“You’re Not Listening to Me!”

If you’re a human, you’ve heard this before and maybe a lot and maybe too often.

There are lots of books, workshops, blogs, podcasts—you name it—about the importance of listening. And a lot of the authors/creators of these resources incorporate and teach Active Listening but more often than not, they describe it and teach it inaccurately.

To clarify what the creator of Active Listening (Dr. Carl Rogers) meant by his concept:

When you’re Active Listening, you’re simply feeding back, in your own words, your understanding of what the other person is saying and how they feel about it—no advice, no solutions, no probing questions, no reassurance—in other words, no Communication Roadblocks. Active Listening is also not parroting or paraphrasing. (What Dr. Thomas Gordon did–who was a friend, student and colleague of Dr. Rogers–was to incorporate Active Listening into his Gordon Model–specifically how to do it and when to do it. And the world knows about Active Listening because of Dr. Gordon’s P.E.T. program developed in 1962.)

Okay, moving on…

So, there are other ways to show that you’re present and paying attention in addition to Active Listening. In the Gordon Model, we call it Basic or Passive Listening.

And here are ways to listen in a basic way:

• Attending. Being with another; being in physical attendance to another; making level eye contact with another and maintaining an open body posture while listening. Attending is necessary for effective listening.
• Silence. Passive listening; being quiet while another talks. Silence can be very powerful, especially when another is experiencing sadness.
• Door Openers. Open ended invitations for the other to send more (e.g., “Do you want to share more?”, “Would you like to talk about it?” “I’d like to hear more”, etc.
• Acknowledgment. A non-evaluative response, letting another know you heard what they said (e.g., “Hmmm”, “Really”, “Yes”, “I see”, etc.) Acknowledgment lets the other know you’re psychologically with him/her.

1. Silence and non-committal acknowledgment are potent at supporting the other to say more.
2. Door openers are especially potent at the beginning of communication. They set the stage.
3. They communicate, “You’ve got the ball.” “You are the sender. I’m the listener.” “I want to hear.” “Keep it coming.”

BUT……there are some downsides to only using basic listening:

• There is no interaction; the person does not know you are truly understanding.
• The person doesn’t know if you’re accepting his or her message, or if you are non-accepting.
• They don’t facilitate, catalyze or promote additional communication.

What Active Listening does is provide evidence of understanding or empathy.

Know what else it does?

1. It is your check on the accuracy of your decoding.
2. It shows sender that you are interested in him or her as a person.
3. It proves to sender that not only have you heard—you have understood.
4. It tells the sender you can accept him/her as a troubled person (s/he doesn’t have to be perfect to be accepted), that you can accept him/her with intense feelings and thoughts.

NOTE: The key word here is accept (i.e., the sender’s behaviors are in the top of the Behavior Window), not agree with. You can accept him/her having a feeling you might not have or a thought you don’t agree with while you let him/her own the problem-solving process.

5. It gives sender a chance to ventilate, to feel relieved, to have catharsis. When feelings are expressed and accepted, they tend to be less overwhelming for the person and become less disabling. When held in, feelings tend to remain strong and fester (as opposed to the notion that if one listens to and accepts another’s feelings, those feelings will get out of hand).
6. Active Listening fosters the other doing his or her own problem definition and problem-solving. It keeps the responsibility with the sender, yet the listener remains involved.
7. It relieves “emotional flooding” and frees the intellect to get back to work.
8. It fosters the sender moving from superficial to the deeper, more basic problem.
9. It often shifts focus of sender from “external-to-self” to “self.”
10. It avoids fastening onto and “solving” the “presenting problem.”
11. It encourages the sender to deal with his or her feelings, not just the facts.
12. Frequently cultivates insights—new ways of seeing things, new attitudes, new behaviors, new understanding of self.
13. Fosters other person being more open and honest with you—more willing to use you as a helping agent.
14. Promotes a more rewarding and productive relationship. Sender feels warm and positive toward listener. Listener better understands sender and feels more positive toward him or her.
15. It helps sender grow toward being an internal problem- solver, toward being less dependent on others for solutions, toward being more self-responsible, more self-directing; master of own fate or destiny.
16. Active Listening during task-centered problem-solving helps identify or define problems quicker and more accurately. It saves valuable time, besides contributing to more appropriate solutions.
17. When all behaviors are in the Productive Work Area, Active Listening to a leader’s directions or instructions is an effective way to reduce misunderstandings and help avoid costly errors.

So the next time someone says, “You’re not listening to me!”, take a moment, pause and try out some basic AND Active Listening.