Between the Listening and the Telling of Stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been skimming a 2022 book about storytelling by Mark Yaconelli titled Between the Listening and the Telling: How stories can save us. Google Books has a preview through page 21. There is a 29-second video at Hearth Community on August 2, 2022 titled Storytelling is being human together with this description:

 

“Storytelling is being human together. We tell stories to savor the pleasure of living. We share stories to help one another remember who we are and what matters. We tell stories to weave our lives together. We tell stories to keep our souls intact when suffering overtakes us. This is story as medicine. This is how story can save us.”   

 

Twelve chapters and three interludes in the book are titled:

 

A Place the Soul Once Knew

Confession

The Catacombs

Coming-Out Parade

Pure Medicine

Interlude: Clara

The Hearth

Storycatcher

Undocumented Stories

Tragedy

Interlude: Shoes

The Apocalypse

Sacred Stories

Interlude: The Faun

Home

There is an excerpt on June 28, 2022 at Broadleaf Books titled The Healing Power of Stories, taken from page 15 of Chapter 2: Confession. Another excerpt on September 5, 2023 at Thriving in Ministry titled ‘Between the Listening and the Telling: How Stories Can Save Us' that comes on page 150 from Chapter 11: Sacred Stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a striking excerpt on page 93 from Chapter 7: Storycatcher says that:

 

“One night in an Irish pub, over dinner with writer Brian Doyle, I talked about my newly discovered work, drawing stories forth from people and towns and organizations. ‘You’re a seanachie,’ he declared. Seanachie, he explained, is a Gaelic word meaning ‘storycatcher.’ In traditional Irish towns, a storycatcher’s role was to unearth, gather, and share stories to strengthen and bind people to one another.

 

After Brian’s declaration, I began to claim my vocation as a storycatcher. I learned to ask questions that drew forth memories: A scared place from childhood. A memorable winter. A sacrifice. A missed opportunity. I learned to listen for patterns, for change, for the revealing heat of emotion. I read books by writers, oral historians, and professional storytellers and noted how they went about their craft. Over time I learned the warp and woof of stories, how they gather, arch, spiral, and spring forth. I learned how to root up the deepest stories from people and communities, how to catch their scent, how to ferret them out from the tangle of a person’s living.

 

I discovered that in every town the stories wait, like seeds beneath the concrete. They wait within the receptionist who sailed alone across the Black Sea, within the store manager who raised his two sisters after their mother died, within the well-dressed grandmother who spent her youth stealing horses in Saskatchewan. Lower me down into a seemingly empty, colorless place – a fast-food restaurant, a warehouse chain store, a gray office cubicle – and I will excavate a story that will break your heart, a true story that will bust your sides with laughter or unlock all that’s bound up in you, a story that will aim you like the North Star toward whatever is true and right. Give me a few hours of your time and I will mirror back a story from your life that will fill you with self-compassion. There’s no need to make anything up, no need for fiction. The truth waits to be told, but few know how to catch it. And fewer still know how to tell it.”

 

There is a 45-minute interview at Hearth Community on August 9, 2022 titled Anne Lamott Interviews Mark Yaconelli About His Newest Book.

 

Images of a fireside storyteller and lady catching a ball came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Idaho’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights celebrates its thirtieth anniversary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An article by Valentin Termite at the Idaho Capital Sun on June 18, 2026 is titled Believing in the goodness of people: Idaho human rights center celebrates 30-year anniversary. It links to their web page on Wassmuth Powerful Practices, which briefly are titled (and then also explained in detail):

 

Collect Joy

Design for Belonging

Listen Deeply

Stay Curious

Notice and Name Bright Spots

Align Actions with Values

 

To collect joy you should:

 

“Notice, savor, and share moments of connection, warmth, and delight as expressions of human dignity and belonging. Paying attention to what is life-giving cultivates hope and sustains commitment to building a better world for all.” 

 

And, to listen deeply you should:

 

“Offer your full presence to another person without interruption, judgment, or trying to fix. Seeking to understand feelings, perspectives, and needs affirms that every person matters.” 

 

On October 27, 2024 I blogged about A new building at Boise’s Wassmuth Center for Human Rights with quotations carved in stone.

