How do you handle conversational topics that are irrelevant to you. I've been in situations in which the topic of discussion is not interesting to say the least. Unfortunately the only way I can politely cope with it is to zone out. Please advise how I should handle the situation!

Thanks!

Exactly my woe as posted by Tariq!! Sir, how do you handle such conversations which are irrelevant to you? At times, people who make such conversations are important and I have to admit that there were times I had to pretend that I was listening to them and later on felt guilty of doing so ....but what to do in such situations??

Thanks,

Kirti

Dear Tariq and Kirti,

This really does happen to everyone!

As a Master Practitioner of NLP and a coach (as well as the 'day job' of Human Resources professional!) I constantly have to pick myself up on this one - trying to avoid my eyes glazing over and so on - even if it's only my son going on about football or motorbikes!

My tip - if I may give one - be curious! Be interested! Obviously what the other person is saying is of importance to them so try and figure out why that is. Practice also makes perfect!

Warm regards
Angela
Isle of Man

When I can't take it anymore, I excuse myself to the restroom. They won't follow you in there.

Dear Kirti and Tariq:

It happens to everybody, that is true. Ms Lawrence is right.

I just want to add to her - we would have to start liking the speaker. It seems queer but doable. Try to imagine her as one of your loved ones - relatives, friends or acquaintaces. With practice it gets easy in long run. After that it becomes really easy to be empathic to a speaker even when she is not talking on topics of our interest. We will definitely neither be tuned out nor feel the need to go out to washroom to avoid the embarassments caused to speaker because of our inappropriate gestures. It would eventually benefit all of us. Nothing is useless anyway, we just need to look at from a distance.

Listening is a skill and one has to train oneself. Listening makes you all the more selfish. It is in the interest of everybody, then and therefore.

I agree with the proposal in general, however it depends whether it is a conversation between 2 persons or being a member of a group. In a p2p conversation the Jesuits are training their students in "acceptance repeating", or meta - communication, making sure the other understood, which is only possible if he was listening before.
Western listening is also different from Asian thinking, listening and responding, therefore there is no global answer.

Wilhans

Listening is also about keeping your speakers at ease and in, possibly, the most comfortable condition, so that we could get the maximum. For example, we can show we believe in their abilities using our body language. I have also felt I give my maximum and deliver my best among the audiences who have trust in me and reminds me every now and then they are listening to me.
Audiences may provide challenge to their speakers through nonverbal and verbal means to keep them alert about their goals, but not to threaten their position in conversations.

Evaluation of what audiences have listened to, comes later and should come later, where they try to find out what they have actually learnt.

Listening is indeed an art that requires practise, especially when we don't really want to listen: we have a great advert on the TV for a fast-food chain:
Wife comes home and looks at husband, who is playing on his play-station.
She says: Honey, you haven't forgotten about supper tonight?
He continues playing (obviously not listening) and says: No, of course not.
She says: So where is it?
He replies: Oh the food. Would you mind getting something? Here is my credit card.
She smiles: Of course I will. And can I also get that black dress I wanted?
He says (still focussing on the play-station) Yes, sure, whatever.
She says: And can get the matching shoes?
He says: Yes yes yes.
Later that evening he looks at her new shoes and says: Hey when did you get those?
She just smiles.

Listening is an essential part of communication.

Have any of you read the work by C Otto Scharmer on listening and dialogue? It is really great work and distinguisges between 4 diferent types of listening and dialogue. Check on Otto's website for more info on that.

How to check that what ever has been communicated has gone down well and full understood by the listener

when listening to others,not only I receive infos.from them,but also I feel the enjoy of communicating.While not always I could make that above I think,more times,it's a state of receiving info
.If I could take my time,maybe I could enjoy the listening.

Tariq and Kirti - You may not care about the topic, but you may care about the people. If you do, 'tough it out' and show interest for their sake - not yours.
Angela, NK, Johan, wpson and Deepak - Thank you for these great suggestions!

Deepak Dimri:
We simply have to be close observers of communication styles of our audiences, i.e. both verbal and nonverbal. Do they want us to continue the way we are going on? Do they want us to change our ways? Are they happy and engaged? Are they quizzical? Are they lost? Do we need to stop and explain? Do we need to simply slow down? Answers to these questions will pave a way for us.

