But for someone to feel heard, three things have to happen. First, they have to feel like the other person paid attention to what they said. Second, they have to feel like the other person understood what they said. And third, the other person has to demonstrate that they listened.
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Three ways to apply it are to: (1) make people feel heard, (2) make the abstract concrete, and (3) know when it’s better to be abstract.
Consequently, it’s not enough just to listen. To make people feel heard, we have to show them that we listened. We have to respond in a way that demonstrates that we attended to and understood what they said.
And this is why concrete language is so valuable. A customer service representative may have paid attention, and understood the problem, but without some outward signal of understanding, there is no way for the customer to know.
Concrete language provides that signal. Using specific, concrete language shows that rather than just going through the motions, someone went to the effort to attend to and understand what was said. Or, said differently, to listen.
Concrete language boosted customer satisfaction, and purchase, because it showed customers that employees were listening to their needs…
So while attending to and understanding needs are key facets of listening, using concrete language takes it one step further. It shows listening.
“In that sense a therapist or good friend listens to another to find out who she is, what is special about her. In this kind of listening you not only take in someone’s words but also discover who they are.
Listening to another involves listening to what your utterance means to him or her, not to you. When they speak, it means listening to more than just their words, but reaching for the concerns and understandings that underlie the words…
This is a crucial step in connecting with others through curiosity: communicating your new understanding back to them. This is where a lot of the magic happens, where the connection between people becomes solid, visible, and meaningful. Hearing an accurate understanding of our own experience coming from another person, articulated in their words, can be thrilling, especially when we’re feeling alienated in a social setting. Suddenly someone is seeing us as we are, and that experience momentarily breaches the barrier that we feel between us and the world. To be seen is an amazing thing.