 

The border for the thirtieth came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

A ChangeThis manifesto and a book on how to improve feedback

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful ChangeThis manifesto by Therese Huston on February 3, 2021 titled How to Improve Feedback that also can be downloaded as a 12-page pdf. Feedback involves listening and conversation. She includes these survey statistics:

 

I would have felt much better if … Percentage of respondents:
My hard work had been acknowledged. 53%
The feedback had been accurate. 51%
I had a chance to discuss the feedback more fully with the feedback giver.40%
The feedback giver had listened to me.29%
The feedback giver and I had worked together to generate next steps.25%
I had known the feedback was coming. 24%
The feedback had been more specific. 24%
The feedback giver had asked me what I thought of the feedback. 22%
I had understood what I was expected to do differently in the future. 20%
I trusted the person giving me feedback. 19%
The feedback had come from a different person.13%

 

The manifesto refers to her interesting 2021 book is Let’s Talk: make effective feedback your superpower. There is a preview of the first 35 pages at Google Books. And a summary on page 43 for the first chapter makes three distinctions:

 

Chapter 1 – Three Kinds of Feedback

 

Communications are much clearer if you recognize that there are three kinds of feedback: appreciation, coaching, and evaluation. Every employee needs all three kinds.

 

Appreciation communicates that you value both the work and the person doing it.

 

Coaching helps the person adapt, improve, and learn.

 

Evaluation lets the person know where they stand relative to expectations, and what they can expect down the line.

 

Ask employees what kind of feedback they want and be sure to give it.

 

An important exception: content novices, or people who are new to a task, often need more appreciation than they realize.

 

Because coaching and evaluation are usually lumped together under ‘constructive feedback,’ they’re often conflated and that can lead to frustrations for you and the employee.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pages 96 and 97 have a useful table with valued listening behaviors, as is shown above.

 

The cartoon came from OpenClipArt.

 

 

Ten simple rules for improving communication among scientists

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an excellent 14-page article by Carla Bautista et al. in PLoS Computational Biology on June 23, 2022 titled Ten simple rules for improving communication among scientists. It has six authors and 31 references. Those ten rules can be grouped into three areas: Speak, Join, and Assess, as is outlined and shown above [Figure 1]:

 

  1] Know your audience

  2] Use social media

  3] Listen how other scientists present their work

  4] Network with scientists and ask for feedback

  5] Get involved with scientific organizations

  6] Create opportunities to practice public speaking

  7] Organize scientific meetings

  8] Identify and enroll in scientific activities

  9] Collaborate with other scientists

10] Pace yourself! Don’t overcommit

 

The sixth section begins:

“Scientists communicate about their research throughout their careers. Learning how to give talks of different lengths and for a variety of audiences is an essential skill. Many platforms offer different types of talks for diverse audiences (e.g., the general public or more specialized audiences) and environments (e.g., academic or less formal interactions). Practicing your public speaking with diverse audiences and settings will teach you to adapt your presentation style and goals for each public speaking engagement. The presentation format is also essential; for example, poster presentations are generally more interactive and a presenter might be stopped and asked questions providing more room for discussion.

Practicing to communicate with broader audiences and communicating your topic without jargon will improve communication with fellow scientists (see Rule 4, especially with those outside your field of study. Therefore, aim to find places (or organize them yourself, see Rule 7) where you can practice presenting longer 1-hour talks or shorter 15-minute seminar-style presentations.”

 

 

 

 

An interesting book by Emily Kasriel on Deep Listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been looking at an interesting book from 2025 by Emily Kasriel titled Deep Listening: Transform Your Relationships with Family, Friends, and Foes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pages 10 and 11 in the Amazon sample list the eight steps shown above. They are described as follows:

 

Step One: Create Space. [Pages 83 to 106]. You begin by creating a place of psychological safety for your speaker. There are also physical changes you can make to your environment, so a conversation feels effortless. Your ambition: your speaker feels cherished and inspired to explore new ideas.

 

Step Two: Listen to Yourself First. [Pages 107 to 132].  You can’t be open to listening to others until you truly listen to yourself. This step explains how you can begin to forge a more positive relationship to your family of shadows, the unacceptable parts of yourself, so they no longer hijack your most important encounters.

 

Step Three: Be Present. [Pages 133 to 157].  This step will delve into an elliptical yet impactful aspect of Deep Listening – your presence, which transforms standard listening into a profound encounter. We explore what presence is, and how you can cultivate it to tackle the internal and external distractions that obstruct true listening.