Actually as per our role in communication situations, either as a listener or a presenter, we have to assume our responsibilities. We must take responsibility for success or failure of the communication situation we are in.

As listeners, we should be bothered by how to gain more from the communication situation by changing our ways of listening from merely being empathic to critical or evaluative, by analysing the speaker. If listeners do not succeed in getting anything out of the speaker, the blame for this failure should go to them. They simply can not put the blame on the speaker and enjoy the scene. Audiences can not enjoy their loss.

As presenters, we should be more interested in our deliverables, i.e. takeaways in our presentations. We should be concerned what we say and, also, if that makes sense and forms relevance for our audiences. This can be checked through a close observation of the audience's reactions and their communication styles.

We can not mix our roles and associated responsibilities in one communication situation.

Dr Goldsmith! Thank you for your kind appreciations!

Dear Deepak,

you can always know this by asking open - ended questions.
Or simply ask"Am I making sense to you?", Do you agree?", "What would you do in a similar situation?"

The best way to show you are listening is to ask pertinent questions about what you have heard OR reiterate the context to show understanding. In the emergency room, not listening carefully and extracting further info can be dire for the patient. Reading temper and demeanor in addition to physical exam can implement proper diagnosis. The greatest lesson in communication came from my father. Never expect understanding if you don't use language that the listener can understand. RE you don't talk string theory to toddlers. Thus it is as important to assess your listener's education, as it is to display yours.

Lessons that I have learnt about communication over the years as a 'marriage counsellor' is that it is a two way responsibility. That is, the listner has to give the presenter a 'listening experience', while the presenter has to package the information in a way that the listner can 'take it in'.

That's my 'two bobs worth'.

What an important topic this is, and one germane to our everyday lives.

I don't believe that just adjusting our faces and posture to look more as if we are interested, as if we are truly listening, is the answer. That's just us becoming better actors. And everyone is left bereft in the interaction.

Studies have proven that unconsciously we can tell the difference between a fake smile and a real smile and it is most likely the same regarding the rest of our postures.

So how to cope genuinely with the issue? It involves inner and outer work to become an authentic listener and communicator. Here's just one point to consider.

You always have choices, both inwardly and outwardly, in being with others.

A relevant question: Do you listen to yourself and are you willing to be authentic about what you hear when you do?

If you're sitting in a kitchen on a Sunday with your grandmother-in-law and she is going on and on about people you don't even know and their children and the careers they chose . . . you become aware of the thoughts you're having (I'm so bored! I don't give a bleep about these people! I want to check my messages. There's a ball game on TV in the other room. How did I get locked in here? How clueless she is!)

Now, open your aperture a little to include her and drop into your heart more. Maybe you see that she is in a wheelchair and the part of the family she lives with has ceased to listen to her. She is desperately alone. All she has is her memories and her opinions. For her, you are a Reality check, a hope, possibly a human angel, or just another nail in the coffin of her unspeakably lonely life.

You have choices here: you can really begin to engage with her and ask a question: so what is your opinion here?

This is a good question to introduce to get someone to cut to the chase in any long, draining, rambling, irrelevant monologue. Then, when they are put to the task of synthsizing the what into the why, you can at least acknowledge, if not validate, their opinion and then have a good spot to say--I'm sorry to change the subject, but I need to . . .

Another choice would be to ask her, quite honestly, how she sees the relevance to your situation or hers. And then tell her just how time-managed and busy your life is, how much you must filter and cut away to stay focused on your goals . . . in other words, maybe you can engage her interest in the very thing that's really happening there, which is that you are unwilling or unable to disengage from your own program to let someone else run theirs. The trick is to form the bridge between them, through being genuine and revealing yourself in the moment.

Of course, another choice is to find a polite and yet caring escape. Making eye contact or, when appropriate, touching the person's hand and letting them know that what you're doing is without malice, makes a big difference in the impact your disengagement makes on that person.

