8 Strategies to Reboot Your Brain for Active Listening

As someone talks about an innovative project do you find exciting ideas sizzle in your mind? At times, I can begin to run with just one piece of what a colleague says and think very creatively. Whoa, I am not listening.  Do you have a similar issue? Interestingly, as you mull over a new idea in your mind, you miss a portion of what the other person says. Listening takes intentional focus.

The way our brains work, deeply affects listening capability. Here's why...

Not too surprisingly, at least three facets of how the human brain works, impact our listening and speech patterns. When we hear an exciting idea, we may be tempted to build on that in our own mind. Our brain's neurotransmitters release dopamine, helping us to feel the pleasure of a reward. The pleasure we receive from forming new ideas in our minds may work at odds with truly listening to another person.

Likewise, patterns of past interactions stored in your basal ganglia, impacts personal mental mindsets.  For instance, if you have attended workshops, meetings, company training sessions, or have not engaged in meaningful conversation with certain people, you can see why you will need extra spark to be attentive.

Over time, the speech patterns we adopt culturally, affect the way we listen to others. The brain's basal ganglia, described by Dr. Ellen Weber, is a "mental storehouse for habits, routines and ruts for every lifetime experience you've encountered." If you are used to forming new ideas so you can respond during a pause as someone else talks, you do not listen well.

The brain mainly focuses on one thing at a time. For instance this is why it is impossible to text and drive at the same time since multitasking causes the brain to bottleneck. Perhaps this bottle necking proclivity shows exactly why it takes such intentional focus to truly listen to someone as s/he speaks. So how do we begin to focus more on listening?

"Interest or importance is inextricably linked to attention," according to John Medina in his book, Brain Rules. Medina notes that researchers refer to this as arousal.

8 Strategies to Reboot your Brain for keen listening...

Value the speaker When you listen well, and give another person's thoughts keen contemplation before you answer, you serve both yourself and that person well. Why not take a card or memo pad to events to jot down key words that jog your ideas later? In this way you can engage even more of the other person's idea and you will have even more to go on later.

Eye contact counts When you truly look at some one's eyes as he or she speaks, you jack  up your focus.  If you are in a busy room full of activity, you could be easily distracted. Laughter, catching part of a joke, seeing someone you want to contact, can take away your attention quickly. Because the brain tends to focus on one thing at a time, I have to really focus on the eye contact.  It makes a difference for me. You?

MITA Two-footed questions As you listen intently ask questions that take the person's ideas to a new angle or a facet you want to know more about. People enjoy telling you their best ideas. By keeping the focus on that person's interest, you can go deeper with him or her.  In so doing, you will find that you will have more buy in yourself. The conversation thus moves from neutral, to one in which you are keenly interested.  As you gain interest, you are bringing more of your right brain, the creative side, to the conversation.

Active listening  A friend from China, Wen Ma, shared that in his culture people listen actively and contemplate the person's point and take time before they respond.  Active listening can improve a sales person's abilities to engage well since it listening well enough to respond to clients' needs helps clinch all-important deals.

Words block distractions  If you find your mind is distracted when someone speaks, say a word in your head such as, "focus," or "clear the mechanism." Then replace this with a key word you hear from the person speaking to move your thoughts with his or hers.

Posture counts - lean in  By leaning in as you listen, it boosts your concentration and creates a deeper connection to other people.

Practice makes perfect  If you can see the need to improve on past listening habits you've developed, as have I, they can be changed. And it's related to the human brain's amazing plasticity. Very recently researchers began to explore this aspect of the brain even more.

Here's a listening test found on Psychology Today. Start with their analysis to change where you stand...

Thoughts or additions?

Do You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT?

At eleven, Alan Fine pictured himself as a "severely asthmatic, skinny and painfully shy kid," desperately desiring to play tennis.  Pitted in tennis finals against a thirteen-year-old, six feet tall, captain of the Welsh school rugby team--"the school 'jock,'" Alan focused on his wins 6-4, 4-0.  When he thought he might be school tennis champ with just two more wins, he froze.   From that moment, Fine desired to be a tennis champ.  Through stories, Alan Fine shows uncanny insights that led him to understand the interference that holds people back.

Alan inspires everyone to develop a way forward for performance peaks. Alan Fine's GROW design, simply clarified in You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT, details how using inside out approaches, leads to removal of interference that stifles progress. 

Intriguingly, an unlikely source - a shy, uncoordinated, girl - provide Fine even bigger breakthrough answers to interference.  The nine-year-old had Fine's best instruction, yet she was barely able to hit a tennis ball over the net, five times consecutively. Fine experienced a eureka insight as he perceived his instructional tips were "getting in her way."  Not too surprisingly, Alan told her to forget his past instructions.   Instead, he simply told her to say bounce when the ball touched the ground and hit when the ball hit her racket.  The girl hit the ball over the net 53 times in a row.  Two simple words increased her performance 1000% or 10X.  Amazingly, each of us holds that same potential.  It's a matter of the athlete perceiving the strategy inside out rather than outside in.

For a performer's journey to be GREAT, Fine starts with Faith, Fire and Focus.  You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT, reveals Alan's inside out process to apply simple doable actions to leap forward.  Alan creates questions that connect the performer to the problem. Interestingly, he poses these similar to MITA Two-footed questions that tap into curiosity, because people are challenged to find answers.  Here's an example of Fine's questions a performer can reflect on to name a specific Goal: 

• What issue do I want to work through?
• What do I want from this GROW "session" (meaning time devoted to resolving the issue)?
• What are the consequences if I do not take action?

