Odds and ends that I ran into or people send to me which in some ways are connected to my practice
- binduchandana
- Feb 12, 2019
- 17 min read
Updated: Feb 17, 2019
1.The Art of Conversation
Evolutionarily we don't really need to listen. for some species its a survival skill for humans its how loud you to get the attention of the adult who will help you - we are hardwired to scream and get attention.
Ralph G Nickels - father of listening - humans are terrible listeners was his conclusion after years of research, it's not the smart phones or tech its just us.
When you learn something from the other - bare minimum. To hear and consider it is to listen well. We listen to evaluative.
listen to reply not to understand - Covey
Listen to the end of what someone is saying.
Kolbs - transformative listening (willingness to change your mind), evaluative listening (right or wrong) and interpretative (understand) listening. Three layers of listening.
Whole life I was hearing music, large part of my childhood it was background There came a point when I started listening to music, it was moving me on a different level. I started studying opera than it made sense, and when I had to sing I listened even more - to the orchestra, what the lyrics meant, i have two degrees in music and thats what led to my profession today (. musicians are the only people who are trained to really listen. Classes where listening in the class title, you have to listen everyone around you in the orchestra and not just the conductor - sharper, rounder, speed up, slow down, even to the tone (mood of the people in the orchestra is picked up through tone which is subtle). listening to people and training to match pitch is so so important in music.
Listening horizontal. - pop music, needs less focus, different kind of entertainment.
vertical listening - all the little voices expand out in your ears - you can then ear each instrument - all voices joining together to make one sound, it is really hard to do requires and attention that has been disappearing - musicians are trained to do in order to do the jobs. Attention span shrinking and maybe that's contributing to ticket sales going down in classical music. Suffer to appreciate long bouts of entertainment - like lord of the rings trilogy
Writing for the ear (journalism bout through radio) - cleaner and crisper writing no complex sentence structure, easily understood and absorbed by the brain. clear, simple precise. only one thought for a frame - even if it is a title! Basics of writing for radio is limiting but once you know you can create beautiful prose in its simplicity. Use colours, explain why was he busy - let us decide if he busy. radio is people talking to other people about people. Compressing in radio and journalism - context is the key, what do people really need to know. Make it a story - a beginning, a middle and an end - and it has to keep moving - no gaps. Take out bias by removing the subjective (your opinion, not good!). Not my job to worry about whether the people are interested, my goal is to make them understand - assume they are interested. If they at that point of time they didn't turn to someone and tell that story then I failed.
Interview: first question to be good one - the meat of it, reveals how well you know material. formalised structured conversation, where one person is in control. The interviewer is supposed the light on their guest and get the expertise of the guest.
good conversation - mutual exchange of information. like a friendly game catch - throwing and catching, even balance of talking of listening. you are thinking about the other person's success, not just how well you throw so they can catch otherwise you have no fun. You have to think about the other person, otherwise it's no fun to talk with you. Interactive is how humans learn - thats why smart phones work - it engages and keeps us involved. It shouldn't allow the other person to tune out. No agenda for a conversation. When you bring in a pundit, you know what they are going to say, it becomes boring.
Difficult conversation - by nature tribal, we have a tendency to split into tribes, our need to belong exceeds our need to be moral. and we form these tribes quickly. In email you are more likely to escalate a conversation - you are a jerk on digital. Surround ourselves with people who agree with us.
Cognitive diversity is extremely good for us. Agreement is not a good goal when you want to be innovative - we come with best plans. But we don't enjoy it and it's not comfortable. Consensus is the enemy of innovation - find the best of the different ideas. We don't enjoy conflict at all. we get together in a group where we agree and do all the same things.
Argument - defensive - brain actually reacts like it is being attacked. We do not like people questioning us and our choices. Conversation is better for you except in two - negative tone (criticisms etc) and someone offering you help/unsolicited advice/training
Cannot see something through their eyes, you need them to explain it to us. What we would have done. empathy bond is listening to their perspective and experiences. One best to create this is to hear someone's voice. The sound of the voice itself helps with this and allows us to humanise one another.
Stages when someone disagrees with us - Ignorant, Idiots, Deliberately Distorting it for their own purposes - Catherine Shultz
Conversational narcissism - Charles Derber - The pursuit of Attention - Withhold interest or shift conversation to themselves. Improv - the office episode about improv. good improv is you build on it. aware of your tendency to shift from conversational narcissism. Yes AND not Yes BUT exercise.
