted in both of us having a thoroughly enjoyable conversation. What could have been a “pissing match” turned into a valuable learning experience for me.

I find that this attitude of learning, combined with respect, gives me a natural and curious engagement while listening that is good both for me and for the other person. In my experience, when I cultivate this attitude of learning, I’m able to connect with people who I wouldn’t connect with otherwise, and they tell me really interesting things.

A Final Encouragement
OK, so I’ve given you two listening mindsets to try, for the holidays and beyond. Now for the payoff. I’d like to encourage you to put one of these mindset into action in the coming week. 

1. Pick a mindset, goodwill or learning, and write it down somewhere that you’ll see it regularly.
2. Make a point of consciously bringing that mindset into at least one conversation every day.
3. At the end of a week, consider: How did it go?

If you can do this successfully, I believe that you’ll not just be a better listener, but you’ll also build better relationships with those around you.

Let me know how it goes! Post your experiences below, or drop me a line at contactpaul@supportivelistening.org. I always welcome questions, too.

Paul.

Here is a very powerful story about listening, featured in the New York Times. It’s about a retired Japanese policeman who organized a group of people to help prevent suicides at the site of famous sea cliffs in Japan. The main tool that they use? Listening.

I’m convinced that there is great untapped power in the social networks, the friendships, the families in the world to support one another. They just need to know how.

Read the full story in the New York Times–interesting to note the resistance that this guy is facing in some quarters to his efforts. He doesn’t seem intimated, though.

And by the way, if anybody in Japan is interested, we do offer Supportive Listening workshops in Japanese.

In this crazy world, in this rushed and hurried life, stress is ever present. It finds us at different moments of our day: In bed, trying to fall asleep, our head is filled with thoughts of things that need to get done; in the car, we hope that no unexpected delay will occur, since we do not have much time to lose; when meeting our friends, we try to quiet the distracting thoughts that take us away from the conversation. On occasion, we can tell that we are more irritable than we need to be, make careless errors, or feel easily hurt by others. We are stressed, and stress is an inescapable fact of life.

Or is it? Have we come to accept those sleepless nights, the feelings of being rushed, agitated, or easily upset, even though we do not have to? The truth is that there is an incredible resource that is available to us, which can help us feel better and less stressed, a resource that is often ignored and rarely utilized to its full effect. And this resource is – our friends, our family, the people in our lives whom we can about and who care about us.

Today, I would like to encourage you to be selfish – to take the time and share an issue that is on your mind with someone who is close to you. To allow this other person to support you. The simple act of genuinely connecting with another person who cares for us is powerfully balancing and calming.

And when a friend or a family member shares with you an issue that is on their mind, give them the gift of Supportive Listening. Bring your full self to the conversation, listen to them closely, and do your best to understand their experience from their perspective. Hold off on the interpretation, the advice, the “listen to what happened to me” stories – and just check in with them once in a while, to make sure you understand their story. You will be amazed at how easily they talk, at how their seemingly scattered thoughts eventually evolve into a pattern that is meaningful and satisfying not only for you, but also for them. Give the gift of your presence, your complete attention, and your warm regard, and watch this person, who you care about, flourish in the warmth that you bring.

I’m very pleased to announce that I’ll be offering an evening workshop, Master the Tango of Listening, on Thursday, October 8th, 2009, through the Stanford Center for Education and Professional Development.

This 2.5 hour workshop will be designed specifically for nurses, and participants will receive BRN Continuing Education credits.

Here is the intro:

Learn to provide emotional support for distressed patients without getting burned out. You’ll come away with stronger listening skills and a model for healthy caregiver relationships. By applying these skills, you can decrease the Emotional Drain of Listening.

In this interactive dinner program, you’ll learn what causes emotional drain and how to regulate the level of intensity. You will also learn about the “support triangle” and how it can help you navigate stressful interactions.

This program uses exercises and group discussion to give all healthcare professionals specific tools for healthy listening techniques.

For the full workshop description, see page 4 of the Fall 2009 Catalog (PDF format). To register, see the registration form on the middle of the Center’s website.