 

Step Four: Be Curious. [Pages 159 to 186].  Here we unpack the qualities you project towards your speaker: curiosity, empathy, awareness of judgements and respect. Acknowledging that you don’t already know what’s in the mind of your speaker can be transformative.

 

Step Five: Hold the Gaze. [Pages 187 to 206]. This step explores the power of a steady, warm-hearted gaze and other non-verbal cues to communicate to your speaker that they are being heard. We explore how far you can read your speaker’s body language, facial expression and tone to understand what they are not expressing directly.

 

Step Six: Hold the Silence. [Pages 207 to 227]. In this step we unravel the many types of silence and the reasons why you may resist a pause. How can you use a rich stillness to centre yourself and signal to your speaker your true respect, giving them the space to think, reflect and share?

 

Step Seven: Reflect Back. [Pages 229 to 254]. Here we uncover how to crystallise what you’re hearing and reflect it back to your speaker. What are the clues that can guide you as you check your understanding of the meaning of what your speaker has conveyed, directly and between the lines?

 

 Step Eight: Go Deeper. [Pages 255 to 279]. This step explains how your listening can illuminate what ordinarily is hidden – your speaker’s deeper narrative. This deeper narrative is vital to understanding your speaker – and can include their unexpressed needs and whether their emotions are in harmony or alive with contradictions.

 

Each chapter has a list of takeaways. For example:

 

CREATE SPACE TAKEAWAYS – page 105

 

Find or create a place of safety | One where your speaker will feel free from any physical or psychological threat.

 

Contract to cultivate trust | Be transparent at the outset, clarify your intentions. Address how long the conversation is expected to last and what happens with any shared information, if relevant.

 

Listen before you speak | Unless you are habitually silenced in this relationship.

 

Get the physical setting right | Avoid glass and metal, which create bad echoes, and seek out wood and fabric. Choose warmer coloured diffused lighting and stay away from the harshness of overhead and blue-white light.

 

Ensure you are both rested and fed | Before an important conversation.

 

Adjust your position or take a journey | sit at an angle of 60 degrees to your speaker or walk with a slow rhythm so you are in sync with your bodies and each other.

 

Turn to nature | Nature can be an enriching setting for a difficult encounter, providing soft fascination and dissolving stress.

 

Earlier Emily briefly described Deep Listening in a feature article in the Winter 2022 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

 

My spiral was adapted from this art deco image at OpenClipArt.

 

Are you a really good listener?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an excellent five-page article by Jeffrey Yip and Colin M. Fisher in the May-June 2025 issue of the Harvard Business Review on pages 139 to 143 titled Are you really a good listener? which you can listen to here. But you have to pay for the full text unless, like me, you can find that magazine free in databases such as EBSCOhost at your public library.

 

There are sections in that article titled Haste, Defensiveness, Invisibility, Exhaustion, and Inaction with the following statements:

 

Under Haste:

 

“Good listening is a demanding task that tames time. In our work we’ve found that people feel heard only when listeners focus their attention, demonstrate interest, and ensure that they’re understood.”

 

Under Defensiveness:

 

“The lesson is to steel yourself against defensiveness by calming your own emotions and seeking to understand the other parties’ intentions before responding. Before you speak, take stock of yourself. If you feel criticized or threatened, buy yourself time by simply restating what you think the speaker has said or thanking that person for sharing.”  

 

Under Invisibility:

 

“One of the most common mistakes we see among managers is not showing that they’re listening, which makes them appear indifferent and disconnected. Sometimes organizational leaders are working behind the scenes to fix problems identified in town halls or staff surveys but fail to broadcast those efforts to employees.”

 

Under Exhaustion:

 

“Exhaustion is a silent killer of effective listening. When leaders are physically or emotionally drained, they lose their capacity to focus, process, and engage productively with employees.”  

 

Under Inaction:

 

“The final pitfall is perhaps the most pernicious: receiving the speaker’s message but then not following up on it.”

 

The cartoon was adapted from one at OpenClipArt.

 

 

Active Listening and Aizuchi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an intriguing brief article by Daniel James Ince-Cushman and Marion Dove in the January 2025 issue of Canadian Family Physician magazine - Volume 71, No. 1, pages 67 and 68 titled Approach to teaching active listening in the age of artificial intelligence.

