In an on-line article by Andrea Campbell, Top 10 Communication Issues and How to Avoid Them, she stated that the # 1 communication issues facing businesses is people’s “Failure to Listen”.  I would add that it isn’t only business where this is a major issue, but individuals in almost every setting suffer from poor listening skills.  Be it work, home, or socially, we all can benefit from better listening skills. We may hear what others are saying to us, but hearing is not listening.  Hearing is autonomic, listening requires much more effort.

Why don’t we listen as well as we could? Well, for one thing, no one really taught us how to listen. In my 15+ year career in higher education, I taught Communication Studies classes nationwide.  These were classes that focused on how we as human beings communicate with each other, and only one institution offered a course centered entirely on listening.  Sure, listening was included in bits and pieces in other courses, but that fact that only one college offered a listening class is still somewhat shocking.

In the course of your own education, how many math classes did you take?  How about science?  History?  English?  Physical education?  How many of you can say you had a class that was devoted entirely to listening?  My guess is, not one of you, unless you happened to attend Cabrillo College in Aptos, California, where that one listening class is offered.  My question is, how can a skill that is so vital, so valuable in helping us understand people and situations, be left to be self-taught? And considering listening isn’t really offered in K-12 education, you can begin to see why there is so much room to grow on the listening front.

If you want to put your listening skills to the test, I suggest you try the following:  If you are a Democrat, start listening to conservative talk shows.  If you are a Republican, start listening to liberal talk shows.  Now, as you listen, do your best to try and identify the key points being presented and the support that is provided for these points.  Notice that as you do that you’ll find yourself feeling very uneasy.  This is probably due in part to the fact that the points being presented run counter to your own perspective.  As this happens, note the emotions that are being generated.  For example, are you feeling angry, upset, astonished, flabbergasted, etc?  Notice how these emotions can interfere in your ability to simply “listen” to the talk show.  Try doing this for 15 minutes a day over the course of one week, and as you do so, see if you are able to manage your emotions as you work to really listen.  I don’t expect anyone to suddenly shift political loyalties, but I expect you’ll begin to gain an understanding of another point of view that you otherwise might disregard entirely.

This is an extremely difficult exercise, because the people we are listening to are saying the very things we find unacceptable.  Believe me when I tell you this is an everyday challenge for me, whether at work or at home.  But just because what we hear is unacceptable does not mean we cannot be good listeners.  Recognizing how emotions impeded the listening process can help you in your attempts to become a better listener, which can only help us in the short and long run.