Ear Eyes

GENERATIVE LISTENING
SUBTLETIES TO PREPARE YOUR INNER-SELF FOR THE ART OF RECEIVING

Heart

DAVID HANLON & JILL RIGNEY

FEBRUARY, 2011

2011, David Hanlon and Jill Rigney.

DHJR022011-1 .DOC

WHY AN ARTICLE ON LISTENING?

Recently we have become fascinated with the proposition that many of us have a deep and perhaps unconscious fear of being generative listeners? The irony of this is most of us also have a deep unfulfilled need to be deeply listened to. In our workshops, we frequently ask people to stop and reflect on the last time they were deeply attended to by someone and what it felt like. Sadly, many responses are: a long time, rarely, I cant remember. However, everyone can readily identify and appreciate what it means to be deeply attended to.

Given these factors, we ask, what are the drivers of this fear? Two possibilities arise: Slowing down. We are mentally too busy to stop and be whilst listening. Unwilling or unable to let go. We need to remain in control and whilst seemingly in control we listen at shallow levels.

A colleague of ours who is regarded as one of Australias leading sales trainers with a global company, recalls the story when, as a young trainer, she heard that the companys top sales person was to attend one of her courses. Extremely nervous, she ensured she met with this person prior to the program. In our friends words; I have never felt so attended to. Here was our leading salesperson, sitting in front of me giving me 150% of his attention. He was not present to anything else going on around us. I could see and feel instantly why he was our top salesperson. It was a very special moment.

These two factors combined we feel are based around the possibility that if I listen and connect at a very deep level maybe Ill be influenced, hear things I dont want to agree with, have my opinion changed, find out their point of view is valid, etc. and therefore not end up always being right. In other words, this fear arises from the possibility of becoming vulnerable or made wrong and therefore we dont go to these places easily, resulting in superficial listening.

Otto Scharmer recalls an interview with the late Bill OBrien 1 (ex CEO of Hanover Insurance), where he asked OBrien to sum up his most important learning experience in leading profound change. OBriens response: The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

Peter deLisser claims just 5% of the population can be classified as skilled listeners. So, what contributes to this state and why is listening so difficult for so many of us?

In many ways our ability to listen commences with our inner condition.

After all, in todays world, we give much time to listening. We have more one-on-one staff reviews, we set strategy and values through wide consultation and, at a community level, we hold endless stakeholder meetings to hear what the broader population feels about issues. As for skills no self-respecting program in team leadership, sales, negotiation or anything else vaguely associated with communication, would skip a session on listening.

Bill OBrien was a pioneer in institutionalising vision and values in the workplace. Impressed by the business philosophy of Hanover Insurance President Jack Adam, Bill took a cut in pay and began working for The Hanover in 1971 as Vice President of Marketing. He served as CEO between 19791991. After resigning from Hanover in 1991, Bill was one of Generon Consultings founding partners, where he continued until his death in 2002 helping organisations to better align vision and values.

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Exploring from another perspective

Before looking at some of the levels of listening, we thought it worthwhile to look at what drives the interior condition of successful sports people and actors. We chose these two professions as both work extremely hard to be one with a new possibility.

Bill Russell2, described his experience of playing in the zone as follows: Every so often a Celtics game would heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental game, and would be magical. That feeling is difficult to describe, and I certainly never talked about it when I was playing. When it happened, I could feel my play rise to a new level. It was almost as if we were playing in slow motion. During those spells, I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be taken. . . . .

1. The actor Successful actors have to BE somebody else: they have to give up being themselves. Highlighting this is the wonderful story about Marlon Brando, regarded by many as one of the finest actors of the 20th Century. Brandon was taking part in a role play in his first year at acting school. The class had been instructed to act like chickens, with the additional instruction that a nuclear bomb was about to fall on them. Most of the class clucked and ran around wildly, but Brando sat calmly and pretended to lay an egg. Asked why he had chosen to react this way, he said, "I'm a chicken, what do I know about nuclear bombs?

Great athletes pursue this zone for success. The similar zone in listening is referred to as generative listening. By comparison, managers and leaders are rarely encouraged to go to such places, and if they are, it is superficial since we are reluctant to explore the deeper human dimension in communications. Managers dont practice the art form of listening and if they do it is more technique at the lower levels.

SO, WHAT IS LISTENING?

