EXCERPTS - LISTENING TO PEOPLE BY RALPH G. NICHOLS AND LEONARD A. STEVENS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00586R000100180002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 12, 2001
• Sequence Number: 2
• Content Type: PAPER

Exce is - LISTENING TO P'"_ -`+PLENW
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The Unused Potential
It can be stated that people in general do not know how to listen. They
have ears that hear very well, but seldom have they acquired the necessary
aural skills which would allow those ears to be used effectively for what is.
called listening.
Extensive tests have led to this general conclusion: immediately after
the average person has listened to someone talk, he remembers only about
half of what he has heard - no matter how carefully he thought he was listening.
Two months after listening to a talk, the average listener will remember only
about 25% of what was said. In fact, after we have barely learned something,
we tend to forget from one-half to one-third of it within eight hours; it is star-
tling to realize that frequently we forget more in this first short interval than
we do in the next six months.
Gap in Trainin
Behind this widespread inability to listen lies,.. in our opinion, a major
oversight in our system of classroom instruction. We have focused attention
on reading, considering it the primary medium by which we learn, and we have
practically forgotten the art of listening. About six years are devoted to for-
mal reading instruction in our.. school systems. Little emphasis is placed on
speaking, and almost no attention has been given to the skill of listening,
strange as this may be in view of the fact that so much lecturing is done in
college. Listening training - if it could be called training - has often con-
sisted merely of a series of admonitions extending from the first grade through:
college: "Pay attention! 1"Now get this ! " "Open your ears! " "Listen! "
We have been faced with several false assumptions which have blocked
the teaching of listening. For example:
(1) We have assumed that listening ability depends largely on intelli-
gence, that "bright" people listen well, and "dull" ones poorly. There
is no denying that low intelligence has something to do with inability to
listen, but we have greatly exaggerated its importance. A poor listener
is not necessarily an unintelligent person. To be good listeners we must
apply certain skills that are acquired through either experience or train-
ing. If a person has not acquired these listening skills, his ability to
understand and retain what he hears will be low. This can happen to
people with both high and low levels of intelligence.
(2) We have assumed. that learning to read will automatically teach
one to listen. While some of the skills attained through reading apply to
listening, the assumption is far from completely valid. Listening is a
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different activity from reading and requires different s ci Os? 02R_9
has shown that reading and listening skills do not improve at the same
rate when only reading is taught.
This means that in our schools, where little atter..ion is paid to the
aural element of communication, reading ability is continually upgraded
while listening ability, left to falter along on its own, actually degenerates.
As a fair reader and a bad listener, the typical student is graduated into
a society where the chances are high that he will have to listen about three
times as much as he reads.
The barriers to listening training that have been built up by such false
assumptions are coming down. Educators are realizing that listening is a
skill that can be taught.
Tracks and Sidetracks
In general, people feel that concentration while listening is a greater prob-
lem than concentration during any other form of personal communication.
Actually, listening concentration is more difficult. When we listen, concen-
tration must be achieved despite a factor that is peculiar to aural communica-
tion, one of which few people are aware? Basically, the problem is caused
by the fact that we think much faster than we talk. The ae rate of__s~aeech
' arn=d 125 words per minute.
for most Americans is
Certainly words play a large part in our thinking processes, and the words
race through our brains at speeds much higher than 125 words per minute.
This means that, when we listen, we ask our brain to receive words at an ex-
tremely slow pace compared with its capabilities.
It might seem logical to slow down our thinking when we listen so as to
coincide with the 125-word-per-minute speech rate, but slowing down thought
processes seems to be a very difficult thing to do. When we listen, therefore,
we continue thinking at high speed while the spoken words arrive at low speed.
In the act of listening, the differential between thinking and speaking rates
means that our brain works with hundreds of words in addition to those that
we hear, assembling thoughts other than those spoken to us. To phrase it
another way, we can listen and still have some spare time for thinking.
Rules for Good Reception
Thus, a major task in helping to listen better is teaching them to use
their spare thinking time efficiently as they listen. Good listeners regularly
engage in four mental activities, each geared to the oral discourse and taking
place concurrently with that oral discourse. All four of these mental activi-
ties are neatly cc-:.rdinated when listening works at its best. They tend to
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direct a maximum amount of thought to the message being receive , leaving
a minimum of time for mental excursions on sidetracks leading away from
the talker's thought. Here are the four processes:
(1) The listener thinks a_ h_,_ead of the talker, trying to anticipate what
the oral discourse is leading to and what conclusions will be drawn from
the words spoken at the moment.
(2) The listener weighs the evidence used by the talker to support
the points that he makes. "Is this evidence valid?" the listener asks
himself. "Is it the complete evidence?"
(3) Periodically the listener reviews and mentally summarizes the
points of the talk completed thus far.
(4) Throughout the talk, the listener "listens between the lines" in
search of meaning that is not necessarily put into spoken words. He pays
attention to nonverbal communication (facial expressions, gestures, tone
of voice) to see if it adds meaning to the spoken words. He asks him-
self, "Is the talker purposely skirting some area of the subject? Why is
he doing so?"
The speed at which we think compared to that at which people talk allows
plenty of time to accomplish these four mental tasks when we listen; however,
they do require practice before they can become part of the mental agility
that makes for good listening.
Listening for Ideas
Another factor that affects listening ability concerns the reconstruction
of orally communicated thoughts once they have been received by the listener.
For some reason many people take great pride in being able to say that above
all they try to "get the facts" when they listen. It seems logical enough to do
so. If a person gets all the facts, he should certainly understand what ;s said
to him. Therefore, many people try to memorize every single fact that is
spoken. With such practice at "getting the facts, " the listener, we can safely
assume, will develop a serious bad listening habit.