 

The fourth and fifth paragraphs say:

 

“Aizuchi originally referred to the alternating strikes of hammers on hot iron by an expert sword maker and their apprentice. It has come to mean the frequent short interjections or sounds that a Japanese listener makes to show they are paying attention. Simple aizuchi translations include words such as yeah, uh-huh, and oh (Table 1).

 

However, aizuchi is not only a verbal phenomenon. Nodding is also a form of aizuchi. Much of Japanese communication is nonverbal, and short utterances are also mirrored with engaged facial expressions and well-timed nods. In linguistics this is referred to as back channelling. Back channelling is how we interject to show understanding and attention rather than to convey new information. These are not so much questions but rather facilitating remarks to encourage the speaker to continue.”

 

The image was adapted from one of forging ahead at the Library of Congress.

 

A self-paced course on active listening with eleven learning modules

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On December 1, 2022 the Defense Technical Information Center published a self-paced course with 11 learning modules on active listening as a 75-page .pdf file titled Active Listening Learning Resource. It was prepared by psychologists at South Dakota State University. The eleven modules are:

 

Active Listener Characteristics

Attending Behaviors

Effective Questioning Techniques

Reflection of Content

Reflection of Feeling

Empathetic Listening

Reflection of Meaning

Confrontation

Using Immediacy

Self-disclosure

Providing Supportive, Critical Feedback

 

Toastmasters may want to look at this course. On October 19, 2024 I posted regarding More about active listening.  

 

The cartoon ear was captioned from one at Openclipart.

 

More about active listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matt Carpenter was Toastmaster for the October 16, 2024 of the Pioneer Toastmasters Club in Boise. His theme was active listening. I was Table Topics Master, so I had to come up with a half-dozen questions about that topic. I emailed Matt that I had blogged about active listening in a post on August 8, 2021 titled Learning to listen actively. In that post I had linked to a two-page pdf article from the Office of the Ombuds at Boston University from October 2016 titled Active Listening. I suggested that Matt might use it as a handout, and he shrunk both pages and put it on the back of the meeting agenda. The first page lists four categories:

 

Paraphrasing

Clarifying

Reflecting

Summarizing

 

Each is discussed succinctly in a table listing What It’s Called, How to Do It, Why Do It, and Examples of Active Listening Responses. Toastmasters International has a level 3 project on Active Listening in their current Pathways educational program, but it is more vague than the Boston University article.

 

Then I decided to search for more recent information about active listening. There is a 2023 book by Heather R. Younger titled The Art of Active Listening: How people at work feel heard, valued, and understood. She has a 9 page pdf article titled The Cycle of Active Listening: Action planning guide with bonus quiz. She describes a loop with five steps (as shown below):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recognize the Unsaid

Seek to Understand

Decode

Act

Close the Loop

 

Her approach also is discussed at a Carnegie Mellon University article under Civility Initiatives titled What is active listening?

 

There is yet another article by Mary at InPowerCoaching on May 10, 2023 titled Effective listening skills for working on a technical project and to build a collaborative culture. She discusses a method by Julian Treasure called RASA, which stands for:

 

Receive

Appreciate

Summarize

Ask Questions.

 

RASA also is discussed in a five-page pdf article from Julian Treasure. And there is a 29 minute Think Fast Talk Smart podcast by Matt Abrahams at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on November 7, 2023 titled Communication Means Paying attention: The Four Pillars of Active Listening.

 

There is an exhaustively detailed 43-page article by Lindsey P. Gustafson, Aric Short, and Neil W. Hamilton at the Santa Clara Law Review for 2022 titled Teaching and Assessing Active Listening as a Foundational Skill for Lawyers as Leaders, Counselors, Negotiators, and Advocates. They describe how to evaluate understanding of listening via a rubric (evaluation guide) with four sub-competencies as follows:

 

First sub-competency: Active listeners assess and accurately allocate resources necessary to the conversation

 

Second sub-competency: Active listeners work to create a shared understanding with the speaker by considering both the speaker’s and the listener’s lenses and how they may differ

 

Third sub-competency: Active listeners work to increase shared understanding with verbal and nonverbal cues

 

Fourth sub-competency: Active listeners move to a response only after fully exploring and understanding the speaker’s meaning

 

Finally, in 2020 there is an entire book by Debra L Worthington and Graham D. Bodie titled The Handbook of Listening.

