It has often been observed that God gave us two ears and one mouth because listening is more important than talking! But listening - skills are not easily acquired, mainly because they require us to exercise mental discipline.
Think for a moment about what happens when you speak. First of all, you begin with an introduction, eg “Well I agree with what you have said, but what I would like to say is ....” , then you move on to say what is really important. Finally you close off with a statement of this kind: “So, this is really what I feel is important, and I think the group should take note of my position - not that I am trying to be obstructive.” In fact, the real meat of your statement is sandwiched between two quite irrelevant statements.
These statements may, in fact, be very long indeed, while the 'meat' might be quite thin!
Now consider what happens when you are listening:
- You hear the opening words, and in this case, you will respond to the words 'agree' and 'but'. Immediately, your mind goes off and begins to prepare a response to that 'but'.
- Your mind is now working on the opening words just at the critical point where the speaker's real thought is voiced.
- You may have missed the real point, but now you know what to say, so you can pay full attention again!
- The speaker is winding up and has your full attention, but has nothing to say!
This can be illustrated graphically by tracing the importance of the content of the speaker's message and the level of attention of the listener against time.
The reason why we fail to understand is all too obvious to see!