Reality questions direct the performer to consider obstacles and determine if the goal is realistic.  In thinking about Options, the performer contemplates what could happen if anything could be done to make progress.  In the Way Forward, a performer reflects on ways to act on options and how to go about it.  The process helps the performer to GROW.

Alan Fine creates more than mere intellectual understanding of inside out concepts by relating his personal experience, using anagrams that easily show processes involved for breakthrough performance as well as publishing stories from people who achieved breakthrough performance.  Additionally, Alan created a website so that people can access his blog and other free items related to his work.

With deep foresight, Alan tackles some of the difficult issues coaches or performers might face when they get stuck.  In Chapter Nine, "What do you do when. . .?"  Fine shares questions he was asked over the years and he shows what works and what does not.  For instance, some people think they need to be told what to do.  Though it takes time, he shows how to avoid merely giving advice, but to empower the person to create consistently high-performance.

You ALREADY Know How to be GREAT is a pleasure to read and leaves you wondering where you can use Alan's thoughtful processes to ante up performance as you tackle critical issues at work or sports.  In this innovation era, the inside out process empowers leaders and managers to find solutions to failing systems.  Fine's GROW resources can prime any athletes' or managers' Faith, Fire and Focus, for a transformational journey.

Donna Mah Delaughter - Innovative Leader

Flies dive-bombed Dr. Ellen Weber’s hair as she attempted to capture curiosity from her young students. Irritated by relentless insects, Ellen asked a few boys in class if they’d get rid of sluggish fall flies. Within minutes the whole class joined in, slamming books on the monstrous cluster flies, who'd unfortunately picked Ellen’s classroom as a place to spend winter. Suddenly imaginary flies apparently alighted on many students’ heads, since text books batted heads like bats to ping pong balls. In a few minutes, chaos subsided, buzzing ceased, laughter quieted and class resumed with questions about leadership that differs.

Donna Mah Delaughter, a student in that class over thirty years ago, retold the tale recently.  Through laughter and colorful stories about Ellen's challenges to reach beyond barriers, Donna attributes many of her own marked leadership skills.  Her abundant risk- taking qualities and innovative mind sharpened through Ellen’s facilitation during her top role on the debate team. Donna and several of her peers on the team went forward to win a national trophy. As a young teen in a Canadian school at the time, Donna began a journey that launched life-long learning and never looked back.

Donna recognized her father as a person who prodded her to think beyond stereotypes. He and his family found their way to Canada after they emigrated from China. He wanted his children to be all they could be and though women in his country had been restricted, he envisioned much more for Donna. He said she could even be a doctor if she wanted, and her mother consistently supported Donna's visionary plans.

Donna Mah Delaughter worked her way up the ranks to achieve a top level position as Accountant for SIRAS, a subsidiary of Nintendo. Her quickness and innovative spirit flow unsparingly at the request of SIRAS’ President. She hopes to leave a legacy in life and in work, and in this capacity enjoys mentoring new employees as well as volunteering her time to counsel teens in her church. Donna gives much of her time and talent away and in that role has gained much and benefited all!

In A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink shows that in the new Conceptual Age in which we live, we need to go beyond the mind that merely crunches numbers. We now need people with a very different kind of mind--one that is both creative and full of empathy. Donna has amazing ability to understand what makes fellow workers tick. She forges many relationships and cares for others. She recognizes patterns as she mines data from many data banks and makes new meaning from it. And best of all, Donna loves to play with ideas, challenges and possibilities. During her interview Donna challenges us to think of ourselves as the actual owner of the company where we work.

Below Donna shares insights that help us see the heart and soul of her innovative leadership.

Practice May Not Make Perfect!

Interestingly, rote practice, the kind of practice in which you do something over and over, may not gain you much.  Mixing in a variety of skills, however, will. The idea that practice does not necessarily make perfect seems paradoxical, and it relates to the way your brain functions. 

Practicing variable skills antes up retention of the skill.  It's so, because each time golfers use a different club or vary a shot, they solve the motor problem anew... and perhaps from a fresh perspective. 

Problem solving engages the brain's prefrontal cortex, associated with higher level learning.  Some folks have no idea that sports skills reach to higher cognition in the brain, especially when some folks refer to high school athletes as "jocks." 

I'm an avid golfer.  At our local course, I noticed some golfers spend a great deal of time hitting a drive, over and over, at a golf range.  According to USC and UCLA research findings, doing the same skill over and over, leads to a lesser degree of retention - since repetition engages the primary motor cortex, associated with simple motor learning.

"We gravitate toward a simple, rote practice structure because we're basically lazy, and we don't want to work hard," Carolee Winstein, a USC researcher on the study reports.

A lot of what we do learn comes through observing how others accomplish a skill.  "Imitation learning," according to Robert Sekuler, Brandeis neuroscientist, "is crucial for acquiring many of the skills used in daily life."  It's the "monkey see, monkey do" principle.  Trick is... to duplicate that in your own life.  Try doing it yourself - shortly after giving yourself enough observation time to capture nuances involved - while these are still in the brain's working memory.  That's critical!

You can see why smart problem solving's needed to acquire a motor skill!  My practice sessions will be revamped - that's for sure.

How would you rate the methods you've used to lift up your kinesthetic skills?