From the course: Improving Your Listening Skills
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How to listen for what’s not being said
From the course: Improving Your Listening Skills
How to listen for what’s not being said
- Listening well is certainly about grasping people's words but their body language and silences are also significant. As a good listener, it's also your job to listen for what's not being said. Here's how to do that. Start by watching for emotion. Of course, you'll notice if someone's furiously angry or if they're sad and crying, but it goes beyond that. In particular, look for discrepancies, conversational topics that you wouldn't imagine would bring up a lot of emotions. Yet somehow the person in front of you is really emotional or vice versa. You'd expect them to be rattled by something but they're not. What's behind that? By asking the right questions, you can often get critically important information. Next, look for micro expressions. There's a whole science around this pioneered by the researcher Paul Ekman. You certainly don't have to become an expert but it's useful to realize that people often quickly…
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