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Do you think there is a
difference between hearing and listening? You are right, there is! Hearing is
simply the act of perceiving sound by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired,
hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something you consciously choose
to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning
from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning.
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Most people tend to be
"hard of listening" rather than "hard of hearing."
The
art of communication is one of the most natural talents that we are all gifted
with at birth. As we grow up, we learn about the nuances and the tricks
associated with communication in professional space
(written/verbal/presentation skills). We are further coached on various
dimensions of communication i.e. body language, eye contact, figures of speech,
identifying personality types and dealing with them etc.
However,
it is interesting to observe that in spite of all this skill polishing and formal
learning, there are yet “basic” and
“elementary” habits that define how good we are at the art of
communication. The important point to note is that these apply across the
personal and professional spaces of our life and not just restricted to the latter.
Missing elements from
our communication abilities:
A
few examples about how and how much our communication abilities can affect our
interaction and relationships with the rest of the world:
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We
often tend to have a very limited span of attention most of the time i.e. we
tend to get diverted or lost in other thoughts while interacting with others
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Our
emotional state determines or shapes how we accept or react to conversations or
how we perceive what is being communicated – in essence, the transmission of
information may get distorted while being received purely due to the state of
emotions at our end. This happens more often than we would like to accept or
believe
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We
are rarely able to manage our focus as our emotions are often clouded by
issues/incidents of the past or anxieties of the future
- Spill-over
effect - The 24*7
online lives that we live mean that we carry a lot of stress from our work to
home or from our home to work. Often we end up doing injustice to both work and
personal lives due to this drifting focus
- The
slow accumulator - In
our attempt to keep calm through many difficult situations, we tend to
accumulate frustrations, failures, anxieties through long periods of time until
they reach a breaking point and then the dam bursts on an unsuspecting dear one
who just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time (e.g. a child
playing an innocent prank)
- Broken
promises or failed expectations in one area can
lead to outbursts in other unconnected areas of life
- All it takes is a small spark to start
the biggest forest fires – similarly, a very tiny issue can quickly escalate
into a huge argument or fight and then it becomes extremely difficult to
roll-back or reverse the positions
In
the above observations, I have deliberately avoided giving examples of positive
situations or outcomes – there would be equally a lot many of those, however,
for the purpose of this article, we are looking for areas of improvement and
hence these examples have been presented for analysis.
Communication:
The
art of effective communication can be simply defined as the successful
and complete transmission of “Information” from the transmitter to the
receiver without any distortion or deviation. There are numerous
modes of communication i.e. written, presentation, verbal, body language (sign
language, visual, touch, expressions of emotion etc.). Interestingly, silence
is also a very important mode of communication and we often tend to forget or
ignore this.
All
of us would have played the game of Chinese Whispers as children. This game
involves a group of children sitting in a circle and begins with a player
whispering a sentence into the ear of the child sitting next to him/her which
will then be whispered to the next child and continued until the full circle is
completed. Most often, the sentence that reaches the player is distorted and
then each child has to relay what he or she heard in order to find out when and
where the communication was distorted. In reality even though we have long
stopped playing the game for fun, we often are susceptible to the effects of
mishandling of communication either as a transmitter or as a receiver.
To
make the situation complex, it is a small global village that we all live in
and there are our abilities, limitations and boundaries of languages, nuances,
perceptions and deliberate addition/deletion of information leading to
gossip/rumour/chitchats.
It
is here that I want to bring back the original point related to “basic” and “elementary” habits
that can help us make us better communicators and improve our relations with
dear ones. This time I would like a guru to demonstrate these habits so that
the best lessons can be gleaned and absorbed from the same. The best teachers
of this are not any gurus staying in the Himalayas, but actually someone who
stay with us and in our homes. Anyone who observes a tiny toddler carefully
will be surprised and amazed by their ability to “Listen”. A one year old baby
seemingly busy with a toy will react immediately to the quietest tune of a familiar
TV advertisement which may be playing in a completely different part of the
house. The same baby displays amazing skills in understanding the subtle tone
of the voice of a parent, or even the look in the eyes (and the implied mood!)
to either continue with his mischief or to stop immediately. Yet, we adults are
quite poor at paying attention because we are far often distracted by other
thoughts.
So
what lessons do we learn from our cute little gurus and what makes them so good
that even at that tender age, they can teach us the art of effective
communication?
1. “Live”
in the present moment:
This
is a simple concept which involves improving our ability to stay focussed on
the immediate matter/conversation/discussion and avoid being distracted. This
is the important distinction between hearing and listening. She is always
completely “present” and never lost in distant thoughts or dreams. She is alert
and always focussed on what is happening in her immediate vicinity.
2. Be
Spontaneous:
Remember
the moment she wakes up and sees her mother. The twinkle in her eyes and the
lovely smile that glows up her entire face; She is absolutely thrilled to wake
up and see her mom. She will do that daily without ever letting her delight
reduce by even a bit. Equally, when upset, she will let it be known to anyone
concerned what her emotions are and not hold back. J
3. “Zero”
Expectations:
She
does not carry a bag of expectations with her. All she wants is to be well
taken care of and to have someone to indulge in her mischievous acts. That
allows her to be genuine and react with complete sincerity at any given moment.
There are no hidden motives or agendas in her behaviour.
4. Caste
no bar, status no bar, age no bar, looks no bar:
She
does not distinguish between people based on their material status or their
religious beliefs. Social status, caste, creed or even looks do not make a
difference in her approach or behaviour. Everyone is greeted with the same
cheerful attitude and treated with warmth and love.
5. No
Ego:
To
top it off, she does not have an ego which would in any way change her
behaviour – so what you see is what it is....joy, anger, sadness, laughter...
are all absolutely reflecting her current state of mind. She does not carry any
grudges forward which will change her behaviour in the future.
6. Perfect
Humility:
It
does not matter if she is a millionaire heiress or a daughter of a pauper – our
precious angel is always the picture of humility with no airs or whims of
possessiveness.
It
is amazing to imagine that we were all born exactly like this wonderful little
angel – each one of us was a perfect communicator. As time passed, and we grew
up...and as we went to school and college... and learnt about communication
skills...we slowly became less perfect and more worldly. J That is the irony of it all. So isn’t
it time that we learnt our lessons from the best gurus of all time and improve
ourselves?
It
needs practice and it needs perseverance...but the end result is far better
than just being better communicators... we become better human beings and
improve our quality of life dramatically.
