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What Great Listeners Actually Do

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Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#71

Post by logicallee »

TenOhms wrote: post #20
eridius wrote: post #2

I had a manager once who would say "mmm-hmm" all the time . It was really distracting and actually made it seem like he wasn't listening at all, even if he was actually hanging on my every word.

I have a manager now who spews out information like a water main and instead of natural pauses, they make weird sounds like 'uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and another thing'. They are also extremely hard to interrupt so if there's something they said that needs clarification, it's a pain in the ass to get clarification because they're still speaking at my second attempt to ask a question before diving deeper into the…

Is spewing out information like a water main a heavy, dense stream of information or a just a stream of verbiage (could cut out 90%)?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#72

Post by ncallaway »

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.

Instead of time-analysis consider it to be space analysis and the analogy holds up pretty well.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#73

Post by AdieuToLogic »

thirdsun wrote: post #68
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #33

One of the easiest metrics I've found to determine whether or not oneself is a good/great listener is to honestly assess: Am I busy thinking about what I'm going to say when I get a chance? The more the answer is "yes" the less listening a person is performing.

I don't think that's a very good metric. In fact easily coming up with follow up questions that already come to one's mind while listening is a strong indicator for an engaging conversation. Or did you mean "being busy" as struggling to come up with anything worthwhile to say? Then I'd agree.

Assessment does not have to happen real-time. The intent is to reflect on interactions at a later point to determine if one is actively listening.

  In fact easily coming up with follow up
  questions that already come to one's mind
  while listening is a strong indicator for
  an engaging conversation.
I completely agree that formulating follow-up questions are a key indicator of active listening. The key point with the metric I presented is when that formulation transpires.

If it is while another is speaking, then the listener is not engaged in listening due to considering their own response instead. IMHO, it's natural to make a "mental note" regarding a thought/topic while another is speaking and then present a considered response/question subsequently.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#74

Post by TeMPOraL »

Artoemius wrote: post #52
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…

> O(n^2) listening: cross-comparing all the things they've said for informational pairings If you manage to think of a good hash function for everything they say, you can use a hash table and cross-check every new thing they say in O(1), which makes the total complexity O(n).

Which kind of describes a lot of discussions on the Internet - people pattern-matching what they see/hear to cached thoughts in their brains, and replying to those cached thoughts instead of to what was actually said.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#75

Post by [deleted] »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #74
Artoemius wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> O(n^2) listening: cross-comparing all the things they've said for informational pairings If you manage to think of a good hash function for everything they say, you can use a hash table and cross-check every new thing they say in O(1), which makes the total complexity O(n).

Which kind of describes a lot of discussions on the Internet - people pattern-matching what they see/hear to cached thoughts in their brains, and replying to those cached thoughts instead of to what was actually said.

[deleted]

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#77

Post by PakG1 »

graeme wrote: post #65
Bahamut wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I don't understand something, asking someone to clarify on the part I misunderstand, asking someone to repeat what was said (with an apology prior - this is mainly if I completely missed what was said), or to give me insight on the detail(s) I am missing - leaving room for the other person to correct me is also important, as it naturally evokes a response if I have a detail wrong and give the person an opportunity…

But what about situations where you think you understand but you don't? That's often the point of paraphrasing back what was said. I do this in cases of doubt, and often enough I learn my paraphrase was either incorrect or had the wrong emphasis. I do it routinely enough that I often learn I was wrong when I had no doubts. This technique does not seem to annoy people; quite the opposite. I'm sure it can be done badly…

When it's a critical topic, you should still paraphrase things that are unambiguous. Because the penalty is too high for critical things when you're wrong, even if the risk seems tiny. In critical situations, assuming that something is unambiguous is especially dangerous.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#78

Post by vermooten »

The article misses something important. It presents 'being a good listener' as a way of tricking the other person into giving up information. OTOH a REALLY good listener is genuinely interested in what the other person has to say. It's not a mind-game or a piece of oneupmanship: you have to actually give shit because this is a human being talking, not just an 'FTE'.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#79

Post by m12k »

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.

So it's an analysis of the cost of listening in attention/energy, not of time before the processing is done.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#80

Post by inopinatus »

Xcelerate wrote: post #12
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

> simple skills [...] are still good to teach because they are better than what most people do much of the time. Heck, merely not pulling your phone out is better than what most people do most of the time.

Corollary: conspicuously putting your away is a clear physical cue that you are now paying attention.
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