Brilliant Listening

This article “Brilliant Listening” first appeared in our monthly magazine Persönlichkeit – Schritt für Schritt entwickeln und entfalten, by WEKA Business Media AG. Special thanks to Heather Fiske for her support in editing the English version.

Her warm brown eyes are fixed on her five-year-old granddaughter, who is excitedly recounting what she experienced while playing in the forest. She listens attentively. Then she laughs and says in a voice that sounds as if she were also proudly saying it to herself, “I see the rascal looking out of your eyes.” The mischievous twinkle in the eyes of the little girl, who in her liveliness always seems to be up to something, flashes even more.

Forty years later, her granddaughter watches for that twinkle in her 90-year-old grandmother’s eyes as she listens to her stories. Grandma also has that mischievous look, and when it flashes, the granddaughter rejoices, just as she did when she was five. Now she calls out joyfully, “There it is!” and a lively smile is drawn on the faces of both. The grandmother’s progressive dementia changes many things. However, the two celebrate these special moments of closeness with a deep look into each other’s eyes and a loving smile until the last day they spend together. 

The shine of brilliance

When the granddaughter looks back on those moments today, she knows that it wasn’t just the look in the eyes that so connected her grandma and her. It was seeing each other’s brilliance, that glimpse of something that was important to both of them. Discovering these moments in their conversations, addressing them and thus reinforcing them, they both understood. The sparkle in the eyes of one, amplified the sparkle in the eyes of the other and resulted in shared joy.

The word brilliance is derived from the French “briller” – to shine, radiate, sparkle, glow. When a person feels good all around, we can perceive this shine and radiance very clearly and distinctly.

Brilliance shows itself in many facets. We can

• see brilliance: e.g., in the radiance and sparkle of the eyes, in relaxed facial muscles, in a broad smile on the lips, or in a soft, peaceful gaze.
• hear brilliance: e.g. in the tone of voice, the melody of speech, the power or clarity of the voice.
• feel brilliance: e.g., in moments when pleasant goose bumps run down our spines while the other person is talking.

Perceiving and enhancing brilliance

• How do you notice when brilliance emerges in a conversation with someone?
• How do you respond when moments of brilliance arise during your interactions with others?
• In what situations do you find that brilliance is most likely to emerge in a conversation? What actions do you take in those moments to encourage or amplify that brilliance?

People who see the brilliance of their counterparts can reinforce it not only by addressing it, but also by listening to it. In the book Momo [1], Michael Ende writes about a little girl who could listen in such a way “that stupid people suddenly had very clever thoughts. Not because she said or asked something that gave the other person such thoughts, no, she just sat there and listened, with all her attention and sympathy.”

Listening as an active activity

Listening is often understood as passive. However, microanalysis of face-to-face dialogue, which uses video analysis to explore what happens in conversations moment by moment, shows how much we do when we listen:

• We acknowledge what is being said. We do this in many ways: We nod; We blink our eyes; We smile.; We say “Mhmm”; We look the other person in the eye; We say “okay”; We reinforce with “yes, exactly” or “ah, yes”.
• If something is unclear, we may frown. We widen our eyes. We keep our eyes open without blinking. We tilt our heads. We raise our fingers.
• When we are astonished, we may open our mouths and keep our eyes wide open. We may acknowledge with “Wow”.

Attentive listening enables better storytelling

In an experiment, Janet Bavelas, Linda Coates, and Trudy Johnson [2] divided storytellers into two groups. One group was listened to attentively in a face-to-face conversation. For the second group of storytellers, the listeners had to count words that start with the letter “t”. The stories told were recorded on video. The recordings were then shown to an audience, which had to judge who was the better storyteller.

The results are not surprising: when storytellers were listened to attentively, with normal listening reactions, they were encouraged to continue their story. In contrast, distracted listeners displayed their listening less or reacted too late to what the storytellers were saying. Their responses were not timed well with the story. As a result, the storytellers tended to repeat themselves, pause more frequently, or become less fluent. Those who were not listened to attentively were subsequently rated as significantly less effective storytellers.

As listeners, we help shape the story. The quality of storytelling is directly related to our attentive listening. If you want to hear better stories, listen carefully! 

Brilliant with helpful assumptions

In addition to the level of your attention, what you listen for can also enhance or dim the shine and brilliance of those around you. If you want to enhance brilliance, the following assumptions may be helpful:

• Each person is an expert on her or his own life.
• Every human experience is unique.

With your attentive listening, you signal to your counterpart “you are important”. If you also appreciate that everyone has different life experiences and has developed unique life and coping strategies, and see the person you are talking to as an expert on their life, you will reinforce brilliance.

Instead of sharing your own ideas, pay attention and be present. You don’t have to prepare your next argument while your counterpart is speaking, and you don’t have to respond as cleverly as possible to what is being said. Instead of meeting your interlocutor in a knowing and judgmental way, you can marvel at all they have achieved and accomplished.

This stance changes your listener responses. You may show that you are touched, excited, fascinated with a smile, “Wow”, “Ahhh” or nod. You may react with a sparkle in your eye when you realize that important insights are emerging. At best, you will return the gleam in your interlocutors’ eyes with an encouraging smile. These kinds of responses invite your counterparts to share even more of what strengthens them.

Brilliant memories

The granddaughter still hears the sound of her grandmother’s voice. The granddaughter is me. And when I think of my grandmother, a warm feeling of gratitude floods my body. From her, I learned to seize moments to notice and consciously respond to the sparkle, and shine of others. I always felt seen and valued by her in a special way. We had developed a common appreciation for the sparkle in our eyes. “The rascal looks out of our eyes,” was a powerful description for us of how we retained something childlike and playful in our lives, something that has carried us both through difficult times. That rascal in our eyes has never been completely lost to us, as we kept rediscovering it in each other.

Further training on the topic

Join our Microanalysis online course and get to know what really happens in dialogue:

• English: sfontour.com/microanalysis
• German: sfontour.com/mikroanalyse

[1] Ende, Michael (1973). Momo. Stuttgart: Thienemann Verlag. Published in English in 1974 by Puffin.
[2] Bavelas, Janet B./Coates, Linda/Johnson, Trudy (2000). Listeners as co-narrators. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 941–952.

The Authors

This article was written by Elfie Czerny and Dominik Godat, communication and leadership experts, Interactionalists, and promoters of solution-focused practices. They are co-editors of the magazine Persönlichkeit! and co-founders of SF on Tour. Learn more at www.sfontour.com