Interpretative listening
Before we discuss the levels of listening, it is worthwhile to reflect that most of us are unable to limit the interpretive biases in any of our listening. Back to the Brando story: most of the class, interpreted how a chicken would behave based on their own experiences, not that of the chicken.

This delightful story highlights the fact that Brando truly put himself in the place of a chicken whilst the lessor skilled actors were chickens on the surface only. Brando was able to let himself go in order to fully enter the world of the chicken.

In other words, we filter constantly through our internal processes which draw heavily on our experiences and biases or preferences.

2. The athlete Mental preparation is a significant part of success for all top athletes and today virtually every professional sportsperson is skilled from the inside out, so to speak. Deep states of attention and awareness are well known by top athletes.

For the rest of this article we will draw heavily on the work of Otto Scharmer3 who

Russell was the key player on the most successful basketball team ever (the Boston Celtics, who won 11 championships in 13 years).
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C. Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the founding chair of the Presencing Institute. He has codesigned and delivered award-winning leadership programs for clients including Daimler, Pricewaterhouse, Fujitsu, and Eileen Fisher. He introduced the concept of presencing learning from the emerging future in his books Theory U and Presence (the latter co-authored with P. Senge, J. Jaworski, and B. S. Flowers).
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provides clear insights on four different types of listening: Downloading Factual listening Empathic listening Generative listening.

2. Factual listening Ooh, look at that!

The second type of listening is object-focused or factual listening: listening by paying attention to facts and to novel or disconfirming data. In this type of attending, we focus on what differs from what we already know. We begin to focus on information that differs from what we already know.

1. Downloading -Yeah, I know that already.

Downloading is where we listen to confirm habitual judgments. When we are in a situation where everything that happens confirms what we already know, we are listening by downloading. Unfortunately, this state is far more common than we would like to admit.

At its best, object-focused or factual listening is the basic mode of good science. We ask questions, and we carefully observe the responses that the data gives us.

For example, I might not be sympathetic to someone who takes a day off work due to a cold, since I never have. However when someone takes a day off because of chronic back pain, I have more sympathy because it is something I experience and have trouble dealing with.

At worst, factual listening can distract us from the main idea or wider principle of the message (the old adage, We cant see the forest for the trees.).

3. Empathetic listening - Oh, yes, I know how you feel.

The third, yet deeper level of listening is empathic listening. When we are engaged in real dialogue, we can, when paying attention, become aware of a profound shift in the place from which our listening originates. As long as we operate from the first two types of listening, our listening originates from within the boundaries of our own mental-cognitive organization. But when we listen empathically, our perception shifts. We move from staring at the objective world of things, figures, and facts into the story of a living being, a living system, and self.

At worst, this kind of listening can be driven by a strong personal results motive and often motives are present only at the subconscious level.

Our wider behavioural biases also impact. Jim Schnell recounts how many of his college students incorrectly interpret his statement I dont accept late assignments to mean I dont like accepting late assignments. This is because experience has shown them that many others say the same thing and dont adhere to the rules.

It can be highly manipulative and forceful. This type of listening wins battles and loses wars . i.e., it can achieve short-term gains, but tends to wreck chances of building anything constructive and sustainable. We are attentive to the facts only to build our own case.

Alternatively, we become deceptively simplistic which leads to black and white synthesis of what has been said.

Empathic listening is vital in conflict, particularly where there is high emotional stress. Steil4 defines catharsis as "the process of releasing emotion, the ventilation of feelings, the sharing of problems or frustrations with an empathic listener. Catharsis," he continues, "basically requires an understanding listener who is observant to the cathartic need cues and clues. People who need catharsis will often give verbal and non-verbal cues, and good listeners will be sensitive enough to recognise them. Cathartic fulfillment is necessary for maximized success" at all other levels of communication.

Dr. Steil is a former president of the American Listening Assn

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"Cathartic communication," Steil continues, "requires caring, concerned risk-taking and non-judgmental listening. Truly empathic people suspend evaluation and criticism when they listen to others. Here the challenge is to enter into the private world of the speaker, to understand without judging actions or feelings."

Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan give many examples where transformational change begins with generative listening. Their work commences in deeply listening to personal or organisational problems and not providing resistance (for as they say, whatever you resist persists!!). Generative listening is at the heart of the case studies in the book.

This is what Scharmer calls the open heart, that is, the empathic capacity to connect directly with another person or living system.

At this level, you are connected at a deeper level and, as Sr Ilia Delio puts it, we feel most liberated and most alive in the presence of those who risk letting us be ourselves.

