如何當好傾聽者 Lessons in listening大綱

A woman I know who does online dating says she is often baffled by the seduction techniques of the men she meets. In person, most just boast to her at great length. Few of them stumble on the winning formula: ask her about herself, and actually listen.

我認識的一位女性在網絡上徵婚，她說她遇到的男人們的把妹技巧經常讓她困惑不已。他們大多數人只是長篇大論地自吹自擂。很少有人能夠找到制勝之道：即讓她說說自己的事情，並且認真傾聽。

Listening may be the key social skill. But humans have probably been bad listeners since Adam and Eve ignored God’s edict and ate the forbidden fruit. Now many experts believe that the digital era of endless stimuli has made things worse. “The average human attention span in 2000 was 12 seconds, but by 2013 it was only 8 seconds (one second shorter than a goldfish!)” concluded Microsoft Canada, after doing research on 2,000 Canadians.

傾聽或許是至關重要的社交技能。然而，自打亞當和夏娃無視上帝的命令偷嚐禁果以來，人類很可能一直都是糟糕的傾聽者。如今很多專家認爲，充斥着無窮刺激的數字化時代讓事情變得更糟。“在2000年，人的專注時長平均爲12秒，到2013年降爲僅8秒（比金魚還短1秒！）”微軟(Microsoft)加拿大分公司在對2000名加拿大人進行研究後得出了這樣的結論。

I have studied good listeners — including spies, therapists and reporters (not columnists) — and tried to work out how they do it. The first step is to bin the preconception that the person you’re talking to is boring and predictable. Most people do have something worth saying, if only you can help them say it.

我研究過好的傾聽者——包括間諜、治療師和記者（不包括專欄作家）——試圖搞清楚他們是如何做到的。第一步是要拋棄先入之見，即對話者是乏味無趣的。大多數人的確有一些值得一說的事情，只要你能夠幫助他們說出來。

The second step is, therefore, to shut up. You may be aching to dive in and interrupt the speaker with a brilliant insight or joke, but don’t bother. He doesn’t want to listen to you either. As the British-spy-turned-Soviet-double-agent George Blake points out in his autobiography, “Most people are not particularly interested in your opinions or what you have to say, but very interested in voicing their own opinions and telling their own story.”

因此，第二步是閉嘴。你可能很想熱切地加入其中，以一個絕妙的洞見或笑話打斷說話人，但不要這麼做。他也不想聽你說。就像曾是英國間諜，後來又成爲蘇聯雙面間諜的喬治布萊克(George Blake)在其自傳中指出的那樣：“大多數人對你的觀點或者你要說什麼並不是特別感興趣，但卻非常喜歡錶達自己的觀點和講述他們自己的故事。”

Let them tell it. Blake suggests “making an occasional encouraging remark or asking for an elucidation”. Let silences fall, because people will often blurt things out just to fill them. A London lawyer tells me he always warns clients that when the barrister cross-examining them goes quiet (often simply to leaf through his notes), they need to keep their mouths shut.

讓他們說出來。布萊克建議“偶爾鼓勵一下說話者，或者要他們說清楚一些”。保持靜默，爲了填補這種靜默，人們往往會脫口而出一些事情。一位倫敦律師告訴我，他總是警告他的客戶，在盤問他們的出庭律師安靜下來時（通常只是爲了翻閱他的筆記），他們需要閉上嘴。

When people are listened to, they can come out with the most amazing things. If someone tells you something like, “I’m thinking of murdering my husband,” show no surprise and just nod understandingly. The bad role model to bear in mind is the Woody Allen character in Crimes and Misdemeanors listening to his sobbing sister recount, in graphic detail, an erotic encounter gone wrong. The Allen character covers his eyes and shouts, “Oh, oh, oh! That’s so disgusting. My God, that’s the worst thing I ever heard in my life … Barbara, you idiot!”

在有人傾聽的時候，人們會說出最令人驚奇的事情。如果有人告訴你“我在考慮謀殺我的丈夫”這類的事情，不要面露驚訝，只需理解地點點頭。要牢記於心的壞榜樣是伍迪縠倫(Woody Allen)在《罪與錯》(Crimes and Misdemeanors)中飾演的角色，在聽着妹妹一把鼻涕一把淚，繪聲繪色地講述她那糟糕的豔遇。艾倫飾演的角色雙手掩面，大聲叫喊“哦，哦，哦！太噁心了。我的老天，這是我這輩子聽過的最噁心的事兒了……芭芭拉，你這個蠢貨！”

Good listeners ask questions, but not too many. Journalists know that the best moment in the interview often comes when you put away your pen and say, “Thank you so much for your time.” Then the interviewee — freed from your barrage of questions — tells you the thing she had been wanting to say all along.

