The Art of Listening in Coaching and Mentoring

Stephen Burt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429881671
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book answers a number of fundamental questions about listening in coaching and mentoring. What difference does being heard make to the speaker? How does it have that effect? What are the necessary components of good listening? How do you evaluate your practice as a listener and how do you improve?

The process of writing this book led the author to look closely at his own practice, test, experiment, and push his listening to a higher level. He invites the reader to do the same. This book identifies what it takes to listen well – the skills, mind-set, presence, self-awareness and self-management – and why it can be hard. It demonstrates how four modes of listening – attention, inquiry, observation and use of self – all contribute to the listener's understanding and to the speaker's awareness. It argues that we all have a 'learning edge' as listeners and provides a framework that helps each of us find it.

The book is intended as a companion for anyone who commits to becoming a good listener. It shows how to develop expertise in the four modes of listening. It offers examples and principles to guide practice, questions for reflection, and a series of 'workouts' to help the listener develop their ability to listen. It encourages by showing how good listening is simple – you turn up, pay attention, and listen with all you have, and it challenges by identifying the work it takes to do that.

1

THE POWER OF LISTENING

What is it about listening that places it at the heart of coaching? Why does listening matter so much to coaching? My coaching clients bring issues that challenge them intellectually, emotionally and often impact their values and sense of purpose. Sometimes they are stuck or overstretched or uncertain about their capacity to rise to the challenges they face. Or they may have aspirations, or potential, which they don’t know how to fulfil. What they bring has layers of meaning for them – some conscious, some unconscious – and expressed both verbally and non-verbally. To work with my clients, I must listen to all that they present. Listening is the single most important skill for the coach, because it enables the coach to connect with the speaker and their world; every other intervention the coach makes has to be based on that understanding (Hardingham, Brearley, Moorhouse et al 2004 p. 44).

As well as enabling the coach to understand and tune in, a coach’s listening helps to create the conditions within which the work gets done. This effect is something about which most coaches and writers on coaching agree. Bruce Peltier, for example, identifies the legacy of Carl Rogers’ person-centred approach for coaching. Peltier refers to the ‘three therapist characteristics for a growth-promoting climate in which people can realise their inherent potential: congruence or genuineness, unconditional positive regard and acceptance, and accurate empathetic understanding’ (2001 p. 69). These characteristics show how the listener’s effectiveness depends upon their presence, their intention and their skill.

Presence combines the professional and the individual. It is expressed through the quality of the listener’s attention; ‘stunning, nearly serene attention’ according to Kline (1999 p. 137) and ‘the living embodiment of knowledge’ (Nevis 1987 quoted by Bluckert 2006 p. 125). It is, ‘about the degree of integration between what you say you are about and how you act in the world’ (Bluckert 2006 p. 126). The coach’s presence also enables them to show that they recognise the dialogue is a human encounter, as well as a coaching conversation.

Intention reflects the purpose and attitudes of the listener. It underpins how they engage. The volition to listen may be an obvious requirement; but without the will to listen, listening won’t happen (Borisoff and Purdy 1991 p. 8). Listening well enables the speaker to speak. For a speaker to find ‘freedom of expression’, for them to be able to say all that needs to be said – a prerequisite of effective coaching – ‘it is necessary that the coach actually listens’ (Flaherty 2005 p. 55). Listening not only creates the space for the speaker and invites them to use it; ‘just having the opportunity to talk it out with good attention from the coach can be therapeutic in itself. It meets a deep psychological need to be heard’ (Bluckert 2006 p. 77).

The coach listens attentively, and asks questions, reflects back, summarises, and paraphrases what they have heard (Downey 2003; Peltier 2001). They also ‘physically listen’ (Peltier 2001 p. 74); responding to the speaker by demonstrating ‘attending behaviours’, like eye contact, an engaged and encouraging body posture, nodding, responsive facial expression and a warm tone (Wolvin and Coakley 1996 pp. 122–123). These behaviours must remain congruent and authentic by not appearing to be false, forced or overdone; they need simply to express the listener’s interest and intention.

To get beneath these broad descriptions of listening in coaching requires an understanding of what characterises good listening, a sense of the listening practices coaches commonly adopt, and an awareness of the difference good listening can make. In this chapter, I want to set the scene for exploring listening in coaching, by considering different levels of listening, and explaining different ways in which listening impacts the speaker, the listener and the relationship between them.

Levels of listening

Many commentators, from within and outside coaching, have attempted to capture the nature of good listening by distinguishing different levels, ranging from the poor to the profound. They mostly identify between three and five levels, each commentator characterising the levels in slightly different ways. At the lowest level are various forms of ‘poor’ listening, most of which, I would argue, don’t really count as listening at all. A second, higher, level involves listening to the content, to the superficial or simple meaning of what is said. Better still is ‘active listening’, in which the listener asks questions and takes some responsibility for effective communication. The pinnacle of listening is when the listener is empathetic, engaged, and fully invested in the dialogue.