 

My cartoon combined two on listening and an ears frame from Openclipart.

 

There are many accents and dialects across the United States

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on January 17, 2024 there was an article by Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton at Smithsonian Magazine titled A Brief History of the United States’ Accents and Dialects. She discussed several of them, as shown above via a map. But you can’t really learn without listening to them.

 

Her article also had a 22-minute embedded video by dialect coach Erik Singer titled Accent Expert Gives a Tour of U. S. Accents – Part 1. He also has two other videos: one is Accent Expert Gives a Tour of U. S. Accents – Part 2 (14 minutes), and the other is Accent Expert Gives a Tour of North American Accents – Part 3 (11 minutes).

 

My map was adapted from this one of U.S. States.

 

 

Learning the art of active listening

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On August 29, 2022 Doug Savage published the Savage Chickens cartoon shown above about How to be a terrible listener. If you want to do better, then watch at an eight-minute YouTube video posted on August 31, 2022 titled The art of active listening | The Harvard Business Review Guide. It states that:

  

“Listening is an active, noncompetitive, two-way interaction”

 

That video is based on four excellent articles from the Harvard Business Review, linked to in the description for that video. On August 23, 2016 I blogged about one of them in a post titled What great listeners really do.

 

Also, the July 2020 issue of Toastmaster magazine has an article by Peggy Beach on pages 22 to 25 titled Are You Listening? And there is another article by Joel Schwartzberg on page 8 of the July 2022 issue about a podcast, titled 7 Ways leaders can listen more effectively.

 

If you think that you are the smartest person in the room, then it is time to find yourself a bigger room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ran across a similar statement in an article by Solomon Timothy at Forbes on February 10, 2022 titled Why you never want to be the smartest person in the room. That sentiment was voiced repeatedly by James Watson, the molecular biologist who along with Francis Crick received the 1962 Nobel prize for proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule.

 

At Quote Investigator on February 21, 2019 Garson O’Toole has an article titled Never be the brightest person in the room: then you can’t learn anything. He mentions a version by Michael Dell in his Commencement Address at University of Texas, Austin 2003 which is:

 

“Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room. In professional circles it’s called networking. In organizations it’s called team building. And in life it’s called family, friends, and community. We are all gifts to each other, and my own growth as a leader has shown me again and again that the most rewarding experiences come from my relationships.”

 

Another variation can be found in an article by Niklas Goeke at Medium on June 30, 2020 titled Don’t be the smartest person in the room – stand next to them:

 

“The late Harold Ramis, known for playing Egon Spengler in Ghostbusters, once articulated it this way: ‘Find the most talented person in the room, and if it’s not you, go stand next to them. Hang out with them. Try to be helpful.’ ”

 

Similar sentiments were expressed by Dwight Eisenhower, who is quoted by Clifford Hudson on page 43 of the 2020 book Master of None as saying:

 

“Always try to associate yourself with, and learn as much as you can from, those who know more than you do, who do better than you, who see more clearly than you do.”

 

In the 2022 book Trust & Inspire by Stephen M. R. Covey et al, on page 250-1 they state at length these words of wisdom:

 

“Those who understand the need for speed and want to go fast often consider themselves the smartest in the room. They don’t have time for others, and they believe they have the skill set they need to accomplish the job by themselves. If they need other people, what they need is for those people to dependably do what they’re told. In a few cases, this might give them an edge, but there’s a price to it, and it’s not sustainable. And more often than not, it yields mediocre results.

 

Those who go far are those who go together. These people recognize that not one of us is smarter than all of us together. The collective ethos and knowledge of teams is what brings about true innovation and creativity. It’s what allows for better ideas, deeper understanding, and happier teams. Those who go far fast never think they are the smartest in the room, they depend on others being more capable than they are and bringing diverse thought and opinion to the team. They seek to work together to innovate – but they do it on the basis of trust, allowing them to go faster as they eliminate misunderstandings and hidden agendas while allowing people to focus on and contribute their greatest strengths. They produce better results in a faster and more effective way. They inspire each other to do their best work.”   

 

Conversely, an article by Dan Forbes at LinkedIn Pulse on March 5, 2015 is titled The Smartest Person in the Room Syndrome, which he acronyms as SPITR (pronounced spitter, and denoting negative behavior).  

