minds, metaphors and (ethical) manipulation
Posts
How fast thinking can block effective listening, and what you can do about it
May 13th
People can think four or five times faster than they can speak. So when someone thinks they’re listening, what is their mind actually doing?
According to James Borg in his bestseller Persuasion: The Art of Influencing People, the average person speaks at 120 – 150 words per minute, but thinks at 600 – 800 words per minute. So the listener is always ahead of the person doing the talking.
Fast thinking is usually regarded as a good thing – but not when you should be listening! Here, it means that the listener’s mind has time to wander, to make new connections… and to start planning what they will say next.
And so, before the speaker has come close to finishing the point they are making, the “listener” is poised to:
- Interrupt
- Finish the other person’s sentence
- Talk over the other person
- Offer advice too soon.
No wonder so many relationships – both personal and at work – break down with the complaint: “You never listen to me!”
Borg says: “Of all aspects of communication, listening is the most important…
“Think about somebody you know who isn’t a good listener. Who, in fact, never seems to listen to anything you say. Frustrating, isn’t it? And how does it make you feel More >
Manage negative people with just one question
Apr 19th
Tired of hearing people moan and complain? Overwhelmed by negativity? Then do something different! There is an easy way to switch someone’s attention away from all the grimness of life and towards the positive, to the aspects of life that they like and want more of.
People’s problems seem to have a special magnetism. We discuss them, analyse them, pull them apart, talk about them, write about them… and very rarely solve them.
To actually change things, we need to know what’s wanted, stated in positive terms. We need “a system that does A, B and C” not “a solution to problem Z”. We can’t place an order for “a kitchen that isn’t annoying”. And imagine going to the supermarket with a list of all the things you don’t want to eat!
Interestingly, switching someone’s attention to the positive is relatively simple. But it took the genius of David Grove, creator of Clean Language, to come up with a formula which works in almost all circumstances.
It requires some rapport between you and the person who’s complaining, and it does require you to have listened to the complaint sufficiently to acknowledge it, repeating it back in the person’s own words.
Then, simply ask: “And when <their More >
Talking about listening – is anyone listening?
Apr 6th
Today I discovered Tom Peters’ great YouTube video on the importance of listening:
And it set me thinking. Tom Peters is a very major name in the business world. He’s saying it very clearly: “The single most significant strategic strength that an organisation can have is… a commitment to strategic listening.”
So why does it seem as if nobody is listening to the truth about listening?
My research of recent weeks and months suggests that most people think they are already listening well. They don’t realise they are just like the doctors who interrupt after an average of 18 seconds. The poor listener is always somebody else they know!
Most people have not experienced effective listening. They don’t know what effective listening looks, sounds or feels like – whether as the speaker or the listener.
Most people have not been trained to listen. And of the few who have had some training, a proportion will have been told that “active listening” involves continuous evaluation of what the person says – so they are too busy concentrating on their own opinions to hear anything at all.
People are afraid that listening means giving up control of the conversation, and handing the floor to someone else. They More >
Effortless imagining
Mar 17th
Our minds have far more potential than we think.
As you probably know, scientists have shown that conscious thinking uses only about five per cent of the brain’s capacity.
You may have started to wonder what the other 95 per cent of the mind is up to: is it working for you, working against you, or just having a holiday? Does the unconscious mind even experience work, rest and play? I think probably not.
As Keith Johnstone points out in his classic Impro (1981), we have no sense of “effort” as our unconscious minds perform the massively complex task of recognising a relative. When we read a novel, it’s not hard work to imagine the characters, their activities, their environment. When we chat with a friend, the massive task of choosing our words from all the possible alternatives and stringing them into sentences is handled automatically, effortlessly, by the unconscious mind.
Solving a problem rationally, step by step, is hard work. When we allow the unconscious mind to do its job, we make better connections and solutions come easily.
It’s like the difference between struggling on restricted battery power and tapping into the national grid.
One of the things I love about X-Ray Listening is the More >
