Listening

Listening is the process by which we make meaning of the world and determine what is real for us." — Alan Sieler

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?" — E.M. Forster

Listening and languaging arise together; languaging creates the world and listening makes meaning of it. Listening is not a passive process of receiving objective information but an active process of meaning making, and this meaning making happens in the observer. Chalmers Brothers writes that “as observers, we ascribe meaning to events and people… meaning lives within The Observer, and is activated by people and events, and projected onto the world.”

Each of us, as an observer, perceives the world in our own unique way, and our speaking reveals these perceptions. And yet our speaking, as I’m sure we’ve all experienced, doesn’t ensure listening! Sometimes instead of engaging others with what we are saying, our words are met with indifference or hostility. We can say the same thing to five different people and get five different reactions! Which means each of us listens to the world in our own unique way, shaped by the interpretations, mental models, and beliefs we hold. But these interpretations, mental models, and beliefs are invisible to us, like water to a fish. We do not listen to what people say so much as how that saying occurs for us. And understanding this is the key to being able to listen more fully and deeply.

What is Listening?

“We then say that listening is linguistic, it lives in language. Listening is active interpretation, active internal storytelling to myself. Listening is definitely not passively receiving objective information, but instead has everything to do with building a story, building a narrative, creating an interpretation about what was said or done. Listening is where meaning gets generated, and meaning matters.” — Chalmers Brothers

In a previous essay I wrote that “the act of languaging consists of observing and speaking, and recursively being changed by what we say on what we see.” Listening is the way in which we are recursively changed by what we language. Listening is observation¹, a kind of observation that doesn't happen just with our ears and eyes, but with our entire body. Our nervous system, the brain's mirror neurons, and our other senses are all part of how we listen.

Our body, as an instrument of observation, is how we attune to one another. Lisbeth Lipari calls this “interlistening” and writes that “listening itself is a form of speaking that resonates with echoes of everything we have ever heard, thought, seen, touched, said, and read throughout our lives.”

These echoes include our interpretations, mental models, and beliefs about the world. Until we become aware of these echoes, they will obscure our ability to fully attune to each other. Effective listening requires presence, openness, and the ability to notice and relax habitual ways of seeing and responding to the world. We have to do the work to quiet these echoes so that we can truly listen.

A Few Thoughts on Active Listening

The idea of that meaning exists within the observer and that we listen from echoes of everything that we have experienced in our lives is missing from contemporary frameworks used to teach listening skills. Let’s take Active Listening, one of the most poplar listening frameworks, as an example. The three primary components of Active Listening are: cognitive, emotional, and behavioral.

The cognitive element is about paying attention to both the verbal and non-verbal information we receive. But as we've already discussed, there is no such thing as “receiving information” as if we were machines taking in a direct, lossless transmission. What we receive is filtered through our own Way of Being, the postures and attitudes we hold about the world and about the person we are listening to.

The emotional piece is pretty much about emotional intelligence — being aware of and managing emotional responses that listening can evoke. I appreciate that emotions are included in Active Listening but without the concept of the observer, emotions will be managed rather than understood. Emotions arise in relationship to the interpretations we hold about the world. What kind of observer are we being that our listening provokes x or y emotion?

And finally, the behavioral aspect is about showing attentiveness and interest both verbally and nonverbally. Nodding, sharing small interjections like, “uh huh,” or ”I see” or whatever indicates interest. This one I find gimmicky and performative and would prefer it to be left out of listening practices entirely. Michael Bungay Steiner pokes fun at this in the intro to his TEDx talk, How to Tame Your Advice Monster.

For me it feels like Active Listening was built on the transmission model of communication. Developed in the 60s and 70s by engineers working on the challenge of sending and receiving messages electronically, the model posits that what is said and what is received is exactly the same (e.g. the same content will result in the same meaning across all listeners). But of course, humans are not machines but complex, interconnected biological organisms and the act of hearing does not guarantee what is listened to or the meaning made. This is why its so important that any theory of listening also include an acknowledgement of who we are as observers and how we live in language, uniquely creating our perceptions of the world.

And because Active Listening misses the idea of observers altogether, it can’t get at what closes us off from listening. It’s not about making sure we hear the words and nod our head, it’s about being aware of the ways we become trapped in our own beliefs and then doing the work to loosen their grip and set them aside. Alan Sieler writes that “…we are so attached to our own assumptions and assessments we weave a spell around ourselves, and we do an excellent job in limiting what we can learn from others. We close off the possibility that someone else could have something to say and contribute which could add to our listening.”

What Matters Most to Us

“A key element of the linguistic and emotional structure of humans is meaning. We can think of this structure as an interlocking set of concerns and interpretations. When we relate with others, we relate to their meaning—their concerns and interpretations. In our relationships and dealing with each other, our interpretations will continually be triggered. We will always be making our meaning of the words and non-verbal gestures of others.” — Alan Sieler

We’ve been circling around this idea of meaning, that meaning making happens in the observer and not the speaker. The speaker, of course, is also an observer. As we open our observational capacity by quieting our assumptions and assessments we create the space to attend not only to our own meaning making, but to the meaning making being revealed by another. We attune to what matters most to them, the concerns they are speaking to, and what they care about. We listen as an observer and honor their observer, acknowledging and legitimizing the differences between us. This is the essence of listening.

When we listen to the observer in another, while remaining aware of our own process of observation, we deepen the capacity to listen from and to difference. We can acknowledge what feels true for us, what feels true for another, and accept that each perspective is legitimate. This kind of listening builds trust, fosters respect, and allows each person to be in their own integrity. This isn’t listening to make wrong or to respond, but rather listening to understand.

The ability to listen in this way requires the entire body. We need to be able to sense and accept these differences emotionally, somatically, and linguistically. Sieler offers insight here once again writing, “the way we hold ourselves, in posture and muscle tension, will reflect the degree to which we are linguistically and emotionally open to another.”

Listening at this level opens us to relational attunement, rather than transactional communication. And when relational attunement is at the center of listening true growth and development begins to unfold. As Martin Buber writes, “we can only grow and develop once we have learned to live in relation with others.” This is the kind of listening that coaching inhabits—listening in a way that legitimizes another, that increases our understanding of another, and that creates a genuine human relationship. This listening widens the space of possibility so that growth and development can occur. Sieler again:

“Listening is at the heart of the issue of mutual respect and mutual legitimacy. We have a fundamental stance of openness in our listening when we hold the person as a “legitimate other”, which means a person of equal validity, not better and not worse. Holding another as a legitimate other is a Way of Being—it occurs in language, emotions, and our body.”

How We Listen

To change how we listen and respond, we have to change our interpretations. And in order for that to happen, we have to become aware of them. I’ll close out this issue by sharing a few reflection prompts from Alan Sieler that I've found useful to developing awareness of myself as an observer and who I am as a listener.

• What’s going on with me?
• How am I listening right now?
• What am I listening to?
• Where am I listening from?
• How might my prejudices be interfering with my listening?
• How could I shift my body to listen differently?
• Am I holding the the person I am listening to as a legitimate other?

Happy (inter)listening,

Andi

Resources

• Coaching to the Human Soul: Ontological Coaching and Deep Change Volume 1, Alan Sieler.
• Language and the Pursuit of Happiness: A New Foundation for Designing Your Life, Your Relationships, & Your Results, Chalmers Brothers.
• Listening, Thinking, Being: Towards an Ethics of Attunement, Lisbeth Lipari.
• The Ending of Time - David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti.
• I and Thou, Martin Buber.

Footnotes