Acting, posturing, learning rules will never replace becoming a person of awareness and a person who's heart is truly open to the other.

jc@jariscope.com

Look Like You're Listening
Marshall Goldsmith on October 16, 2007 8:25 AM
Dear Marshall
Today 19th January 2008
I agree with you but this is very tricky. I mean you can look someone straight, like the actors do, and pretend you are with the speaker. There are other times when I know from my experience in public speaking, the common phrase, look at someone at the back of the audiences as if you are addressing someone there, knocks out your stage fright. Now here comes your phrase. Who do I listen and who I speak to.
This days the employees are trained, exactly as you state here, may be from the similar columns, and act exactly confident and prudent the honest applicant to the job. Come the work experience, there is a disaster. The confidence boost also comes from the drugs that are in the market. These sooth you or caffeinate you.
The truth is hidden so deep that many times the right employee gets told to leave and the pseudo employs good is employed. Here is a bizarre experience I had. I was given the electronics show room selling personal computers. The sales are in the accounting package. The accountant I found out stayed on from 7 m to 7 pm. I asked him what exactly was difficult. His reply, too much work. He was in the firm for more then ten years. Here comes the crux. I stayed on with him. The work was two hours constructive. He used to say confidentially about the hard work to the non IT manager. I had the IT experience on hardware and software and the packages. He soon found out that the speech to me was different then to the others who heard this. He left. I leave the stage to you. Many in these manners get away with the way they look at you, listen to you nodding the head, and have no idea of what you are talking. Been to the lengthy sermons by the priests? Well there you are. You nod and your thoughts, “When does he end. I want to see if the headlights of my cars are switched off and Tommy, the dog, needs feeding” You nod with different directions saying yes when you mean no.

I thank you
Firozali A Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania

Firozali A. Mulla:

Ineresting episodes and observations, indeed! But Dr Goldsmith's contention is different, I suppose.

I say listening is listeners' perspective. It is upto listeners to decide what their intention is. The listeners should pretend to be listening despite their decision and intention to listen or not to listen to. They pretend (if their intention is to listen to) so that speakers get the listeners' decision and their support and they carry on with their act of speaking getting encouraged.

However, the listeners can also pretend, in case their intention is not to listen to. Listeners' nonverbal communications should not act as a catalyst in creating distractions for speakers and thereby creating barriers for other listeners.

Thank you!

Hello

Back again just to say I commend to you Nancy Kline's book - Time to Think.

I have no connection with Ms Kline in any way but found her book - about thinking AND listening very powerful and well worth reading.

Warm regards

Angela
Isl;e of Man

Hi everybody

I am new to this discussion and site. After going through the posted discussions i am very much impressed to read the energetic and interested postings. I hope i would also participate in the conversation.

warm regards

Thanks

Ravi Sekhar

Look Like You're Listening
Posted by Marshall Goldsmith on October 16, 2007 8:25 AM
I think that I am a pretty good listener, but the people around me disagree. Any suggestions?
Marshall.
Let me share my experience with yours and others. At times, it is really not our fault that our speech falls on the floor like a pancake. I am a good speaker. I have written many articles on public speaking. I learn this from the biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Dale Carnegie books plus the updates for HBR. I was to speak on, “How banks create money and the Roll of Bank of Tanzania. This was in The British Council. The time allowed is two hours, speech plus all chip in and discuss until all are happy. The summary of the speech is posted in the Management Forum for those who missed the speech .This way all are kept informed. .
I stated off as usual. The speaker’s hint. Look at the back of the audience and pretend that you have someone there who you know and you are trying to explain the topic to him/her in a very Fridley manner. This is my way of speaking and I win. Here I go. After the speech and few questions, there were two staff from the bank of Tanzania who asked me to repeat few economic jargons. I did but I too was surprised why they working in the bank ask me the simple math of the deposit in the head office and the branch amount to the double deposit. In other word for those who may be new to this, I explain. If you deposit 5,000 in the branch of a bank call this XDODum bank, the deposit you have made is transferred to the head office. Therefore, what you deposited 5,000. is in the head office as cash transferred and the book entry the total 10,000. If not clear, please ask an economist.
Here comes the blast from the employees. ,” Sir, we are hardly allowed to look deeper. All we do is collect cash, stash these and account for this. Close this and stop for the day. We never knew about this creation bomb.”
There you have.
Marshall, tell me what do you do under these circumstances. You are very helpless. You dare not explain further as this may be intruding the bank’s business and teaching the staff what they are not supposed to know. .
So here, you listen your own speech. You do not talk nor do you understand why you speak.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

It's great to have such a group

excellent

Hello!

