You don’t often hear someone described as ‘a good listener’ these days do you? It doesn’t seem a terribly highly valued character trait.
I think people might have forgotten how really important it is.
I started thinking about this after a recent get-together where one woman I knew quite well was telling a story related to one of her children. In terms of entertainment value, it wasn’t Downton Abbey but it was interesting enough. However when she had finished and one of the others in the group started relating a similar experience the first story-teller started checking her phone and sending a text.
Now of course you could say that woman A was just plain rude. Or perhaps woman B was particularly boring. But since that incident I’ve just started noticing how more value seems to be being placed on being the speaker than the listener.
Subconsciously I think we all enjoy the company of people who make us feel good by apparently listening to what we have to say. We just don’t tend to label ‘listening’ as the trait we find attractive.
More commonly we celebrate the witty storyteller. Or the entertaining dinner guest.
But the crux of the problem is you need both to make a decent conversation, and more importantly you need both to establish a rapport.
I find it is particularly true in medicine.
When I hear a person complain about a doctor, be it a GP or a specialist, nine times out of ten the problem will include ‘they just don’t listen to me’. This may be the perception rather than the reality but nonetheless if a person doesn’t feel like they’ve been heard they are not going to believe the consultant understands their problem so how the hell are they going to be able to fix it.
It is a very valid criticism and an issue I know they try to address in medical training. I can remember as a student, an elderly cardiologist telling us if you allow the patients time to tell their entire story you will often have the diagnosis before you lay a hand on them, your physical examination will just confirm your suspicion.
But as much as listening needs to be highlighted as a skill to be developed as part of professional training, I do think to some extent it’s a personality trait – one that some people have while others are lacking. You see it in social situations, as my recent experience showed but also in business and in my case in practice.
It’s quite interesting really given that it seems a reasonable premise that if you go to see a doctor you want to hear what they have to say. But you’d be surprised how common it is that people don’t really listen to what you tell them. Of course not everybody is going to remember everything you say. And some people may not understand everything that is said.
But there are some patients (not a lot but some) who’d prefer to tell me what they’ve got and who don’t listen to what I’ve got to say. And, just as in social situations, or an office environment – let me tell you it’s really, really frustrating.
Maybe it’s always been this way. Maybe it’s just life.
But I do think if we raised the profile of ‘listening’ as a positive personality trait perhaps we might all be better off.
By focussing on listening as much as telling, we’ll ensure we get the balance of give and take right so that we establish worthwhile relationships in medicine, in business and just in everyday life.