Listening as a “creative force”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but people in general are not good listeners. One reason might be that we stop listening to each other almost the moment a conversation has begun.

In a typical conversation, say the experts, the average gap between one person speaking and the other person responding is an unbelievable 200 milliseconds. That’s not enough time to form a thought let alone speak it. So how do we do it? Simple. By preparing our responses while the other person is still talking.

Contrary to popular belief, humans cannot multi-task, so if we’re busy forming our opinion before the other person has finished their thought, there isn't much listening going on. Which may help explain why, on average, we only listen with 25% efficiency. Imagine only being able to see 25% of what you’re looking at. You’d be missing a huge part of the picture.

From an evolutionary perspective, of course, it’s reasonable to assume that this 200 millisecond interval must have once given our species some sort of survival advantage. Times change, however, and in today’s world it’s clear that our preference for speaking over listening is a serious survival disadvantage. The more we fail to listen to each other, the wider the gulf between us, and the less able we are to address our many challenges.  

Which is why I think of listening as the survival skill of the 21st century.

Now for some people that statement will rub them the wrong way – they think the time for listening has passed, and that what we most need now is action. I partially agree. I’d say that the time for listening with only 25% comprehension has passed. What’s needed now is to take listening to a whole new level – the level at which listening becomes, in the words of my latest podcast guest, Kay Lindahl, a creative force. 

Kay Lindahl

Kay is the founder of The Listening Center and the author of The Sacred Art of Listening. One reason she calls listening a creative force is because it has the power to change both the listener and the person being listened to. That’s because, also contrary to what most people think, people learn when they talk. Especially when they’re asked the right questions. Not entrapment questions, but genuinely curious questions — questions that help people discover the assumptions and motivations that, until someone asked, were hidden from them. It’s at that level of listening that hearts and minds begin to change.

By listening in this way, says Kay:  

We become the midwife for someone else's thinking. So the space that we can offer, as a listener, gives someone the space to really speak from their deepest selves, and discover things about themselves that they might not have known before. 

This kind of listening, however, takes practice. After all, having two ears does not make us a good listener any more than having two legs makes us an olympic runner. Says Kay:

Holding the space for someone to speak their truth takes practice. It's not easy to [hold that space] because it means we have to let go of our own agenda, our own thoughts — for the moment — so that we can be fully present to the other person.

Developing such a practice is the focus of Kay’s training, and her approach is unusual. Rather than teach specific listening skills or methodologies, Kay teaches how to develop what she calls “a listening presence.” And that, she says, is more art than technique:

Think about a time when someone was really listening to you. They weren't thinking about what they were going to say next, or what they were going to do next, or where they were going to go. They were really present. How did that make you feel? 

Most people say it made them feel heard, validated, loved, cared for, nurtured, valued — all those kinds of things. And those are experiences where we feel ‘at one’ with somebody else, there's a oneness to those experiences. 

And that's when I think listening shifts from something that we do, to something that we be — so we become a listening presence. And that's the art.

To learn more about what Kay has to teach, I highly recommend listening to our entire conversation. You’ll find it here.