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What Great Listeners Actually Do

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Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#91

Post by soberhoff »

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.

You could also just point out that the brain is finite, if you were nitpicking.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#92

Post by pjc50 »

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.

Taking analogies literally deducts at least one point from your listening score.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#93

Post by cammil »

My take on listening:

https://letmeexplainyou.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/how-to-list...

TL;DR / Summary:

Listening is innate Listening is not an active skill. Practicing it as such diminishes your ability to truly listen. Listening is improved through improving your own peace of mind One’s peace of mind is improved by doing good things. E.g. completing chores, being nice to people, doing things that reduce your regrets / guilt, etc. DO NOT follow much of the incorrect advice given around active listening and traits of a good listener. Listening is a special case of all using any sense, and the above advice applies similarly

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#94

Post by kaybe »

aidenn0 wrote: post #53
PakG1 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm also not naturally good at it, and the best I've come up with is that it's basically letting them know (in a way that is natural for you) that you believe that a world in which they have this problem is worse than a world in which they don't have this problem. In fact just switching my default response to someone presenting a problem to: "that sucks" showed a marked improvement in interpersonal relationships for…

What was your previous default response?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#95

Post by cammil »

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 couldn't disagree more. My take on listening: https://letmeexplainyou.wordpress.com/2016/08/17/how-to-list...

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#96

Post by kaybe »

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.

Some Japanese carry their listening habits over to English when they learn it as a second language. This involves a lot of these noises and small words like 'amazing', 'wow' etc even if the topic is mundane. I've been told they consider that polite, but in English it's quite irritating.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#97

Post by RangerScience »

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.

I saw this in person, once. Guy with one of the those super-christian inflammatory signs in the middle of UC Berkeley. Both students and "protester" felt like they were presenting canned arguments "at" each other rather than "to" each other.

Now that I think about it, I could totally see a cabal of professors hiring someone to be antagonistic as a teaching moment.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#98

Post by amelius »

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…

I find it a bit odd you categorize methods of listening by computational complexity, rather than by the method itself. Also, the brain is not a sequential machine. And different algorithms can be used to achieve the same effect.

For example:

- O(n^2) listening: cross-comparing all the things they've said for informational pairings

Who says this can't be done in O(n log n)?

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#99

Post by adrianN »

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.

Not only on the Internet, I'm afraid.

Re: What Great Listeners Actually Do

#100

Post by andrepd »

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…

This is almost comical :p The brain is not a turing machine. You can't make these kind of analysis because the brain isn't just a huge von neumann computer.
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