There are a lot of people who are hearing but they are not listening. In today’s conversation, everybody talks, nobody listens. Most of them are not listening to the person talking. They seem to be quiet, pretending to hear from the speaker, but they are just waiting for their turn to speak. Some cannot even wait for their turn so they cut the other person in midsentence. A certain Al Ries observed that we are an over- communicated society today. We send more and receive less.
Listening and hearing are two different things. Hearing is merely physical, it is being aware of the sound entering your two ears. Listening is mental. The message goes to your mind and you will understand the meaning of the sound. And of course, the message affects your thinking.
The present generation, the millennials, do not listen to speeches anymore. Worse, they do not even hear public speakers after 5 to 10 minutes due to the so called attention deficit disorder. Speakers have to be ingenuous and be very crafty to sustain their audience.
Our listening ability has been tinkered somehow as we grow and develop into adults. It could be because it was not nurtured. We learned about reading and writing and a little bit of speaking in school. Unfortunately, there was no subject on listening skills development.
Listeners are a rarity in this generation. It has become a skill possessed by a few. It is like common sense. It is not common anymore. If your ears are not trained to listen you will definitely have problems in this area. It takes a lot of hours of practice to master it.
The secret of getting a lot of useful information (including the useless and the trivial) is to listen. This is what I do. I like it better for the other person to monopolize the conversation. I just listen and I will obtain several information I might need in the future. I let the other person do the talking. Let him or her feel important and wiser than me. But it is my way of observing and determining who I am dealing with.
Listening also prevents conflict especially in relationships. If one is talking, the other should listen. If both parties are talking at the same time, there can be no peace and harmony in your house or in your organization.
As to how I am able to acquire information from other people, I ask questions. It is my default mode of conversation most of the time. And it is effective most of the time. If you ask me how I do it. Well, like listening, it is also an art. You have to master it.
