Are you a good listener?
I said are you a good listener?
Do you feel you hear as well as listen?
Do you understand what the difference between hearing and listening is?
Do you have good active listening skills?
And do you know what active listening skills are?
We all think and feel we are good listeners, but how good are we really?
We love to hear people’s stories don’t we, however, we are also often bursting to share our story also.
Or we are listening to someone and ‘know’ (or assume) we know what they are saying or going to say and so stop listening. And what happens? We have picked up the wrong end of the stick, misunderstood, or worse still gone and done the thing we weren’t meant to or vice versa.
Recognise the story?
I believe we can all improve our listening skills and focus more on active listening.
Here’s some pointers to help you identify if you have these skills or don’t, and clarify which ones you can improve on and where.
- Ask open-ended questions – these are questions that won’t provide a yes or no and lend themselves to a full and detailed answer
- Request clarification – check out what the person has said to you, don’t assume, clarify and confirm so you are clear you have the facts
- Be attentive – focus completely on what the person is saying and remove as many distractions as possible to enable you to hear what is being said properly
- Summarise – to ensure you’ve heard and understood what has been said correctly, summarise to show the person you’ve completely understood what they said and meant
- Paraphrase – check in with short statements as you go, this has two benefits, one it tells the other person you’ve understood and secondly it helps you remember and digest what’s been said
- Reflect feelings – try and tune into how the person is feeling, how what they are talking about has affected them and respond to that
- Be attuned to feelings – even though you may feel you wouldn’t have been as affected by something happening as the other person, this is their story and their feelings and that needs to be taken on board
- Ask probing questions – try and dig deeper, find out more, you will be surprised at how much you find out about the other person and get to know and understand them better and then relate to them more easily
Are you a better listener than you thought?
If not try going through the list above and see how the changes can benefit you.
Ask about the Success Factor one-hour complimentary consultation today.
Want to improve your communication and reduce or remove conflict?
Why not complete the iMA Questionnaire and see what colour you are? http://successfactor-ima.com/questionnaire.html
To find out more email Debs on: debs@successfactor.co.nz
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