How To Get People To Listen To You

Have you ever struggled to communicate with someone? How does it feel? You might think that the person you're trying to reach doesn’t understand you, or this person doesn’t listen. You feel like there is a block between you and the person, almost like there is a physical barrier between you and the other person—a wall.

This blog is about how to break down that wall. You will learn how to get people to listen to you by learning how to effectively listen to them. Much of what I write in this blog I learned from the book ‘Just Listen’ by Mark Goulston and ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie.

The three things you need to know about listening are:

1. You need to ask questions.

2. When someone answers your question you need to listen with genuine interest.

And

3. Keep your mouth shut.

Everyone wants to be heard. Even the shiest person sitting in the corner wants to be heard. Your son or daughter who reply with an ‘it was okay’ or an ‘eh’ when you ask them how was their day, they want to be heard. A spouse who either doesn’t communicate or when they do communicate it’s usually ends in a fight, they want to be heard. The reason why it seems as though they have no interest in communicating is because they think no one’s listening, they think no one knows how they feel and they think no one understands them. And that feeling is the wall separating you from them.

Last year I was one of the coordinators for the Bay Ridge Toastmaster’s Youth Program where Pessy, a fellow toastmaster, and I taught public speaking to 6 to 8^th graders. When we started the program, the principal of the school said he had some kids in mind. He wanted us to teach the kids who didn’t speak up during class.

So we met with the potential students, and I pitched the class to them. I told them all about the benefits of public speaking. As I made my pitch, they sat quietly, and politely listned. But they didn’t say anything. At the end of my pitch, I asked the group of students if they were interested in the class. Not one student said a word. They all just sat there smiling at me, like I was some weirdo. It wasn’t until the principal said he would give them ‘full service hours’ for taking the class that we had about 10 students signed up.

The agreement was that the students would show up once a week for eight weeks, and at the end of eight weeks they will receive their service hours. So, we did the class, ad by the end of the eight weeks all the kids were talking. We were having a lot of fun. If you were to walk into the class by the end of the semester, you would have never thought that it was a class filled with the shiest students in the schoo. Evey one of the students spoke up, and when I spoke to them, they listened.

I decided to continue doing the class at the end of the eight weeks, and all the students stayed in the class.

How did manage to connect with these kids—who seemed to have a penetrable wall put up?

At first, I tried to make the class exciting through charisma. That didn’t work because I’m not charismatic and they weren’t buying it. But what started working was my genuine interest in these kids. I would come in and ask them questions.

I would come into class say, “Michelle, I read this article in the news today, I’m interested in how you feel about it? Xio, what do you think about it? Vicky, what’s your views on the presidential election? Kelly, how do you feel about what this person said during the race?” The most important part of this trick is to be genuine. I really cared about what they thought and felt. And that made all the difference.

It was a small class, and one day all the students except one, had to do a rehersal for graduation. So when I showed up, there was only that one student in the class. I asked her if she wanted to just cancel the class and she said no. I said to her okay. I had a lesson plan, but since most of the students are not present we we’re going to do something different. Now I knew that this girl, Michelle, liked to draw anime, so I told her that for this class you will teach me how to draw. I sat down with a pencil she loaned me, and I tried my best. For two hours we drew anime characters. And this went a long way to my credibility. Like I said before, by the end of the semester they would come into class, and say, “Brian look at this K-pop video. What do you think of this song?” They opened up because they knew I would listen. And I cared. This also meant that when I talked, they listened.

Another principle of listening you need to know is empathy is a sensory function, and anger is a motor function. Two different parts of the brain are operating when you’re experiencing these two emotions, and you cannot experience them at the same time. Goulston, the author of ‘Just Listen’ says, that you need to think of anger and empathy as matter and anti-matter—they cannot exist in the same place at the same time.

When two people argue, one person feels attacked and they feel the need to defend themselves. So they’ll say, “I’m trying to tell you something but you’re not listening to me.” The other person will perceive that statement as an attack, and they’ll feel a need to defend themselves. So they’ll reply with, “I’m trying to listen to you but you keep on yelling at me.” Then the other person will perceive that as an attack, and you’ll have a back and fort—a never-ending cycle that ends in stalemate. In the end, both sides feel anger to the other. Once you have this there will be an invisible wall between the two people.

How do you break down this wall if you are ever in such a situation?

You do it by replacing their feelings of anger towards with feelings empathy towards you. And you build empathy from the other person by being empathetic towards them. I used to have a difficult time talking to my sister. She’s the type who shows her affection by solving your problems. So when I tried to open up to her, she would say, “What you need to do is...” She was always prepared with some advice for me. And I would refuse to take her advice because I felt she just didn’t understand.

One time I was speaking to her and she interrupted me with some of her advice. I got mad. I said, “Dee I’m trying to tell you something, I don’t want your advice. I don’t want you to fix my problems. I just want you to listen.” Instead of becoming defensive from my little outburst my sister just okay, speak. So, I started telling her about my trials and tribulations, and she just sat there and nodded her head to what I was saying. After ten minutes of speaking, I looked at her and said, “so what do you think I should do?” She looked at me flabbergasted, and said, “you just said you didn’t want me to tell you what to do.” I told her I did, but now I want to know what she thought.

What changed was I felt she understood me, and after that happened I was more primed to take her advice and work with her with a solution.

So remember the rules of listening.

1. Ask questions.

2. Listen with genuine interest.

3. Resist the urge to speak, and keep your mouth shut.