It may surprise you to learn that, according to some studies, human beings now have a shorter attention span than goldfish. It’s unfair to call this dumbing down; it’s more a result of multitasking. At the dawn of the 21st century, the average human attention span was twelve seconds. Increasing dependence on digital devices, with all the distractions they bring, has reduced that figure to just eight seconds. The humble goldfish can retain its focus for nine.
Where does that leave clients who, above all else, need to have their voices heard? What if they come to us after struggling to make themselves understood and valued above the multimedia din?
We can’t truly listen to another person unless that’s the only thing we’re doing. Are you giving clients your undivided attention?
Active listening – focusing on what’s being said, and allowing no distractions – enables us to pick up on nuance and subtext. It encourages the speaker to open up to us, safe in the knowledge that in this room, their voice matters. In our personal lives, it nurtures trusting, respectful relationships. In our working lives, it’s one of the signature skills that entitles us to call ourselves professionals. Let’s explore some of the qualities that make an active listener, and touch on some that definitely don’t.
DO allow the speaker to finish the point they are making. When people are sharing sensitive information, it’s not unusual for them to pause, compose themselves and gather their thoughts. Let them. As you build rapport and trust, you’ll get to know when it’s safe and helpful to step in. Until then, make peace with the moments of silence.
DON’T assume you know the end of the story and push the client to skip forward to it. Even if you’re right, the act of sharing information in their own way and at their own pace is empowering for the client, Why take that away from them?
DO demonstrate attentiveness. Make eye contact, exhibit positive body language and, when the moment is right, smile. If you’re not sure when the moment is right, maybe you should be listening more attentively?
DON’T lose focus. Even in an empty room, it’s possible to be distracted by the sound of a ticking clock. And when someone mentions a place name or a type of behaviour that’s familiar to us, indiscipline might allow us to drift into a recollection of our own previous experiences. When it happens, and the speaker notices our distraction, it puts up a barrier that might not easily come down.
DO provide feedback. Active listening means understanding what we’re being told, and it enhances our understanding when we reflect the client’s words back to them and ask relevant questions. At an appropriate moment, offer your take on what the client is seeking to communicate. Tell them what you’re hearing and ask clarifying questions to confirm that you're on the same page.
DON’T pass judgement. It’s challenging enough for clients to open up and share personal information without having to face judgement when what they really need is understanding and support. When we engage with a client, the things we say and do either move them closer to self-esteem and wellness, or further away. Judgemental conduct moves them further away. It might be tempting to view a client’s situation as a puzzle to be solved, and congratulate ourselves on quickly identifying a missing piece. How does that make them feel, though? These are human beings, not pieces on a chess board or a jigsaw.
DO pay attention to detail. The nuance of a story, one word or even one inflection, can change its meaning completely. What may appear to be one kind of experience may turn out to be something very different. Any person’s day can turn from happy to unhappy and vice versa simply by turning a certain corner or opening a certain door. And any person’s story can turn 180 degrees without warning. If we’re listening, we’ll realise it and react appropriately.
DON’T focus on unimportant details. We should be able to draw the line between material and immaterial information. When a client shares something personal and possibly traumatic, we gain nothing by fixating on peripheral details that happen to trigger memories or knowledge of our own.
DO be honest. The client deserves our empathy, our respect and, ultimately, an honest response. If we’ve listened attentively, clarified meaning, shown appropriate concern and treated them as we’d want to be treated ourselves, we should have the information we need to give an open, honest response and the beginnings of a rapport that will help them accept our honesty in the spirit we intend.
DON’T just wait for your turn to talk. We all know people who sit and fidget while others speak, waiting for them to pause for breath so they can pounce and take the conversation in their preferred direction. It’s tempting to become a version of that person when we think we know what should happen next, or when we think our own previous experience can be overlaid onto a situation to cure all ills. The insularity of waiting for your turn to talk makes active listening impossible. It diminishes you, it diminishes the service you offer and it drastically diminishes your prospects of helping the person talking to you.
One of the casualties of our loss of focus is our inability to live in the moment and fully appreciate an experience. Dividing our attention between the here and now, and any number of “over there and then” scenarios, is a little like reaching a long-anticipated page in a novel, and instead of simply reading and enjoying it, darting back to previous pages to recap, then jumping forward to the last page for an ending we won’t understand, checking out the author’s Wikipedia page and Googling cinema listings to find out if the movie adaptation is showing nearby. Instead of absorbing the words and being enriched by them, we allow them to drift into the background. Our lives are a series of moments and experiences that we owe it to ourselves to get the most out of. Just read the book.
I’ve heard people describe their daily lives as resembling being trapped in a goldfish bowl, sometimes because they are well-known and can’t escape prying eyes wherever they go, sometimes because they simply feel trapped and unable to escape an unhappy routine. When those people ask for our support, we can start by aiming higher than the eight second attention span of the average person or the nine seconds they might get from a goldfish and offering them the attention they deserve. Don’t just listen. Listen actively.