Listening is Not a Multi-tasking Activity

Listening is not a multi-tasking activity—unless you're an auctioneer. Multi-tasking works then because the auctioneer stays alert for short specific signals. Attentive listening requires a considerable amount of focus, and attentive listeners will excel in making the other person feel heard. Bidders at an auction always know when they have been heard because the price goes up, but auction house tactics can hurt a business.

Hopefully you learned the first key to being an attentive listener when you were in kindergarten. Don't interrupt. What you may not have learned then is that interrupting entails more than speaking out of turn. Eye rolling, yawning, and staring out the window are interruptions that show you are not actively listening.

The second key to know is that people rarely cut to the chase. Most people like to set the stage before they begin to make their point. Let them talk; you will learn quite a bit of the subtext from listening to how they frame their story.

A third and crucial key is that responding with platitudes or grinding criticism will make you look like a jerk. When someone has just shared a concern, don't brush them off. They want the respect of being understood. It's human nature to not be so forthcoming in the future when you weren't heard in the past. You need your employees to have confidence in you, and attentive listening builds trust.

How to Hear What a Ditz is Really Saying—or trying to

It can be tough to have to listen to scatterbrained and eccentric persons. It can be tougher to know what they mean. Here are some tips for checking to see if what you heard is the same as what they think they said.

• Recap by stating a question. If Mary just spent three minutes talking about toner, dry cleaning her sweater, missed deadlines, and a broken doohickey, recap with, "You'd like me to call someone to run maintenance on the copy machine, right?

• Say it back. Summarize your understanding of the situation and see if they agree.

• Say it another way. If possible, find a simile or metaphor that fits the situation. If the complaint was about too much work and too little help, say, "So, am I to understand that you feel like the Little Red Hen?"

These responses help you to generate useful feedback and to avoid potentially costly misunderstandings.