You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters

Listening is an often-overlooked skill in today’s society heavily geared around marketing and self-expression. It involves asking probing questions and interpreting each word, expression, and pause that a speaker makes. It’s critical for jobs in journalism, intelligence, leadership, and social work. In this book, journalist Kate Murphy explores how listening works and how you can make better use of its science.

For source material, Murphy interviewed hundreds of people from all walks of life along with interviewing experts from several academic disciplines, like neuroscience, business, and the social sciences. Her compiled product represents a comprehensive work that illuminates almost every life sector of this fundamental human show more trait. It applies equally to many disparate activities, such as organizational leadership, spying, and interrogation.

The contrast with the world of social media is stark. The communications revolution of the Internet has facilitated a huge growth in an individual’s ability to broadcast oneself widely. However, as research notes, society’s collective ability to listen and to learn has probably diminished. We lack appropriate self-discipline to expand our attention spans. This book offers a specific path to improve. The self-help does not consist of trite adages but instead explores the deep science of an all-too-human art form.

This book’s genre and audience are difficult to place. While applying to many sectors, it broadly reaches to a general audience. There’s hardly a part of modern life – say, politics, religion, or neighborly relations – that could not benefit from better human relationships. Better relationships start with listening to each other. Effective leadership anywhere is impossible without good ears and appropriate, targeted responses. (It helps to listen to this book about listening in an audiobook format, too!) Through personal insights and scientific research, Murphy lights a path to overcome social obstacles to solving big problems. show less

When was the last time you felt like someone truly listened to you? And when was the last time you gave someone your full attention?

Much of our world exists in a constant state of distraction, with phones in hands, laptops at coffee shops, and multitasking at work and at home. We shout our opinions on social media and hit 'like' on the posts with which we agree. We hear each other, but we aren't listening. And because of this, we're lonelier than we've ever been.

Kate Murphy has given us a gift with this book. The writing is conversational, as she shares facts alongside anecdotes. She shows us all the ways in which we don't listen, and then offers guidance on all the ways in which we could do better.

A person in my life told me, "I'm a show more great listener," as she interrupted me to talk about herself. Don't be that person. Within the pages of this book, Kate Murphy shows us just how much we're missing out on when we don't listen to one another.

I honestly wish everyone would read this book. The world would be a far better place if we all took the time to listen.

*I received an advance copy from the publisher.* show less

How many individuals do you know who listen attentively? What are the characteristics of a good listener? Why do so many people talk more and listen less these days? What price do we pay when we are out to lunch during significant conversations? When you are conversing with someone, what should you look for beyond the ideas that are being expressed? For the answers to these and other provocative questions, read Kate Murphy's excellent work of non-fiction, "You're Not Listening." In it, she lucidly, intelligently, and eloquently addresses the subject of how to communicate more effectively, with an emphasis on improving your listening skills.

To illustrate the art of listening, the author, who is an accomplished journalist, interviews show more seventy-six-year-old Naomi Henderson, an accomplished woman who has moderated focus groups for nearly fifty years, as well as a former interrogator for the CIA who shares some of the strategies that made him successful at his job. Murphy also speaks with a star furniture salesman, bartender, hairdresser, air-traffic controller, and priest, all of whom are proficient listeners. "You're Not Listening" has eye-opening studies on everything from the mechanics of hearing to how device-free family dinners, in which there is a great deal of give and take, can help kids function better in school and develop such qualities as resilience and self-esteem.

Murphy warns us that when we are distracted by our cell phones or preoccupied with preparing biting and witty rejoinders, we cannot truly absorb what someone else is telling us. A person's body language, tone of voice, genuine curiosity, patience, courtesy, and ability to convey compassion, sincerity, and interest can lead others to open up in a way that is meaningful and poignant. Whether we are talking to our spouse, children, colleagues, supervisors, friends, or acquaintances, we can enrich our lives immeasurably by practicing the type of active listening that Kate Murphy describes. To sum up: "It is only by listening that we engage, understand, connect, empathize, and develop as human beings." show less

“Technology does not so much interfere with listening as make it seem unnecessary. Our devices indulge our fear of intimacy by fooling us into thinking that we are socially connected even when we are achingly alone. We avoid the messiness and imperfections of others, retreating into the relative safety of our devices, swiping and deleting with abandon. The result is a loss of richness and nuance in our social interactions, and we suffer from a creeping sense of dissatisfaction.”

The intro chapter is loaded with details on what this book will include, the subjects covered, the sources of research, and Murphy’s impassioned determination to unearth every possible pertinent topic related to listening and explore why we should (and how we can) listen more effectively. I was happy to find that the chapters following were consistent in quality.

While learning how to listen might seem like a basic concept, this book delves into this skill as an art that is becoming increasingly challenged in an age of information overload, social media sharing, and increasing division. Moreover, it offers reconsiderations for how we tend to listen and how we might not be reaching our full potential, when facing so many distracting show more roadblocks. Many of these chapters are centered on communication and relationships.