When in this mode, Scharmer suggests we usually feel what another person wants to say before the words take form. And then we may recognize whether a person chooses the right word or the wrong one to express something. That judgment is possible only when we have a direct sense of what someone wants to say before we analyse what she actually says.

SUMMARY
We feel that those who wish to explore generative listening are wishing to shift to a new paradigm. Jim Loehr and Tony Swchartz5 were the first to break the time management paradigm through a shift to energy management.

Finally, he suggests empathetic listening is a skill that requires us to activate a different source of intelligence: the intelligence of the heart.

We see a strong analogy between time management and listening. Old Paradigm New Paradigm Energy management Generative listening

4. Generative listening
I cant express what I experience in words. My whole being has slowed down. I feel more quiet and present and more my real self. I am connected to something larger than myself. This is the fourth level of listening. It moves beyond the current field and connects to a still deeper realm of emergence. At this level we are listening far beyond the words and feelings of an individual. We have moved beyond personal experience, facts and feeling into a space where intention and action roll seamlessly into one. It is both present and future. As Bill Russell pointed out my premonitions would be consistently correct, and I always felt then that I not only knew all the Celtics by heart, but also all the opposing players, and that they all knew me.

Time management Active listening

Time management gives us the tools to layout our day however unless our spiritual or mental energy is aligned it mostly fails because it is a push rather than a pull. Active listening, where we listen for the words, meaning and feelings, does not enable us to be in the creative spot that generative listening takes us to. With generative listening, real transformation can take place between both the listener and speaker. In order to experience this generative state we must first be aware of the possibility and second, we must look for means and ways of managing our fears and vulnerabilities associated with this form of listening. Generative listening is an exciting and empowering space to operate from.

As Scharma says, we no longer empathise with someone in front of us. We are in an altered statemaybe communion or grace is the word that comes closest to the texture of this experience that refuses to be dragged onto the surface of words.

See Loehr and Schwartz for an excellent methodology on the four forms of energy management.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We particularly acknowledge the work of Otto Scharma in Theory U and Presence. Both these books are great reading for any leader serious in keeping up with transformational practices in organisational change.

REFERENCES
Peter deLisser (2010), Listening: Our
Greatest Gift to Ourselves. International Listening Association (Issue #103). Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2003), The Power of Full Engagement. William F. Russell (1979), Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man. C. Otto Scharmer (2008), Uncovering the Blind Spot of Leadership. Leader to Leader. Jim Schnell (nd), Effective Listening: more than just hearing. Ohio Dominican College. Lyman K. Steil (1981), "On Listening...and Not Listening," Executive Health newsletter. Steve Zafron and Dave Logan (2009), The Three Laws of Performance.

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DAVID HANLON
David Hanlon has been involved with business development, business benchmarking and market assessment for the past 30 years; both in Australia and nationally. He is ranked as one of the Asian Development Banks leading strategic business analysts as a result of his long-term involvement in project assessment for the ADB. He works with a strategic mindset and builds strength in peoples abilities through challenge and support. He designed the Supply Chain ExecutiveLinkprogram, which won the Logistics Association of Australias Training and Education Award. More recently he designed the Indigenous Young Leaders Program for the Lower Gulf and is the driving force behind Conversations for Growth. In 2010, Conversations for Growth was short-listed for Training Innovation Award by the Australian Institute of Training and Development. David is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management and a Chartered Management Consultant with the Institute of Management Consultants in Australia.

JILL RIGNEY
Jill Rigney grew up on a mixed farming business west of Goondiwindi. She commenced her career in business support and in this role managed national benchmarking projects. Her extreme perceptiveness has resulted in her now recognised as a national leader in group facilitation. Jill is a leader in presenting and analysing differences in communication styles for individuals and groups. Jill is trained to apply the principles of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) in her professional responsibilities, presenting programs and facilitating meetings across Australia. This training enables her to introduce the subtleties of our communication styles to achieve cultural shifts within individuals and organisations. She is also accredited to deliver and interpret both the DISC Management Profile and the Mayor Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Jill is a Certified Professional member of the Australian Human Resource Institute and a member of the Australian Institute of Training and Development.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

Tel FreeCall Email Web Postal 07-3869 3044 1800 1900 11 info@therightmind.com.au www.therightmind.com.au PO Box 377 SANDGATE, QLD, 4017

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