Every time I take our car in for its annual MOT I am always intrigued about what the retailer will try and sell me. But recently I misheard their latest sales pitch which created lots of frustration.
The service assistant spotted that our vehicle was over four years old and they would look to see if there were any deals. I immediately launched into why I wasn’t interested in buying a new car at the moment and if I was it would probably be all electric. They replied that the technology continues improving however they would send me some offers via email.
Feeling annoyed that the service assistant hadn’t heard clearly that I was not in the market for a new car I prepared myself to delete a stream of emails offers and headed for a coffee. Later I received an email with an offer of a service plan that would reduce future costs. I had misheard what they were saying as well!
We are in an age where there is a cacophony of information from the media and social media and to manage the overload my attention span is reduced to seconds. Factor in a busy life then it is no wonder that listening skills are struggling. One mechanism that I use to manage this situation is to make background assumptions which allows me to quickly move onto the next activity. In the case of the retailer they are always sending information about new cars and therefore when I heard ‘offer’ I jumped to the conclusion that they meant ‘new car’.
History is littered with many instances of mishearing and one of the most famous, which had devastating consequences, is the Charge of the Light Brigade where miscommunication in the chain of command sent a light cavalry charging towards a well prepared artillery battery which resulted in high British casualties.
Mishearing can result in funny instances, for example in the world of music lyrics, can have a humorous twist: “Money for nothin’ and chips for free” ( correct lyric: “Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free” from Dire Straits’ ‘Money For Nothing’.) or “Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tangerine” ( correct lyric: “Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine” from ABBA’s ‘Dancing Queen’). However there is a darker mishearing, for example where covert recordings which are lawfully captured by the police are usually poor quality and can be misleading and lead to the wrong convictions.
There can be deeper aspects of listening. In an article by Dr Atul Gawande he describes attending a very disruptive and abusive prisoner and was struggling with the moral dilemma of giving such an obnoxious person the same attention as a normal patient. The turning point in the session came when: “ … he’d controlled himself enough to hold still for my ministrations. And I suddenly remembered a lesson a professor had taught about brain function. When people speak, they aren’t just expressing their ideas; they are, even more, expressing their emotions. And it’s the emotions that they really want heard. So I stopped listening to the man’s words and tried to listen for the emotions.” He eventually treated the prisoner but it was only after he listened between the abuse and to the prisoners emotions.
Listening requires time, patience and concentration by the listener and making sure that what is being heard is understood. Maybe some of the problems we face as individuals and a society would be reduced if we all took a few minutes to listen to each other. We may never agree on a topic but at least we can start to understand each other. As Aristotle best summarised: “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d rather have been talking.”