Better conversations:
Not offering up your similar experience, when someone comes to you and you say, 'i know just how you feel' - never say that cause you don't!!! you don't how they feel. your brain immediately works on softening a painful memory so you literally don't remember how you felt. Awkward so we talk about ourselves. Harvard 2014 research talking about yourself activates the same pleasure centres of your brain of sex and heroin. You get a really good feeling from it. Doesn't do the same for the other :)
The Knowledge Project – Celeste Headlee on The Dying Art of Conversation (show notes from their website)
Key Takeaways
Writing for eyeballs (which people read) is quite different from writing for the ear (which people listen to)
When writing for the ear, the prose has to be much clearer and crisper“You’re trying to sculpt information so it can be easily understood by the brain”A thought on interviewing: “If the interviewer is good, they’re asking questions in a way that allows the other person to shine”What makes for a good conversation? “If someone walks away from a conversation and they didn’t learn anything from the other person, then it wasn’t a successful conversation”“A good conversation is interactive for both people. It doesn’t even allow the other person to tune out.”The best model for a good conversation is a friendly game of catch Why? – In a game of catch, you can’t throw more than you catch – it’s an even balance, just like a conversation should be an even balance between talking and listening“Consensus is the enemy of innovation” Our best ideas come during times of cognitive diversityListening is really hard for humans because evolutionarily, we don’t really need to listen well (our survival more so depends on how successful we are at being loud to get the attention of an adult who will helps us) For other species though, the ability to listen well is actually a survival skillDon’t listen to reply, listen to consider and understand“In everyday life, even when you’re not interviewing someone, the ability to see the world through their eyes…the empathy that creates within you is a necessary component to having a really good conversation” – ShaneA conversation tip – Try not to equate your experiences with someone else’sHarvard released a study a few years back finding that talking about ourselves activated the same areas of the brain as sex and heroine
Intro
Celeste Headlee (@CelesteHeadlee) is a journalist, opera singer, and writerShe is the author of We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That MatterHer TED talk has more than 16 million views
Music
Celeste’s grandfather was a famous composer – William Grant Still“There comes a point when you can really listen to music at a deeper level” – As opposed to just “hearing” it“I remember thinking that when I first got involved in opera, that I was really listening to music, and it was moving me on a completely different level” Celeste first studied opera in college, and she eventually started singing it “When I really began to listen, and heard the relationship of my voice to the orchestra, and all of the complexities of that music, in addition to what the lyrics meant, it was a different level of listening”“Musicians are one of the only professions who are actually trained to listen” Lots of people get trained in public speaking, but very few people get trained to learn how to listen
Vertical Listening
There are so many subtleties of orchestrated music that you just don’t realize without a deeper understanding of the artCeleste goes on to explain the concept of “vertical listening” “Vertical listening is when you’re hearing all kinds of different voices joining together to make one overall sound”One might also explain this as “deep listening” – being able to hear all the sounds at once“Vertical listening requires an amount of focus and attention that frankly has been disappearing over the past few decades” “Our attention spans are shrinking” Celeste thinks this may be contributing to the decline in tickets sales for live orchestrated music
Celeste’s Move to Journalism and Writing For the Ear
After college, Celeste took a job as a classical music host at Arizona Public Radio in 1999 in Flagstaff, AZEventually, Celeste made the switch to “arts reporting” at the radio stationCeleste says the hardest part of this job was “learning how to write for the ear” What does she mean by this? Everyone is trained to “write for the eyeballs” (for someone reading) – but that’s not the way we absorb information when we’re hearing it“When you’re writing for the ear, things have to be much clearer and crisper” You can’t have any subordinate clauses (Celeste says you want to get rid of the word “that” as much as you can”), complicated sentence structures etc.You want to aim for one thought per sentence“You’re trying to sculpt information so it can be easily understood by the brain”Think – If you’re speaking, and say something the listener doesn’t understand, the brain of the person listening is going to stop and say, “Wait, what was that?”, and they’ll spend at least a few seconds trying to interpret what they just heard During that time – the speaker is still talking, so they’ll have just missed a portion of the messageCompare this to when you’re reading – if you don’t understand something, you can just reread it – you can’t do this when listening to something live“You have to be extremely clear, simple, and precise in your language in order for people to understand it”In radio, you have a very short amount of time to tell stories, so every word counts “I think of radio as poetry”
