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What Great Listeners Actually Do

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Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#41

Post by pizza »

solipsism wrote: post #39
pizza wrote: post #35

The computational complexity varieties of listening: Let n be the number of things the other is talking about (tricky to define a "thing" but, whatever?, use a consistent thing metric) - O(1) listening: ignoring/may as well not be there - reading your phone while the other talks to you - O(n) listening: loading their information into your brain while they talk - e.g. repeating back to them, nodding to salient points…

The brain is massively parallel, your analysis seems to assume 0 parallelism.

True; but one way I can get around this is that the strategies don't all require the same underlying brain architecture requirements. For instance number 1 doesn't even require a brain. Other than that, doesn't my analysis, concerning only the order of steps that must occur in aggregate per algorithm, sorta work out regardless of parallelism? Or do you mean that a multi-state computational brain could do a collection of moves simultaneously, say a vector of n linear actions as 1 brain vector-action?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#42

Post by johnfn »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #34
woodandsteel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not arbitrarily changing the definition. They did a study where they asked people to identify how good others were at listening, and then studied what behaviors distinguished those who got the highest ratings.

The article is freely interchanging the concepts "being a good listener" and "being perceived as being a good listener" from one sentence to the next. That's worse than arbitrarily changing the definition (but being consistent with it).

I don't understand there to be any difference between the two. There's no objective judge of listening. There's only the other person, and how well they feel heard.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#43

Post by paulsutter »

Bahamut wrote: post #15
woodandsteel wrote: post #9

As someone who has taught and researched listening skills, I found this article very insightful. However, let me add that the simple skills they described at the beginning (not interrupting, saying "um-hum," and being able to repeat back), are still good to teach because they are better than what most people do much of the time. Here's another HN link on listening: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12228062

I despise the tactic of repeating back what other people said - it shows me that the other person isn't really dwelling on what I said, or more often in my experience, are using that to distort what I am saying in order to fit a particular agenda. I rather someone not fake listening in that case and wasting everyone's time.

What's your favorite technique for ensuring that you correctly understand the other person? For example, in a business negotiation, or crucial personal conversation?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#45

Post by PakG1 »

groby_b wrote: post #25
hoodoof wrote: post #22

My ex partner always said I didn't listen to her. I really want to be a better listener. It seems to me that the key to listening is to actually be present and not half thinking about something else or what YOU want to say. Hard to do. >> thus, if you’ve been criticized (for example) for offering solutions rather than listening, guilty

>>> thus, if you’ve been criticized (for example) for offering solutions rather than listening, >guilty This is not necessarily a question of "guilty". There are two major directions a conversation can go - "sympathy" or "solution". If your partner wants one, and you give the other, you operate under wrong premises due to an unstated assumption. On both sides. (If your "guilty" was a request for sympathy, I'm current…

This is crucial. I've found that when I talk especially with people who reside more on the emotional side of the spectrum (I myself seem to be more on the logical side of the spectrum), I need to really clarify before the conversation gets too deep that I'm good at expressing solutions, but I'm not so good at expressing sympathy/empathy. I'm good at having sympathy (not always empathy), but I'm not good at expressing it.

People who contact me frequently to talk about something have come to understand this, and they just trust that I am being sympathetic, even if I am not showing all the signs. But for people who are not used to talking with me, they can sometimes find me unsettling and get upset at me. If someone could explain to me how to appear sincerely sympathetic in a way that makes sense to me, I'd love it. But nobody's ever been able to do that in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'd be pretending, which is awkward and weird, because it's not like I'm not sincerely sympathetic in my heart of hearts.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#46

Post by z3t4 »

solipsism wrote: post #40
neom wrote: post #10

In my experience building organizations that have totaled over 275 humans: it's a rare, rare person that can truly distinguish hearing from listening. The key to being a good listener is simple: always, to the absolute best of your cognition, meet the speaker in their place.

You should come up with a better "key" -- one which doesn't require expansion. Wtf is meeting someone in their place?

Like putting yourself in his shoes ... Imagine what it would be to be in his position, considering his background (important). And sympathize (feel his emotions).

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#48

Post by smallnamespace »

solipsism wrote: post #40
neom wrote: post #10

In my experience building organizations that have totaled over 275 humans: it's a rare, rare person that can truly distinguish hearing from listening. The key to being a good listener is simple: always, to the absolute best of your cognition, meet the speaker in their place.

You should come up with a better "key" -- one which doesn't require expansion. Wtf is meeting someone in their place?

Putting yourself in their shoes? Being able to sympathize with their goals and desires?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#49

Post by smallnamespace »

cellularmitosis wrote: post #24
GuiA wrote: post #13

"People’s appraisal of their listening ability is much like their assessment of their driving skills, in that the great bulk of adults think they’re above average." Well, the vast majority of people are actually above average drivers. If you got into 0 accidents over the past year, then you are doing better than average. (Similarly, most people have more legs than the average human)

Sorry, I'm a little slow today. Can you elaborate on that last statement? Are you invoking a trick meaning to the word "average"?

'Most people' -> mode

'Average' -> Arithmetic mean

Mode skewed to the left

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skewness#Introduction

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#50

Post by aidenn0 »

pizza wrote: post #41
solipsism wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The brain is massively parallel, your analysis seems to assume 0 parallelism.

True; but one way I can get around this is that the strategies don't all require the same underlying brain architecture requirements. For instance number 1 doesn't even require a brain. Other than that, doesn't my analysis, concerning only the order of steps that must occur in aggregate per algorithm, sorta work out regardless of parallelism? Or do you mean that a multi-state computational brain could do a collection…

There are fairly simple physical processes that can solve assumed exponential time problems in constant time for low values of N (most famously probably soap bubbles and the spanning tree problem).
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