Engagement

We all seem to know intuitively that listening is important to communication. Of course it is. If both parties aren’t listening to each other, then what is really being communicated? But listening – that is, receiving the signals that your counterpart is sending - is as tricky as it is vital. It involves analyzing two kinds of verbal information (words and tone of voice) as well as non-verbal information. I don’t want to cover anything in this week’s newsletter other than the ATTITUDE required for good listening. And that is called ENGAGEMENT.

Being engaged with your counterpart requires that you extend the openness and curiosity that we have discussed into an ACTIVE state. You try to focus FULLY on your counterpart without OVERFOCUSING (staring, mouthing their words, nodding endlessly, saying “uh-huh” incessantly). These OVERFOCUSING issues usually come up with people that have been taught Power Listening or Active Listening techniques improperly. Equally dangerous is UNDERFOCUSING. This often is detected by your counterpart when they explain something important or personal to you, and your reply indicates immediately that you didn’t hear what they said. If they reply with “I just said…” or “As I said,…” then you know that they are picking up a lack of engagement.

Be aware that when your counterpart feels you aren’t engaged, they may raise their voice (because they aren’t feeling heard) or start to withdraw (saying something like “whatever” or another expression of passive surrender). This indicates that they are leaving the discussion without moving through the conflict to a place of understanding. This is a no man’s land where commitments have a notoriously low survival rate.

Here’s what you can do to keep things for digressing too far.

View the time that your counterpart is talking as a time to absorb information from them. That the only way you can make a better decision than you would make alone is with their input and that here is your chance to get it. You are LEARNING when they are talking and when they are done you will do one of two things. You will either ask them a question to get further information OR you will say “if I understand you, you are saying that….” and describe in your own words what you take their meaning to be.

I am very good at this and am USUALLY wrong at my first cut at their meaning. That's because there are all kinds of articulation and interpretation errors that happen, and it takes a lot of attention for both parties to fully exchange a new idea. So be patient!

View the investment you make in listening as more important than the time you spend speaking. The greatest contributors to a lack of engagement are either interrupting, formulating a response while the other person is talking, or being distracted by things going on around you. If you are in a place where you must pay attention to other things rather than your counterpart, ask to postpone the discussion due to the distraction until a later time. This communicates the importance of the discussion, and your desire to be truly present.

Many times, there is a’ little voice in your head’ that distracts while the other person is talking. It is you, because you think so much faster than your counterpart can talk, working out what you are going to say next or even worse, thinking about unrelated things. It is almost impossible to silence it. You may not realize it, but the distraction shows on your face and in your mannerisms and your counterpart will know either consciously or subconsciously that you are not fully “there”. The best way to deal with your ‘little voice’ is to convert its purpose from formulating responses to formulating questions that you will ask.

Remember – the purpose of the discussion is to get all of the thoughts out on the table where they can be scrutinized and put to their best and highest use. You can’t afford to alienate the people that have those thoughts so that they become unavailable, or the people become estranged. Remain engaged and earn their trust.

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