You’re Not Listening

What You’re Missing and Why it Matters

Kate Murphy

Who should read: If you feel like you are struggling with being heard, or struggling to stay present in a conversation.

Favorite quote: “The solutions to problems are often already within people, and just by listening, you help them access how best to handle things, now and also in the future.” 

Why I feel it is important to veterinary medicine: Listening is such a critical skillset, and the world over has room for improvement in this area! By being a better listener yourself, you can begin to reverse hack how to engage others into listening to you better.

Who listens to you? Really, really listens? What is different about the interaction from every other interaction?
How much information do you think your clients get from you? Studies in human medicine show that the patient forgets 40-80% of what the doctor communicates, and half the information remembered is recalled incorrectly! (Kessels, 2003) Outside of a medical context, things aren’t any better, with only about a 20-25% retention rate. (Husman, 1988) Listening is such a powerful skill, that when scientists did fMRI scans of people communicating well, they found their brain patterns synched! I don’t know about you, but many, if not most of my daily frustrations as a veterinarian are related to people not listening to me. Or probably more accurately, not absorbing what I’m communicating. While we can’t force someone to listen to us, we can definitely hack our way to maximizing our success in them listening! Listening is a skill that ANYONE can improve on, so if we take the time to improve and bring awareness to our own skills, we can begin to recognize and address where we might be losing others in the midst of our communication. 

Where Things Go Wrong During Listening:

Social Contract

There is a subconscious (for most of us) expectation and agreement for etiquette in communication. When one of the participants fails to adhere to these expectations, communication can break down and it becomes very difficult to listen well. Practicing your skills of each of the following maxims will improve your listener’s engagement. 

1. Maxim of Quality: Expectation of truth. 

If someone is giving us false information, we tend to ruminate on the offense, failing to catch much after. So, getting comfortable with “I don’t know”, or “I’ll have to look it up” can go a long way. As can an ability to recognize when understanding of the truth is at odds. If a client is religiously committed to a raw food diet, and you make a statement disagreeing with that, even if off-hand, they are going to struggle to listen to anything else. So, picking your battles strategically, or resolving your battles is vital. If the patient in question needs critical care or treatment, discuss this first, before launching a discussion about food, or leave the diet for another time. 

2. Maxim of Quantity: Succinctness. 

New information arrests our attention. Too much new information exhausts our attention. As a specialist, I often find my clients have either already had lengthy discussions with their veterinarian, or they are dedicated enough to have done a lengthy internet search. So, I’ve switched from having a script about common things (for instance, cranial cruciate ligament disease), and have moved to asking them to tell me what they know or understand, and where they have concerns or questions. This actually saves me a lot of time, gives me a clear understanding of where they may have misconceptions, and engages them into participating in the conversation, which promotes active listening. When I use my scripts, I usually find clients are much less engaged, there is a long awkward silence at completion (probably overwhelm), and I subjectively feel these cases are more prone to misunderstandings. 

3. Maxim of Relation: Pertinent and orderly communication. 

If I go off on a tangent about non-relevant hip dysplasia in a dog presenting for cranial cruciate ligament disease, I’m likely to lose attention. If my communication style behaves more like a fly on crack then a mosquito on a mission, I am also going to struggle to retain my client’s attention. 

4. Maxim of Manner: Brief, and logical flow. 

Brevity is a superpower. Not only do you retain your listener’s attention, but brevity tends to carry much more power and impact. Logical flow is also critical for listener retention. If you are leaping from subject to subject, you need your listener to leap too. And most of us just don’t spend a lot of time practicing leaps to have that kind of athleticism or patience! 

Self-focus

We tend to spend more time thinking about we will say when it is our turn, than listening to the person talking. This is termed reactive listening, which prevents active listening. Active listeners pick up and understand much more in a conversation than reactive listeners. Now, you can’t make your clients practice this, but you can watch them closely for clues as to when you may have lost them to this rumination. If they generate a question while you are speaking, they are probably going to mentally stall, trying to remember or formulate the question. Stop, and address it. If they seem to be lost in their own heads, pause and ask questions about the info you just presented to re-engage them. 

Speech-thought differential: 

We actually think much faster than we speak. So, if you are in the role of a listener, and someone says something that triggers a question, memory or emotion, it is very easy to get pulled into your own head to attend to this trigger, which often hijacks attention away from the speaker. People struggling with anxiety or worry, introverts, and people with high intelligence tend to be more susceptible to this barrier for listening. Again, reading your client and interrupting the hijack can improve their active participation. 

Where Things Promote Good Listening

Emotional Intelligence

Having self-awareness of your body language, cues and level of interest in the person you are communicating with can level up your skills at capturing attention. About 75-90% of communication is thought to be non-verbal. Excellent conversationalists promote a psychological safety for the other participant- they feel valued, important, engaged, free to express their fears and emotions without judgement. Your body language does a lot of that communicating for you. If your client doesn’t feel psychologically safe with you, they are unlikely to be able to focus on what you are saying. 

Curiosity

This goes both ways- showing genuine interest in the other person puts them at ease and gains their attention. Promoting and valuing their questions keeps them active and engaged in the conversation. It can be hard under our time pressure and constraints, but the owner that asks questions is less likely to misunderstand something, and far more likely to be actively listening to you. “Good listeners are also great questioners.”

Respecting Listener Capacity

Engaged listening is energy consuming. The author reports that air traffic controllers are limited to 1.5-2 hours of active work before they are mandated to take a break, because the intensive listening required of them is so consuming! Being mindful of your client or employee’s listening capacity is advantageous to you. State the most important information succinctly, and early. Let them direct the conversation from there- if they are asking questions, they are still engaged and likely listening. If they aren’t, give them time and space. Important information can always be written down, or revisited at another time point. 

Becoming a better listener yourself gives you an even greater capacity to recognize when others are listening, or when you’ve lost them! Where do you think you have the most room for growth? Can you see where my biggest struggle was in getting you this information? Honestly, I did edit a lot out to try to keep your attention! 🙂

Practical Implementation Exercises:

1. Looking through the skills that make a great listener (Where things go right), what is your strength?
2. Looking through the areas where people tend to lost their ability to listen (Where things go wrong), which do you struggle with the most? This can be personally, or with your clients listening.
3. What is one *small* thing you could start practicing to try to improve your weakest link? Start tracking what impact this seems to have on your interactions.
4. How can you ensure you remember to start practicing your new tactic?

Additional Resources:

Book Rounds: Emotional Intelligence: Information on how to build this skill deeper. A really good foundation for listening better.

Book Rounds: Emotional in the Workplace: A bit more about psychologic safety and building an environment for employees to listen well.

Patients’ memory for medical information. Roy P C Kessels, J R Soc Med, 2003, 96(5):219-222. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539473/

Husman, R. C., Lahiff, J. M., & Penrose, J. M.  (1988). Business communication: Strategies and skills.  Chicago: Dryden Press.