好的傾聽者會提出問題，但不會太多。記者們知道，採訪中最好的時刻，是你收起錄音筆然後說，“非常感謝你抽出時間接受採訪。”然後，從你連珠炮般的問題中解放出來的受訪者會告訴你她一直渴望吐露的事情。

When good listeners do speak, they don’t bother repeating their favourite lines. Listening to anyone halfway interesting is a stimulus to think of something new. The German writer Heinrich von Kleist called this “the gradual completion of thoughts while speaking”. In business, skilled listeners will use the other person’s words to make a sale. A consultant I know says that instead of telling clients what he has to offer, he usually asks them, “What’s top of mind?” If the client replies, “We’re just working out how to replace all our workers with robots,” he can then say, “It so happens we’ve got just the product for that.” Every conman knows that what you really sell people are their own fantasies.

好的傾聽者真正開口的時候，不會重複他們最喜歡的句子。聽一個不那麼有意思的人說話，會刺激傾聽者想到新的東西。德國作家海因裏希馮克萊斯特(Heinrich von Kleist)稱，這是“在說話的同時逐漸完善思路”。在商業活動中，有技巧的傾聽者會用別人的話做成生意。一位我認識的營銷顧問告訴我，他通常不會告訴客戶他能提供什麼，而是問他們“你們最想要的是什麼？”如果客戶回答說，“我們正在想辦法用機器人替換我們所有的工人，”那麼他就可以說，“這樣啊，我們正好有相應的產品。”每個騙子都知道，你真正兜售給人們的是他們自己的幻想。

There is one big occupational hazard in listening. Sometimes you will encounter someone who is boring and predictable. This person will engage in one or all of boasting, solipsism, house-price talk, route talk (“The M1 was totally blocked, so … ”), diet talk (the word “carbs” is a warning signal) and current-affairs clichés (“Politicians! They’re all in it for themselves, that’s what I say”). But if the bore has you tied up in a hostage-style situation, then get him to talk directly about his own life. People’s experiences are usually more interesting than their views, and a good listener can come away with unexpected knowledge of life in Düsseldorf or the economics of dentistry.

傾聽者可能會遭遇一種“職業性危害”。有時你會遇到某個乏味無趣的人。這個人可能在談話中有以下其中一種乃至全部舉動：自誇、 唯我、談房價、談交通（“1號線地鐵完全堵死了，所以……”）、談飲食（“碳水化合物”是一個警告信號）和有關時事的陳詞濫調（“政客們！他們全都只顧自己，這就是我說的”。）但是，如果無聊感已經把你綁架了，讓他直接談一談他自己的生活。人們的經歷通常比他們的觀點更有趣，好的傾聽者在結束談話離開時，會意外瞭解到杜塞爾多夫(Düsseldorf)的生活情況或者牙醫這一行的經濟情況。

Even when the listener learns nothing worthwhile, he can achieve a useful seduction. I once had a boss who was the smartest man in the room. After taking over the department, he invited the lowliest grunts out to lunch one by one. He’d ask each one, “So what do you think we should change?” and then listen while the grunt spouted all the grievances she had been storing up for years. I suspect that the boss didn’t care about the grunts’ views. He already knew exactly what he wanted to change. But when he did make changes, the grunts united in support of the first person who had ever listened to them. Today the guy is chief executive of a global media company, so he probably doesn’t have to listen any more.

就算傾聽者沒有了解到什麼有價值的東西，他也可能成功地“誘惑”了對方，這是有用的。我曾經有個老闆聰明絕頂。在接管部門以後，他一個一個地邀請級別最低的員工吃午餐。他會問每一個人，“那你覺得我們該改變些什麼呢？”然後傾聽這名員工把積蓄多年的苦水倒出來。我懷疑這名老闆並不在乎這些員工的觀點。他那時已經非常清楚他自己想要改變什麼。但他真正進行改革的時候，這些員工聯合起來支持第一個真正傾聽他們的人。今天這個人已經是一家跨國媒體公司的首席執行官，因此他很可能無需再傾聽了。