As they climb through these levels four things change for the listener:

1. Their attention shifts from themselves to the speaker
2. Their intention changes from wanting to speak or relate in a superficial way to a desire to understand and enable the speaker to speak
3. What they listen to in the speaker expands. They notice more
4. What they listen to within themselves opens out. They use all their senses and sources of understanding.

‘Poor’ listening is typified by the listener focusing on themselves. Their intention is to meet their own needs in some way, and they are primarily reacting without awareness – listening to themselves only in the sense of acting on inner impulse. Such listening can involve:

• Planning what you want to say, replying about yourself, or giving advice (Bresser and Wilson 2010 p. 17)
• Internal listening – listening for and reacting to what the speaker’s words mean to you (Whitworth, Kimsey-House K, Kimsey-House H. et al 2007 p. 34)
• Downloading – what you perceive, or hear, is based on your habitual ways of seeing and thinking (Airey 2011 p. 33)
• Listening to argue, refute or respond (Clutterbuck 2017 p. 37)
• Listening for the gap – being silent but focused on grasping the opportunity to speak (Downey 2003 p. 62)
• Listening to judge – drawing conclusions about the person, the validity of their views or the quality of their argument
• Social or skim listening – this operates mostly as social engagement, and has a place in building rapport and maintaining relationships. The implicit message is, ‘I see the world the same way as you’ (Gillie 2008 p. 1). This is what linguists call ‘phatic’ communication
• Search attending – like interviewing, listening from your own agenda to find out something specific (Gillie 2008 p. 1).

If listeners avoid or overcome these poor practices, they can move up a level and begin to listen to the content of what is being said. They listen to the words and use their ears and cognitive abilities to discern meaning. Their intent is to listen to understand the substance of what the speaker is saying (Zenger and Folkman 2016; Clutterbuck 2017); or do object-focused or factual listening, paying attention to facts or novel data (Airey 2011); or hearing the words, but only noticing surface content (ICF 2018) rather than deeper meanings. At this level, there is not much curiosity; and they are making little effort to hear the speaker’s intent or the feelings behind the words (Burley-Allen 1995 p. 14).

Active listening provides the bedrock and starting point of coaching. It means that the listener explores what lies behind the words, joining the speaker in the search for clarity, meaning and effective communication. The listener is a partner who shares responsibility for the quality of the communication (Wolvin and Coakley 1996 p. 118). They invite the speaker to say more, (Bresser and Wilson 2010 p.10), encouraging them to speak by asking questions, offering summaries, showing attending behaviours, and signalling their curiosity and interest. The coach uses ‘focused listening’, which involves, ‘empathy, clarification, collaboration’ (Whitworth, Kimsey-House K., Kimsey-House H. et al 2007 p. 36). The listener follows the speaker’s interest; without guiding the conversation. The effect is that the speaker becomes more aware of what their issue means to them. The listener may however be listening on a very conscious level, missing key nuances and gathering information more from the perspective of their own model or tool (ICF 2018).

Describing the highest level of listening is difficult because it is multi-faceted, and many writers use metaphor to conjure the ‘feel’ of the listening accompanying the specific, observable behaviours. Listening at this level is a two-way process, and the communication has depth and immediacy. The listener is completely attuned and ‘listening happens at [a] logical, emotional and organic level at one time’ (ICF 2018). The listener is focused fully on the speaker – on both what the speaker is saying and how they are. The listener’s intention is to understand deeply and raise the speaker’s awareness. They listen for what is not said, attend to non-verbal messages, and might share their reaction at a particular moment (Gillie 2008). The listener listens behind and between the words (Bresser and Wilson 2010 p.18). They notice the speaker’s feelings and emotions, and validate them in a non-judgemental way (Zenger and Folkman 2016 p. 4). The listener listens without intent, using their intuition and all their senses (Clutterbuck 2017 p. 37). They listen from the heart (Burley-Allen 1995 p. 14). At this level, the coach attends to, ‘the client’s emotions, moods, language, patterns, beliefs and physical expression’ (EMCC 2015 p. 9). The coach uses ‘global listening’ and, for this, the coach must be ‘open and softly focused’ (Whitworth, Kimsey-House K., Kimsey-House H. et al 2007 p. 39).