 

Images of a sofa and chairs were adapted from Openclipart.

 

Can monkeys buy you happiness?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On March 21, 2022 Doug Savage published the Savage Chickens cartoon shown above titled You Need to Listen. But one of those chickens wasn’t listening carefully, and wrongly thought it had heard:

 

Monkeys Can Buy You Happiness instead of Money Can’t Buy You Happiness

 

A variation on the latter adage was discussed in an article by Garson O’Toole at Quote Investigator on January 25, 2019 titled Whoever said money can’t buy happiness didn’t know where to shop.

 

There is an article by Peggy Beach in the July 2020 issue of Toastmaster magazine (on pages 22 to 25) titled Are You Listening? I blogged about it on August 5, 2020 in a post titled When doing research, your attention span should be more than 10 seconds. That is because she was not listening and quoted a bogus statistic claiming attention span had dropped from 12 seconds down to 8 seconds. But the minimum time for a typical Toastmasters speech is 5 minutes, which is 300 seconds or 25 times the quoted 12 seconds.

 

Learning to listen actively

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Active listening is a skill that any good speaker should learn. On the web you can find several succinct descriptions of how to listen actively.

 

The briefest one is a single-page .pdf file titled Tips for Active Listening. It has two notecard-size pages from NHS University Hospitals Dorset in an A5 format (148 x 210 mm or 5.83 x 8.27 in.).

 

A second is an excellent two-page .pdf about Active Listening from the Office of the Ombuds at Boston University. The first page is a table about the processes of paraphrasing, clarifying, reflecting, and summarizing. It has four columns describing: what it’s called, how to do it, why do it, and examples of active listening responses. The second page has another table with a cheat sheet of ‘feeling’ words.

 

A third is a web page at MindTools on Active Listening which also can be downloaded as a single-page .pdf. It is accompanied both by an infographic and a three-minute YouTube video titled Improve your listening skills with active listening.

   

If you want more detail, then at the WholeBeingInstitute you can download a five-page article from 1987 by Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson titled Active Listening.

 

There also is an eight-page .pdf white paper from Mosaic titled Active Listening & Effective Questioning (or here from McGill University).

 

Toastmasters International has a project on Active Listening in its new Pathways educational program. It is an elective at level three in the Engaging Humor, Motivational Strategies, and Presentation Mastery paths. It is required at level two in the other eight paths. But the material there is not as well organized as the sources I already described.

 

The July 2020 Toastmaster magazine has an article by Peggy Beach titled Are You Listening? I blogged about how it opens in a August 5, 2020 post titled When doing research, your attention span should be more than 10 seconds.  

 

The image was adapted from a painting (Grandma Tells Tales) at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Are you an interrupter, or just a cooperative overlapper?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are significant cultural differences in how people have a conversation. At Huffpost on  March 4, 2021 there is an article by Kelsey Borresen titled How to know if you’re an Interrupter or a ‘Cooperative Overlapper.’ Those differences are important. In a blog post on March 2, 2021 titled Which speech delivery habits do the most people find annoying? I described how interrupting was the most common annoying habit.

 

But back in 1984 Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor, described how some people don’t intend to interrupt. Rather, they talk along with the speaker to show they are engaged with them. Another article by Richard Nordquist at ThoughtCo. on February 6, 2019 titled Cooperative overlap in conversation also discusses this topic of turn-taking.

 

The tenth paragraph in Ms. Borrenson’s article links to Chapter Eight by Tannen on Turn-Taking and Intercultural Discourse in Communication in the 2012 Handbook of Intercultural Discourse. Her section about Turn-taking in Intercultural Perspective described a conversation between three New Yorkers, two Southern Californians, and a Londoner. New Yorkers expected shorter pause between turns. Tannen explains:     

“In addition to expecting differing length of pauses between turns, the New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers had different assumptions and habits with regard to simultaneous speech, or overlap. The New York-bred speakers frequently talked along when another was speaking as a show of enthusiastic listenership. Because the non-New Yorkers did not use overlap in this way, they frequently mistook these ‘cooperative overlaps’ as attempts to take a turn, that is, to interrupt. Acting on this interpretation, they usually stopped speaking, so the cooperative overlap did turn into an interruption – a result that each regarded as the other’s doing.”

My image was adapted from an illustration at Wikimedia Commons taken from the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice.