Active listening: why most of us hear the lyrics and miss the music

Two men are arguing at a table beside Lake Ohrid, in Macedonia. They have been talking over each other for a while, louder and louder. When someone asks each of them to repeat what the other has just said, neither gets it right. They have heard each other the whole time. Not once have they listened.

Daniel Shapiro, a psychologist at the Harvard Negotiation Project, tells this story in Beyond Reason (2005), the book he wrote with Roger Fisher, co-author of Getting to Yes. At Personaramic we know of no better practical definition of what active listening is for: so that two people talking about the same thing stop holding, without realizing it, two different conversations.

What is active listening, and what it is not

Active listening means listening with the intention of understanding the other person and showing them that you have understood. Staying quiet while someone talks is not enough. Active listening has three parts:

• paying attention to what they say,
• paying attention to how they say it (the tone, the emotion that comes with the words),
• and reflecting back what you have taken in, so they can confirm it or correct you.

The term was popularized by psychologist Carl Rogers and Richard Farson in a 1957 booklet titled, precisely, Active Listening, written at the University of Chicago to train company managers. Rogers came from therapy. He had confirmed something that seems obvious today and was not back then: people open up when they sense that someone is trying to see the world from where they stand, without judging them.

Hearing and listening are not the same thing

Hearing is what the ear does. Listening is what attention does. After the scene by the lake, Shapiro sums it up simply: listening is not passive but active, and it takes concentration.

While they talk, you are already preparing your reply

Fisher and Shapiro describe three obstacles that come up in almost any tense conversation, whether in an office, a kitchen or at a negotiating table.

1. We do not understand their point of view. While the other person talks, our mind is busy with the ideas we want to say.
2. We listen for flaws. We assume that arguing means taking apart what the other person says, so we attend to their weak points and not to what is reasonable in them.
3. We do not say what we do find valuable. Even when we see merit in their position, we keep it to ourselves. And someone who only receives criticism concludes that their message has not got through, so they push harder or give up.

The result is familiar: nobody feels understood, and the argument gets louder without moving forward.

Listening to the music, not just the lyrics

The first technique they propose starts from a musical image. Listening to someone is like listening to a song: getting the lyrics right is not enough. You need to attend to the melody that comes with them, the mood, the emotional tone that gives the words their meaning.

The beat of a drum, they write, can turn a romantic ballad into a battle cry. And tone can confirm someone’s words or contradict them completely, as when a person shouts: “I’m not angry!”

Metamessages: what gets said without being said

The second technique is spotting metamessages, messages hidden inside other messages. They happen all the time. A host glances at the clock during a dinner party and says: “I’m having such a good time I hadn’t noticed how late it is.” Nearly every guest understands that the party is over.

An easy way to catch them, according to Fisher and Shapiro, is to notice which word gets the stress. The same sentence changes meaning depending on where the emphasis falls:

• “I like this proposal.” (Others, not so much.)
• “I like this proposal.” (I support it enthusiastically.)
• “I like this proposal.” (More than the others.)
• “I like this proposal.” (As a proposal. I am not committing to anything yet.)

Metamessages often reveal whether someone supports an idea, has doubts about it or is resisting it. Missing them is a very effective way of getting surprised later on.

Paraphrasing: proof that you have understood

Back to the lake. Shapiro was facilitating a week-long workshop with Albanian and Macedonian leaders at a time of violence between the two groups. During a coffee break, two participants the book calls “Ivan” and “Bamir” started arguing about the refugees who had arrived from Kosovo.

When the argument boiled over, Shapiro interrupted and asked Ivan what he had understood of what Bamir was saying. “Bamir thinks we Macedonians reject Albanians. And that’s not true.” Bamir shot back: “That’s not what I said!” Then Shapiro asked Bamir. “He obviously just wants to look after his own people.” Ivan shot back: “That’s not what I said!”

They sat looking at each other in silence. Then Ivan laughed, surprised at what had just happened, and said: “Nobody gets anywhere if we close our ears.”