More Tips on Writing For the Ear
Only one thought per phrase“Think carefully about sentence structure and whether or not the brain will follow it”Be careful about including too many commasTry to incorporate the use of colors – they’re really powerful for the ear For example – “She was wearing a heavy fuchsia jacket”“Once you learn how to write for the ear, you’ll find you can create beautiful prose – just gorgeous writing that is simple and clear and all the more beautiful for simplicity”
A Quick Segue into How Radio Works
Major networks like National Public Radio (NPR), American Public Media (APM), and Public Radio International (PRI) create and sell shows/programming to consumers (the local public radio stations)
A Great Piece of Advice Celeste Received from a Mentor
“Radio is people, talking to people, about people”
More Journalism Tips
Make it a story – with a beginning, a middle, and an end “A story is like a shark. It has to keep moving forward or else it dies.”“You have to provide that next rung for the listener. There can’t be any gaps, or they fall.”In a sense, your mindset for a story should be – “Here’s this topic. It’s important to you, and I’m going to give you enough information so that you’re going to understand it.” “My goal is to make them [the listener] understand it”“By the end of this, if that person listening can’t turn to someone next to them and explain what the story is, then I failed”
A Podcast Interview Shouldn’t Be That Complicated
Just read the guest’s work (you’d be surprised how many people actually don’t do this) and then ask sincere questions
The Power of a Single Question – An Interview Tip
“Don’t waste any time” “When you start that interview, the first question needs to be a good one” It could be a provocative question, but it doesn’t really matter – that first question needs to get to the heart of the story
What’s the difference between an interview and a conversation?
“An interview is a formalized, structured conversation” It’s similar to a conversation in many ways, EXCEPT – one person is in control (the interviewer)“If the interviewer is good, they’re asking questions in a way that allows the other person to shine” “If I’m interviewing Neil deGrasse Tyson, he doesn’t give a damn how much I know about astrophysics. The audience doesn’t care either. They’re listening just so I can ask the questions that allow Neil deGrasse Tyson to say interesting things.”A conversation should be much more balanced and mutual, compared to an interview
What makes for a good conversation?
It’s a mutual exchange of information/ideas“If people walk away from a conversation and haven’t learned anything from the other person, then it wasn’t a successful conversation”“The best model for a good conversation is a friendly game of catch” Why? – In a game of catch, you can’t throw more than you catch – it’s an even balance, just like a conversation should be an even balance between talking and listeningAlso – if it’s a friendly game of catch, you’re thinking about the other person’s success – you’re trying to throw the ball in a way that the other person can actually catch it “You’re setting the other person up for success, and that’s what a conversation should do also”So don’t just think about what you’re saying… Think about what the other person is sayingConsider – are you keeping them engaged? Is it interactive? (Just like a children’s TV show is interactive)“That’s why we’re so addicted to our smartphones, because they’re so good at playing on our need to be engaged and involved”“A good conversation is interactive for both people. It doesn’t even allow the other person to tune out.”
The Tribal Nature of Human Beings
“Human beings are tribal by nature” “Our need to belong, exceeds our need to be moral”Social media and tech is allowing us to isolate ourselves within tribes to extents never seen before Social media just allows us to be the worst versions of ourselves In email, for example, you’re less likely to cooperate and more likely to escalate conflict“Your digital persona is just not as nice as you are”“If we already have a tendency to want to surround ourselves with people who agree with us, and then we have this technology that’s with us constantly which allows us to do that to an unprecedented extent, it’s kind of a recipe for disaster”
Cognitive Diversity
“Cognitive Diversity is really good for us. It’s when human beings do our best thinking. Agreement is not a great goal if what you’re trying to do is be creative and innovative in your problem solving.” Cognitive diversity isn’t something we enjoy though – but it’s where our best ideas originate from Humans see disagreement as a personal attack to our own opinions, which we’re very attached to“Consensus is the enemy of innovation”“Make it the goal not to reach consensus, but to find the best of the different ideas”
The Benefit of Conversation
The neurological, physiological, and emotional effects of conversation have been found to be beneficial except in two circumstances: When the conversation has a negative tone (like someone criticizing you)When someone is offering you unsolicited help/advice/training Humans just don’t like to be told what to do
How do conversations change when multiple people are involved?
