SuperListening: The Path to Trust and Connection

“Everyone longs to tell their story and have it understood and accepted” – Carl Jung

When we give someone the space to tell their story, the whole issue unfolds before us. If the person is really blocked, they will meander around and frequently apologise that they are making no sense. If we can be patient and learn to enjoy the stories, the golden thread that will take the person towards their solution will emerge. Once people feel understood by us, they’re ready to change; ready to follow us.

And so to the hardest skill of all – listening. How many times has someone (maybe your partner?) told you that they don’t want you to solve their problems for them, they just want you to listen. Or maybe you have had feedback in the past that you need to be better at it. The problem we have of course is that a) we don’t believe it adds any value because it has no action associated with it, b) we believe it allows people to ‘wallow’ in their problem and their inactivity, and c) that it’s inconvenient – it wastes time when everyone knows what needs to be done.

Listening to someone else is perhaps the single aspect of coaching that leads us to believe the myth that coaching is ‘soft and fluffy’ and that therefore coaching gets in the way of our drive for performance and results.

And yet we crave to be listened to ourselves; invariably it will be the thing we criticise our leaders for the most. What strange animals we are – we value things for ourselves, but do not value them for others. The reality is that listening to someone is a hugely valuable act and a really good use of time. Often it is all people need – they simply need to hear themselves talk the problem through with a ‘sounding board’ and perhaps also to feel the silent input of another human being honouring their position, accepting their fears and flaws, and not judging them for being foolish or stupid or frightened or incompetent.

As children we are brought up on stories; we learn through the power of storytelling. One of the most comforting phrases of my childhood was “Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.” We live our lives in stories. We make sense of situations and events by constructing stories around them – our own version of what happened and why.

We see events through a filter that is unique to us – our physical position with reference to the event itself, but also down to our values and beliefs – our pre-judgments of the people involved. That is why two people can have such differing memories of the very same event. They have told themselves different stories. Two sides in a conflict need to understand that their account is not the factual view, merely their view.

So listening to someone tell their story is hugely important. Yes, it can be time-consuming, but it’s not the time we begrudge, it’s the fact that we get bored easily and our conditioned sense that we could, nay should, be doing other more productive things. Our attention deficit disorder kicks in. Learn to listen. Learn to really listen; actively listening by empathising with the speaker; feeling their emotions and sensing their state of mind, for this is our path to a deeper and more meaningful and fulfilling connection with others; our path to trust.

The Art of SuperListening

As well as being more self-aware of our own state of mind, and being able to re-connect with the speaker, it really helps if we have some things to watch out for. Let’s not just listen, let’s SuperListen.

When we really start to listen to the words and become intrigued by the story, and when we really pay attention to the non-verbal communications and start to notice the smallest physical cues, we enter a whole new level of human connection – of trust.

In SuperListening mode, we will hear the denial (fear) in people’s communications. We will hear them distracting themselves and us from the real issue; we will hear them deflecting us; we will hear them softening the truth to make the situation seem less urgent.

We may even hear them drop into the third person to describe the protagonist in the story (themselves!). We will hear them gloriously describe how things are not, instead of how they are; of how they are not feeling instead of how they are feeling.

When we are really listening and really noticing, we’ll hear what appears to be just a ‘throwaway’ comment. An example might be ‘oh he’s a nightmare’ or ‘if that client asks for one more piece of information, I’ll swing for them’.

Even more interesting are the little things that people say under their breath – as if they don’t want us to hear. And yet they’ve said it aloud. When challenged on these, the speaker will immediately refute it or issue a call-back, telling us they didn’t mean it; that it was ‘just an expression’.

Well, there is no such thing as a throwaway comment. These are little but significant betrayals of truth; of strength of feeling or point of view.

Listening at the Level of the Subconscious

There is an expression that comes from the world of psychotherapy that says ‘when the mind moves the body moves too’.

When we are listening and really noticing, we’ll see the movement of the body that betrays an unexpressed thought – a smile, a tapping of the fingers on a desk, a grimace, a raising of an eyebrow.

Noticing this, and then asking the other person what the thought was not only helps them be clear in their feelings, beliefs and strategies, it’s a hugely powerful communicator of the care you are taking of them and for them.

Listening at this level of intensity and attention is a real act of love, and the effect of being cared for in this way is profound.

SuperListening Feedback

We then need some forms of words, some phrases that we can use to preface our feedback. Phrases such as:

• “A judgement I might be guilty of making…..”

• “There was a voice in my head saying………”

• “What I noticed (and how I interpreted that)”

• “I got a strong sense that you are feeling………”

These open the space for deeper insight. Feedback must aim to uncover capacity, competencies, gaps, courage, and commitment. It should not be simply to endorse action but to reveal hesitation or resistance, enabling people to break through internal barriers. Often, it is not about the words but what is left unsaid.

This is how we build trust. We need to make every question come from them, rather than from our own agenda or our own solutions.