Memorizing facts is, to begin with, a virtual impossibility for most
people in the listening situation. As one fact is being memorized, the wb -)le,
or part, of the next fact is almost certain to be missed. When he is doing his
very best, the listener is likely to catch only a few facts, garble many others,
and completely miss the remainder. Even in the case of people who can
aurally assimilate all the facts that they hear, one at a time as they hear then.
listening is still likely to be at a low level; they are concerned with the pieces
of what they hear and tend to miss the broad areas of the spoken communica-
tion.
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facts are useful chiefly for constructing the ideas. Grasping ideas, we have
found, is the skill on which the good listener concentrates. He remembers
facts only long enough to understand the ideas that are built from them. But
then, almost miraculously, grasping an idea will help the listener to remem-
ber the supporting facts more effectively than does the person who goes after
facts alone.
Emotional Filters
In different degrees and in many different ways, listening ability is
affected by our emotions. Figuratively we reach up and mentally turn off
what we do not want to hear. Or, on the other hand, when someone says what
we especially want to hear, we open our ears wide, accepting everything -
truths, half-truths, or fiction.
If we hear something that opposes our most deeply rooted prejudices,
notions, convictions, mores, or complexes, our brains may become over-
stimulated, and not in a direction that leads to good listening. We mentally
plan a rebuttal to what we hear, formulate a question designed to embarrass
the talker, or perhaps simply turn to thoughts that support our own feelings
on the subject at hand.
What can we do about these emotional filters? The solution is not easy
in practice, although it can be summed up in this simple admonition: hear
the man out. Following are two pointers that often help in training people to
do this:
(1) Withhold evaluation - while listenin , the main object is to com-
prehend each point made by the talker; judgments and decisions should
be reserved until after the talker has finished. At that time, and only
then, review his main ideas and assess them.
(2) Hunt for negative evidence - an important part of listening com-
prehension is found in the search for negative evidence in what we hear.
If we make up our minds to seek out the ideas that might prove us wrong,
as well as those that might prove us right, we are less in danger of
missing what people have to say.
What are some of the specific problems which better listening can help
solve ?
Less Paper Work
Incidents created by poor listening frequently give managers a real fear
of oral communication. As a result, they insist that more and more communi-
cation should be put into writing. Paper work piles higher and higher and
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causes part of the tangle we call red tape. any times ess wri. x a d more
speaking would be advisable - if we could plan on good listening.
Writing and reading are much slower communication elements than speak-
ing and listening. They require more personnel, more equipment, and more
space than do speaking and listening.
Upward Communication
There are many avenues through which management can send messages
downward through an organization, but there are few avenues for movement
of information in the upward direction. Perhaps the most obvious of the up-
ward avenues is the human chain of people talking to people.
This communication chain has potential, but it seldom works well be-
cause it is full of bad listeners. There can be failure for at least three
reasons:
(1) Witho?it good listeners, people do not talk freely and the flow of
communication is seldom set in motion.
(2) If the flow should start, only one bad listener is needed to stop
its movement toward the top.
(3) Even if the flow should continue to the top, the messages are
likely to be badly distorted along the way.
Human Relations
People in all phases of management need to feel free to talk to their
superiors and to know they will. be met w'.th sympathetic understanding. But
too many superiors - although they announce that their doors are always
open - fail to listen; and their subordinates, in the face of this failure, do not
feel free ttoo say what they want to say. As a result, subordinates withdraw
from their superiors more and more. They fail to talk about important prob-
lems that should be aired for both parties' benefit. When such problems
remain unaired, they often turn into unrealistic monsters that come back to
plague the superior who failed to listen.
The remedy for this sort of aural failure - and it should be applied -hen
subordinates feel the need to talk - is what we have called "nondirective
listening. The listener hears, really tries to understand, and later shows
understanding by taking action if it is required. Above all, during an oral
discourse, the listener refrains from firing his own thoughts back at the
person talking or from indicating his displeasure or disapproval by his
mannerisms or gestures; he speaks up only to ask for clarification of a
point.
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Since the listener stands the chance o. searing at is most ear y held
notions and ideas may be wrong, this is not an easy thing to do. To listen
nondirectively without fighting back requires more courage than most of us
can muster. But when nondirective listening can be applied, the results are
usually worth the effort. The persons talking have a chance to unburden them-
selves. Equally important, the odds are better that the listener can counsel
or act effectively when the time comes to make a move.
Listening is only one phase of human relations, only one aspect of the
administrator's job; by itself it will solve no major problems. Yet the past
experience of many executives and organizations leaves no doubt, in our
opinion, that better listening can lead to a reduction of the human frictions
which beset many organizations today.
In Conference
A great deal has been said and written about how to talk at a conference,
how to compromise, how to get problem-centered, and how to cope with cer-
tain types of individuals. All these things can be very important, but too
frequently the experts forget to say, "First and foremost you must learn to
listen at a conference. "
People get together to contribute their different viewpoints, knowledge,
and experience to members of the group, which then seeks the best of all the
conferees' thinking to solve a common problem. If there is far more talking
than listening at a conference, however, the oral contributions made to the
group are hardly worth the breath required to produce them.
More and better listening at any conference is certain to facilitate the
exchange of ideas so important to the success of a meeting. It also offers
many other advantages; for example, when participants do a good job of
listening, their conference is more likely to remain centered on the problem
at hand and less likely to go off on irrelevant tangents.
The first steps toward improved conference listening can be taken by the
group leader. If he will simply make an opening statement calling attention to
the importance of listening, he is very likely to increase the participants'
aural response. And if the leader himself does a good job of listening, he
stands the chance of being imitated by the others in his group.
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