Hearing or Listening: It Depends on Your Eyes

Published October 10, 1985. Not long ago I was sitting in my comfortable chair reading the evening newspaper. My 5-year-old daughter Kristin came over by my chair and started talking to me while I was reading the paper. She continued to talk, and I thought I was listening, even though I continued reading. Finally, she could see she didn’t have my complete attention. So she put her hands on both sides of my face and turned it toward her. Then she said, “Daddy, when you listen to me, listen to me with your eyes.”

Many, like myself, need to improve our listening skills. Anyone wishing to do so may want to review Mortimer Alder’s excellent book “How to Speak: How to Listen.” He says that of the four major communication skills—reading, writing, speaking and listening—we spend approximately 15 percent of our time reading, 9 percent writing, 30 percent speaking, and 46 percent listening. Even though we spend nearly half of our communicative efforts in listening, it is the area where we have the least training.

Alder notes, “If asked why this is so, one response may be that instruction in writing played a part in our schooling and that some attention, though much less, was paid to develop the skills of reading and speaking (which is shocking). Almost no attention at all was given to the skill of listening. Another response may be forthcoming from the person who renewals the mistaken notion that listening involves little more than keeping quiet while the other person talks. Good manners may be required, but not much skill.”

Adler then gives these insights and states the importance of concentration in effective listening:

“The ears have nothing comparable to eyelids, but they can be effectively sealed as eyelids can be closed. Sometimes both close at the same time, but it is often the case that the ear is turned off while the eyes are open. That matters little if, in either case, the mind’s attention is turned to other matters rather than what is being heard or seen.  What the senses register are sounds and sights that lack significance. Listening, like reading, is primarily an activity of the mind, not the ear or the eye. When the mind is not actively involved in the process, it should be called hearing, not listening.”

Dr. Adler suggests that a major mistake most people make in listening is in regarding it as passive reception rather than active participation. He then gives a vivid analogy of his observation:

“The catcher behind the plate is just as active a baseball player as the pitcher on the mound. The same is true in football of the tight end who receives the forward pass from the quarterback who throws it. Receiving the ball, in both cases, requires actively reaching out to complete the play. Catching is as much an activity as throwing and requires as much skill, though it is a skill of a different kind. Without the complementary efforts of both players, properly attuned to each other, the play cannot be completed . . . Of course, the fault may not always lie with the listener. The failure to catch a wild pitch is not the catcher’s fault. So, too, some spoken utterances are either so devoid of meaning and coherence, so befuddled and confusing in their use of words, that the best listener can make little sense of them. Some are such defective presentations of what is in the mind of the speaker that they are not worth paying much attention to, if any at all.”

Remember what my daughter Kristen taught me about listening. When you listen, listen with your eyes, as well as your mind and heart.