It’s hard to sustain the necessary attention and focus once more people are involved It’s possible with 3-4 people, but really difficult after that
Human Beings are Terrible Listeners
“Listening is really hard. Not because of our smartphones or because we’re distracted…it’s hard because the homo sapien species does not listen well. Evolutionarily we don’t really need to.” The ability to listen well, for other species, is actually a survival skillHuman beings on the other hand – “Your survival depends on how successful you are at being loud to get the attention of an adult who will help you.”
What does it really mean to have listened to somebody?
You have to have learned something from them“To listen well is not just to hear what they’re saying, but to consider it” But that’s not what we do – most people get 5 seconds into a conversation before we begin trying to decide whether or not we agree with the other person “We’re listening not to actually absorb what they’re saying, but to evaluate it – evaluate if we agree and evaluate if they’re right”
Don’t Be Afraid of Silence
“I think we’re afraid of silence or pauses in conversation and there’s really no need to be”Most commonly, there’s only about a 0.5 second pause (or less), between the time one person ends a sentence, and the time the other person responds – that means we’re just not listening to the end of what someone is saying It’s like we’re listening to reply, not to understand“You need to listen all the way to the end of what someone is saying, and we rarely do that”Stop thinking about what you’re going to say next during a conversation It occupies your mind and just wastes mental space – “You are absolutely capable of responding in the moment”
The Three Layers of Listening
Evaluative Listening When someone responds immediately to what someone says with their judgmentWith this, you’re listening only to decide whether what the other person says is right or wrongInterpretive Listening When there’s an active interpretation – you’re trying to understandThis might involve asking for clarificationTransformative Listening Listening with the willingness to change your mind and consider other points of view
Empathy
“In everyday life, even when you’re not interviewing someone, the ability to see the world through their eyes…the empathy that creates within you is a necessary component to having a really good conversation.” – Shane“The best way to increase your empathy is by listening to someone else’s perspectives and viewpoints”Consider this: It’s been found that if you read an opinion you don’t agree with, you’re more likely to think the author of the text doesn’t agree with you because they’re stupid/they don’t understand the core conceptsBut if you hear someone saying that same opinion in their own voice, you’re more likely to think they disagree with you because they have different perspectives and experiences “One of the best ways to create that understanding and that empathic bond, is to hear someone’s voice”Think of the implications of this today – we’re always texting and emailing instead of talking on the phone “If the voice is what allows us to humanize one another, and we’re not hearing each other’s voices anymore, then, of course, we’re going to hate each other”
Conversational Narcissism
Check out the book The Pursuit of Attention“Conversational narcissism is the tendency to turn the conversation back to ourselves, and we do it ALLLL the time”There are a few ways to do this (both fall under what Celeste terms the “shift response” umbrella) You could talk about you/your needs etc. With this, it’s quite obvious you’re making the conversation about yourselfThe other way is more subtle – You can just withhold attention/interest When you do this long enough, the person you’re conversing with is more likely to ask about you about yourself….and then the conversation turns to youConsider the opposite – known as the support response This is when you ask follow up questions, and keep the conversation on the other personThis is what’s taught in improv classes – “Improv is a great way to make you aware of your tendency to switch the conversation onto yourself, but also a great way to train yourself out of it”A great tip: When Celeste is running workshops, she does what’s called the “Yes, and” improv exercise One person will say a sentence, and after that, every other sentence will begin with the words – “Yes, and”“It’s gonna sound awkward, but it doesn’t matter. Everything needs to begin with ‘Yes, and.'”Why do this? – We all have the tendency to say “Yes, but” after someone says something By saying “Yes and” first – we’re showing that we are accepting what was just said, with no questions or arguments
One More Tip For Better Conversations
Try not to equate your experiences with someone else’s Specifically when someone comes to you with a struggle or source of painTry not to say something like – “I know how you feel. My brother/sibling/mother/dog also….” Why not? – “Because you don’t know how they feel. It doesn’t matter if their talking about their dog dying and your dog died of exactly the same thing. You still don’t know how they feel.” This is because when we experience any kind of pain, our brain intermediately gets to work on softening the memory right after it happens So your memory of a painful experience is very distortedWhen someone is telling us about their pain, it can feel awkward, and we don’t quite know what to say – so we default to the subject we’re most comfortable with….ourselvesHarvard released a study a few years back finding that talking about ourselves activated the same areas of the brain as sex and heroine
What’s the best lesson Celeste’s mother ever taught her?