Though this is more general non-fiction than self-help, there is a strong motivational energy to several of the chapters here. Some of the most effective pages really make you want to go out and engage more and ask questions that matter to the people you’re closest to, and hear their thoughts with more purposeful clarity. The writing style is consistently persuasive, informative, and fast-moving. Housed within the chapters are stories about professional listeners across a broad range of careers, quotes from authors, scientists, and educators of equal variance. There’s also a large amount of data that is well-sourced.

This book is very current, making references to current events or services that might not be relevant a decade from now. Much of the info is still universal, but I think this book is best read sooner rather than later.

While most of the chapters are very useful, some of them seemed to veer too far off center into less interesting tangents.

There is a chapter that is very distracted by exploring algorithms in a way that can be ground down to “Algorithms and how the powers that be use them aren’t that helpful, and here’s why.” There is a chapter devoted to divisive politics with some light ranting. The smaller stories to illustrate the listening skills of professionals can be a mixed bag, some offering valuable insight while others seem of questionable usefulness.

Also, I would have liked to see more info about the effects of rushed listening or distracted listening. There are some tidbits on those topics and interesting stats on Audible for example and how listening at increased speeds (I’m guilty of this) has an effect on how we process the information and recall it over a long-term period.

In closing, as someone who reads minimal non-fiction, I was relieved to find how approachable this title ended up being. All in all, I enjoyed the time spent. Easily digestible yet full of clarified research, an attention to detail, and an enthusiastic approach by the author.

Note : I received an ARC of this title for review. show less

As a part-time communications professor on several college campuses for the past 34 years, I devour books that deal with any form of communication. I’ve been particularly attuned to works that focus on critical listening skills. There are many college courses that focus on public speaking. Some colleges even require students to take public speaking courses. Given the fact that most of us spend far more time listening than talking (a few of my “gabby” friends being the exceptions), why haven’t more educational institutions placed a greater emphasis on cultivating strong listening skills?

The author aptly notes that even from an early age, we are conditioned to tune out listening. When your mom sternly proclaims, “Listen to me, show more young man,” or when the coach hollers “Listen up“, our cues automatically tell us that something bad or bossy will immediately follow — spurring us to tune out. Studies show that most people are not good listeners. And the author repeatedly reminds us that strong listening takes practice — similar to any sport or other acquired skill.

Murphy serves up a nice menu of common sense strategies for improving listening skills. The best type of listening involves interpretation and interplay with a talker. Nodding doesn’t do the trick. “Alexa can listen to you,” but this proves unfulfilling, she notes. Active listening is the answer — listening that prevents us from taking all those mental side-trips during conversations.

The first half-dozen chapters might include a bit too much science and psychology for folks yearning for more of a self-help guide. Had I authored or edited this work, I might have frontloaded more anecdotal information in the earliest chapters. Murphy dives into the weeds a bit too far as she stresses the importance of critical listening in order to get to know the person behind the face and not judging people based on stereotypes. It’s an important theme, but it seems to go on a bit too long.
Still, I’m nitpicking. Much of Murphy’s information is insightful. Some of it will even make it into my journalism and public speaking courses. She skillfully outlines the differences between support responses in our conversations and shift responses (she describes the latter as “conversational narcissism.”) She points out that more than half of the meaning we gather in conversations comes from visual cues. And when we try to communicate via email or texts, as much as 90% of the verbal and vocal cues will be lost (no wonder so many emails end up being misconstrued.)

Good listening, Murphy notes, involves avoiding the temptation to approach conversations as a mission to “fix, advise or distract.”

The book even serves up some surprising “wow factors,” including research that suggests which ear we favor as we process information could shape how we interpret the message. Who knew that right-handed people have a left ear that is more geared to emotion?

There are sections in the book that are bit repetitive and even borderline preachy. But in the end, “You’re Not Listening” is a book that has the potential to help many people become better communicators. show less

"When all we crave is to understand and be understood, You're Not Listening shows us how."⁣
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In You're Not Listening, author Kate Murphy explains what listening truly is and isn't, and how important it is to our connection with ourselves and one another. Not only is this book super fascinating but it is always making me rethink so many things!

In our technology-filled world, there are so many new ways for us to interact, yet we are all longing for connection more than ever before. Many of us long for the days of simplicity and meaningful face to face conversations. When we do interact, it is often rushed and interrupted by the distractions of the fast-paced world around us.

I loved the balance of informative research and relatable show more text that made You're Not Listening both engaging and thought-provoking. I also appreciated that Murphy emphasizes that listening skills are learned through implementation and practice and that it is something we can always learn, no matter how old we are. "It takes awareness, focus, and experience to unearth and understand what is really being communicated. Good listeners are not born that way, they become that way."

Thank you to Celadon Books for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. show less