Listening Now Blog

Jedi listeners are exceptional at listening.  Thankfully, they also leave clues.  If you pay attention you can decipher the things that Jedi listeners do, and who they are being, that make them so great.  If you’re really serious, you can emulate them and become more of a Jedi listener yourself.

 So what are these hidden keys that will make you a Jedi listener?   Thanks to an overdose of books, tapes, courses and blogs dedicated to the topic of “communication”, it’s easy to become blase about what makes for outstanding listening.  It just seems so, well, obvious.   I know, it seems obvious to me, too.  It’s only when you stop and take a moment to really notice that you see how much there is to this thing called listening.

What you’re about to read may sound simple, but these are three things that only Jedi listeners consistently and consciously do:

 1.       Jedi communicators focus. They focus on you, exclusively.  Exceptional listeners are able to focus 100% on the person they are interacting with at that moment.  Exceptional listeners close down distractions and other inputs, and give full attention to the dialogue.  Jedi listeners make you feel that, for this moment in time, you are the most important thing in the world and that you have their full attention. They may only have a few minutes, but that time is all yours. In contrast, when you engage with someone who continues to “multi-task”, rapport is broken, and true dialogue and exchange disappears.

 2.       Jedi listeners are patient.  They don’t rush you.  You rarely hear “so, what’s the point?” or “would you get to the point?” when you’re being listened to by a Jedi listener. Exceptional listeners give you time to make yourself understood; they don’t give you the sense that you are “on the clock”.  Nancy Kline talks about how “urgency destroys”.  She says that “Being, with no rush, is what produces results… when it comes to helping someone think, doing requires not doing.  To pay attention with a heart and mind at ease is what produces results”.  What a simple yet radical approach – slow down and give the other person time.  And not just because it’s a nice thing to do, but because it will also produce results.

3.        Jedi listeners encourage.  They don’t try to fix you, they don’t assume or jump to conclusions.  Exceptional listeners believe that you are the expert on yourself and they don’t try to impose their frames or filters on you without first checking that these feel appropriate to you.  An encouraged speaker will share more, and a criticised speaker will shut down.  Jedi listeners know this.

 I recently asked some colleagues about their experience with exceptional listeners (I didn’t call them “Jedi’s” then – that came later).  Seems there’s precious few exceptional listeners out there, that’s the first thing I discovered when I started asking this question.  Part of the problem lies in the belief that exceptional listening should come naturally to us.  Most outstanding communicators had to learn how to do it – Jedi’s are made, not born. 

And here’s what I learned about Beth, an exceptional listener:

  “Beth works with groups and people of all ages and personalities. Beth has amazing empathy, she is respectful and thoughtful and committed to hearing people out.  What strikes me about her is her capacity to sit with people and encourage their sharing without rushing them and without having to contain the emotional content of their stories.  Listening is the key to creating a space that honours the tellers’ stories”. 

 What strikes me most about what Beth can do is she doesn’t try to contain or suppress the emotional content of other people’s stories – there’s no “there, there” with accompanying body language that sends the message that you need to squash that emotion down.

 What an extraordinary gift this must be to the people who are being listened to by Beth!  To know that whatever you say (and whatever you aren’t saying), whatever you are feeling, and however you are expressing it, she won’t judge and she will listen fully.  Makes me wish Beth was my friend.  Makes me wish I could give her a light sabre and officially dub her a Jedi listener.

Try this over the next few days:  Double the amount of focus you give to the people you are listening to.  Double the amount of time you usually spend listening to them. 

Notice what happens.  Notice how you are being and who you are being when you “sit in the listening chair”.  Notice what happens to the dynamic when you listen more patiently, with more focus.  Notice if the opposite happens and you find yourself trying to contain the person you are listening to in any way.

And stop by the comments and let me know about any Jedi listeners you know.  What do they do? Who are they being?