They don’t really get along….“So the best lesson my mother ever taught me is how not to have conversations”
2. Chromesthsia
Seeing colours through sound. he hears colours, hears the wall, only sounds, colours are absolutely everywhere. I can listen to a Picasso. Supermarkets sound like nightclubs. I dress in a way that it sounds good! Funeral - b minor and today - c major. Perception of beauty has changed, it needs to sound pleasant.
3. Julian Treasure: how to speak so that people will listen. - Chairman of the Listening Agency
Soundscapes - Birds singing, waves reduced down crime by 15% in Lancaster.
Listening the most undervalued sense we have
We are losing our listening, 20% of what we hear.
Mental process and patterns of recognition
Differencing - we listen to differences discount the sound that sounds the same
conscious listening creates understanding so can build your listening positions.
What gets in the way of listening - sounds everywhere.
Researchers discovered that in open planned offices, Noise and lack of quiet working space for office working people - 66% productivity dropped - increase stress, heart disease, bowel disorders, psychological disorders.
Don't ask questions, don't listen, take turns in talking about themselves
listening takes brain power
Men tend to listen in a reductive way - for a point for a solution
women expansive way - being with the person
Become conscious listeners, or at least capable of doing it.
Tools:
Silence - 3 minutes a day.Mixer - how many sounds can I hearRASA - receive, appreciate, summarise, ask
Most generous gift you can give to a person.
all our time teaching reading and writing, a bot more speaking and no listening at all - in schools
Listen consciously to live fully. Connection, Understanding and Peace
4. 99% Invisible Podcast: Listening in the Digital Age
Each episode looks at a different way that the switch from analog to digital audio is influencing our perceptions, changing our ideas of Time, Space, Love, Money, Power and Noise. In the digital age, our voices carry further than they ever did before, but how are they being heard?
Galaxie 500 musicians https://www.20-20-20.com/galaxie500/ whose idea it was to explore the nature of listening in our digital world. Wrote a book - listening shifting from analog to digital culture - how lives are changing with these changes.
5. Car Industry and Sound (cannot paste pictures or audio recordings as it is
I work with a major Indian car company, and stumbled upon a opportunity to visit the space where they test the cars, especially ones that have been sent back with an issue that they are not able to figure out.
The fantastic part is that these cars get situated in massive soundproof rooms and then the experts listen to sound and particularly vibrations to identify where the problem could be!
Sound is used to share if something is wrong is a very 'live' organism thing, or so I thought. The experts shared that they cannot 'see' everything that happens so hearing is the best and most of the time the only way to register issues.
As I visited each room and understood the technology behind it I asked the engineers some basic questions:
Has it improved your overall listening capacity?
Of course it has, I have become mush more sensitive to the sounds and my ability to tune out things that I don't to hear is so much more greater!
2. Vibration that you pay attention to is Sensing or Hearing?
You know what, I haven't really thought about it, its seems like it is a bit of both isn't it? But when I focus it seems like it is a feeling (sensing) but I think all of them come together for me to figure out where the sound is coming from. And of course, we have instruments that help us so we are not just relying on our ears.
6. Onomatopoeia
An onomatopoeia is a word that actually looks like the sound it makes.
Vroom
Buzz
Boom
Swish
Swirl
Bark
Belch
Plop
7. Otto Scharmer - Levels of Listening
2018, October 21). Retrieved October 22, 2018, from https://vimeo.com/199593914
Scharmer talks about the levels of listening and the application of it when we engage with each other. A big aspect of well being comes from our need as humans to be part of a social structure. We are social creatures and isolation is evolutionarily unadvisable for us. The dilemma is that we need the social part at a fundamental level, but if that is not done in a productive manner, it has major repercussions. So listening and responding becomes a core part of influencing our well being. We focus inward a lot more when we listen, concretizing our beliefs (downloading), or noticing differences/comparing (factual), when we shift to listening from within (empathizing) we take a step towards deeper understanding and finally Our ability to listen from source (generative) which enables us to build towards a future together.
The key here is to pay attention when you are factual listening.
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