Now, these descriptions of higher level listening are evocative and powerful in their poetic descriptions of deep and profound contact between the speaker and the listener. They attest to the abilities and qualities of the listener, and there is a consensus around some aspects or qualities – for example, the use of intuition and empathy. But the diversity of expression and emphasis shows that the agreement about this higher level of listening is broad rather than specific. Descriptions are bedevilled by abstract concepts, and easy prey for those who would mystify the process of deep listening or dismiss it as suspect and unproven.

The impact of good listening

I want to dig beneath these descriptions of higher level listening. In Chapter 2, I draw out the different modes of listening that contribute to this highest level. For now, I want to revisit the earlier summary of how listening enables coaching, by describing the impact of listening. The first impact is, as already suggested, on the speaker – it is the power of being heard. But listening also impacts the coach – there are benefits to being the listener. Thirdly, listening affects the relationship in significant ways, creating the partnership through which the work gets done.

Benefits to the speaker of being heard

The benefits to the speaker, and the impact on them, of being heard are interdependent and interwoven, affecting the whole self of the speaker. But psychological and neuroscience research and coaches’ insights suggest that we can distinguish four ways in which the speaker is affected by being heard: emotional, cognitive, physical and spiritual.

The emotional impact of being heard

The intent and stance of the coach – non-judgemental, with belief in the potential of the client and compassion for them – validates the speaker and what they are experiencing, and releases them to speak, find freedom of expression, and begin the process of shedding the emotional ‘baggage’ that may be limiting their effectiveness or resourcefulness. In the words of David Augsberger, ‘Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable’ (1982). Great listening gives the speaker the care, attention, acceptance and empathy that are redolent of love. Through conveying confidence in the speaker, the listener helps build the speaker’s self-esteem (Zenger and Folkman 2016 p. 2), and their belief in their ability to resolve their own issue. Progress is therefore not dependent on plans or intentions alone. A shift in emotion or mood can be transformative.

Research in neuroscience is steadily shining a brighter light on what happens in the brain when someone feels heard. It is partly about what gets triggered, and partly about what does not. Lewis, Amini and Lannon explain, in their wonderful ‘A General Theory of Love’, how the insights of neuroscience into our emotional life are based on the triune model of the brain. Under this model, the brain has three distinct but interacting sub-brains: the reptilian brain that controls the physiology of basic survival and contributes the background tone to emotional life; the limbic brain that contains the links between external stimuli and individual emotional responses that have been formed by our experience, and is the seat of advanced emotionality; and the neo-cortex that gives us our ability to think abstractly, solve problems and use language and other forms of symbolic representation (2000 pp. 20–31).

Lewis, Amini and Lannon go on to show how certain listener behaviours have an impact on the emotions of the speaker. Although the speaker will have developed hard-wired patterns that link emotions and external stimuli, and ‘attractors’ that interpret new experience in a way that confirms these patterns, the brain can change – it is ‘plastic’, and ‘love alters the structure of the brain’ (2000 p. 123). They argue that limbic states are contagious (2000 p. 64), so the non-judgemental, compassionate attention of the listener impacts the speaker emotionally. ‘Emotional impressions shrug off insight’ (2000 p. 177), but respond to a limbic connection.

How this limbic connection happens is not clear. Some commentators have argued that the power of empathetic listening is due to the activity of ‘mirror neurons’ within the brain. Brann (2014 pp. 240–242) cites the evidence – generally accepted with neuroscience – that when someone observes another person acting, certain neurons fire in much the same way as if the action were their own. Goulston argues that this ‘mirroring’ applies to empathy: ‘people have a biological hunger to have his or her feeling mirrored by the outside world’ (2010 p. 19) so when we are heard, it reduces our ‘mirror neuron receptor deficit’ (2010 p. 117). Page goes so far as to assert that mirror neurons fire if the other intends an action: ‘we are connected to one another at the level of intentions, motivations and emotions’ (2011 p. 65). However, Brann cautions that although mirror neurons are involved in empathy, and people who rank as highly empathetic have particularly active mirror neuron systems, ‘the existence or extent of mirror neurons outside of motor neurons is strongly debated’ (2014 pp. 240–242). There are clearly different views on whether mirror neurons are involved in empathy and it seems wise to avoid assuming or asserting what specific mechanism is involved in empathy and limbic resonance.

David Rock’s work (2008) does however provide a useful framework for understanding the emotional impact of being heard. He has drawn together two key themes from social neuroscience. First, he argues that much of the motivation driving our social behaviour is predicated on minimising threat and maximising reward. Secondly, he says that our brain treats our social needs in much the same way as it treats survival needs like food and water. These needs fall into five domains: status, certainty, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The power of listening
• 2. The four modes of listening
• 3. Attention
• 4. Inquiry
• 5. Observation
• 6. Resonance
• 7. The art of listening
• Index