What Shapiro had done before those questions has a name: reflective listening. He had told them, “you both seem frustrated.” Paraphrasing means giving back, in your own words, the facts or the feelings the other person expresses. In the book’s notes, the authors link this idea to Rogers, who advocated checking through paraphrase whether we had truly understood the other person.

Am I finished, or are they?

Fisher and Shapiro suggest a question for the moment you notice you have stopped listening: am I finished, or are they? Sometimes we stop listening not because the other person is done, but because we are tired of hearing them or uncomfortable with the emotions they are showing.

The mistake of guessing what the other person feels

There is a trap that well-meaning people in particular fall into: putting a name to someone else’s emotion before asking.

The book tells the story of a tenant who wanted to renegotiate her rent with her landlord, a lawyer who lived in the flat below. To set a friendly tone, she began like this: “I hear you’ve just changed law firms. That must be hard.” The landlord went pale and cut her off: “That’s not the case. Tell me what you wanted to see me about.” Inside, he was thinking: “Is she implying I can’t handle a job change? Does she think I’m that weak?”

The alternative they suggest is less intrusive: ask first and, instead of attributing an emotion to the other person, say how you yourself would feel. Something like: “I heard about the job change. How’s it going? If it happened to me, I know I’d find it tough.”

Listening is not agreeing

Many people fear that acknowledging the other side’s point of view amounts to accepting it. Fisher and Shapiro answer in one word: false.

Roger Fisher proved it before the United States Supreme Court, where he was arguing for the Government. He opened by acknowledging that the other side had a strong case, even stronger than its own lawyer had presented. Justice Felix Frankfurter interrupted him: “Mr. Fisher! You are here for the Government!” Fisher went on: that was exactly why he wanted the Court to know that the Government had an answer even to the best possible argument of its opponent.

The Government won the case. Afterwards, the lawyers for the other side crossed the room to shake his hand and thank him for taking their arguments seriously.

This is where active listening meets empathy and assertive communication: understanding why someone thinks what they think does not oblige you to think like them. The authors boil it down to a formula: “I understand [your point of view] and I value [your reasoning].”

Active listening examples at work and at home

Here are some situations that appear in the book, or follow directly from it:

• In a request for a raise. “Yes, I can see why you think you deserve a raise”, said sarcastically, shows that you have heard. “I think you have good reasons: you’ve put a lot of time into the company and delivered projects with two of our biggest clients” shows that you have listened. Neither sentence grants the raise.
• In a board meeting. “It sounds like you’re worried that if you sell your shares, your relationship with the rest of the board will suffer” reflects back what the other person feels, without judging it.
• At home. Cleaning the kitchen, making the beds or remembering a special date are efforts that, if nobody notices them, leave a residue of disappointment. Listening also means seeing that.
• In an argument that is heating up. Naming out loud what seems to be happening (“you both seem frustrated”) can be enough for each side to feel heard and lower the temperature.

Why Harvard negotiators care so much about listening

The thesis of Beyond Reason is that every negotiation involves emotions, and they cannot be ignored. One of the needs that weighs most, according to the authors, is feeling appreciated, and listening is the first tool for meeting it. People who feel understood cooperate more and defend their positions less rigidly.

That is why active listening fits with other pieces we have covered here, such as the value of knowing your alternative if there is no deal or the power of keeping quiet at the right moment. Listening well also protects against other errors, such as giving more credit than is due to whoever holds the higher rank, the so-called halo effect.

If you want to see how you tend to communicate when there is tension, you can try our communication style quiz.

Sources

• Fisher, R. and Shapiro, D. (2005). Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate. Viking Penguin. Chapter 3, “Express Appreciation”, and “Works Consulted” notes.
• Rogers, C. R. and Farson, R. E. (1957). Active Listening. Industrial Relations Center, University of Chicago.
• Rogers, C. R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. Houghton Mifflin.