First i'm going to excuse myself for my english. I'm writing from Argentina.
Here goes my advice if you are not interested in what the other person is telling you.
Try to understand what is happening in that person heart. If you try this, you are going to be able to understand him or her, then traine your skills in listening and reading the life of other people, not just the problem. It's a way to selfeducate your own life enriched with the others life. This way you are going to be much more interested because it's going to be useful for you and the other person.

Bye

i felt during structured communication such as -meeting, if you have an agenda then only last five minute discussion will be on that agenda and rest of the meeting time will be worthless discussion ,but on the contrary if you do not have a clear cut agenda of the meeting then all the time you have for the meeting will be utilised properly

How about falling in a trap that someone starts preaching, which is of 0% interest to you. Even though you wish and try to get interested in ongoing preaching but when u infect hate the topic how come u'll get interested. (especially religious preaching)

Situation which grab you in such an odd scenario where you are unable to change the topic.

Situation where someone starts telling you his/her self praised stories and how heroic they prove to be and you look at your watch several times but they do not give up.

Come on gentlemen give us some very practice advise. Getting interested in topic or in someone is not the solution.

Dear Maneer

I too experienced the similar situations.

In those cases, few times i falied but euqally i succeeded by non-verbal behaviour.

Just produce some body language and non-verbal behaviour to pay the other person's attention that you are not interested in his topic. This way could be gentle one but works better rather abrupting him or forcebly getting interest into the topic.

Please respond..

regards
Ravi Sekhar

Hello everyone!

It is true that sometimes, listening to someone else is boring, irrelevant, unimportant and even no other go!

Wouldn't be wise to sift through the talk and find one or more nuggets from the talk that you can use later.

Aftr all, no one knows everything!

I have seen leaders who purposely collect both vital and silly information from talks that helps their positions and decisions.

Thanks and regards,

S.R. Muruganandam

Look Like You're Listening
Look Like You're Listening.
You can only make anyone listen if you can talk to yourself and listen. You have to listen to talk and talk to listen. You have to be in the box and in the box.
I think we have come to one conclusion. One way is to look at the HBR the other is Economist that like HBR, opened the way to the think tank.
There is no way you can please all the listeners. I have seen in TV when the politicians talk, even when the president talks there are some who are snoring. It is also true that we need to ready where we talk. There is a huge difference between the small crowd and the palladium crowding the group. With this goes the now the desktop presentations that need more attentions as to your PC and see if any slide is slipped out. Honest. It may have been a excellent one in the office however by the time it is in the hall, your attention is already focused on who will point out the wrong one just in case.
This makes you unable to talking where there listeners are present but they are not with you, close yet far away.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla MBA PhD
P.O.Box 6044
Dar-Es-Salaam
Tanzania
East Africa

Read this:

I like a singer. I like some of his songs. Then there were some songs I never liked. Some interesting episodes of his life got published in a certain newspaper and I happened to read that - how he actually struggled very hard to reach the position he had reached eventually; how many broken relationship he had in his life and so on. I started wondering how he managed to sing so many hilarious, funny and happy songs despite the negativity in his life. I started reading meanings in some of his sad songs, looking deeper into his voice rather than the lyrics. Whenever I looked at his photographs, I always looked into his eyes for the shadow of those broken relationships and the struggle of his life. I realised I had already developed an 'empathy' for him. Now I like all his songs. Perhaps because I know the person in him, and then, I like the person in him.

Not only this: Observe the fact how we listen to the misplaced and unstructured arguments given by our loved ones, such as our kids, brothers and sisters, and still like them with all their communciations.

EMPATHY is the KEY to better communication. No strategy could be better than empathy.