Hear This: Unleash the Power of Listening and Improve Business Relationships
Do you get agitated when watching today’s television "news" broadcasts? The moderator asks a question and within seconds, seven news analysts are shouting over one another. I just change the channel. With only two ears and one brain, I cannot process what all seven people are screaming and shouting about. How can they possibly be listening to each other?
According to Michael Nichols, professor of psychology at The College of William and Mary and author of The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships, the essence of listening, "…can be achieved only by suspending our preoccupation with ourselves and entering into the experience of the other person."
We Learn More by Listening
Listening does not always come naturally and it takes effort. Most people involved in a conversation are busy thinking about what they will say when the other person stops talking. Larry King, host of CNN’s Larry King Live, says it best, "I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening."
Improve Your Competitive Edge with Powerful Listening Skills
While serving in a variety of business communications roles during my 25-year career, I have seen how excellent listening skills improve business relationships. Excellent listeners enjoy greater business advantages over poor listeners by:
- Achieving higher customer satisfaction results
- Acquiring greater levels of discipline that listening requires
- Avoiding costly duplicating of efforts
- Building trust and credibility
- Developing productive and lasting relationships
- Earning the respect of others
- Improving productivity for themselves and others
- Increasing sales revenues and a competitive edge by gaining a better understanding of customer needs
- Learning new concepts and ideas
- Managing people more effectively
- Minimizing costly mistakes and misunderstandings
- Negotiating better deals
You can probably think of at least 20 to 30 other powerful reasons why a business can be more successful when leaders and employees have excellent listening skills. Some managers even find that when employees are allowed to speak freely about a problem, they often solve it on their own simply by talking it through with someone who truly listens.
Five Ways to Improve Listening Skills
I have found that the following five behavioral techniques greatly improve listening skills:
- Give your undivided attention to the speaker. If you’re speaking face-to-face, maintain good eye contact. Even if you’re talking on the phone, stop everything that you are doing. Many of us have multi-tasking tendencies. However, our focus should be on the person talking, thus reassuring them that they have our full attention.
- Be sensitive of the speaker. If they appear nervous, ignore the body language and instead pick up on the message and the words being expressed. Also, by helping speakers relax, you will find them growing more at ease with you. Normally, relaxed speakers convey more authentic or candid thoughts and views.
- Avoid interrupting, giving advice or steering the conversation away from the point(s) being made by the speaker. A listener can make comments or express body language without interrupting the speaker. For instance, a good listener can be responsive by sharing an appropriate smile or a word or two that do not interrupt the flow. Simple body language techniques such as shaking one’s head or raising an eyebrow will connect the listener with a speaker. Simple words like "yes" and "go on" let the speaker know you are engaged.
- Listen very closely to points that you may disagree with. A poor listener often has their mind made up and shows it. Instead, be open and take a naïve approach to what the speaker is saying. Acknowledge what they are trying to get across. It doesn’t mean that you have to agree with or condone what is being said; it just means that you’re not constantly thinking about your next rebuttal.
- Mentally collect and organize the speaker’s main points. Try not to think about something else while another person is talking. Also by mentally processing what the speaker is saying, a good listener avoids the trap of immediately reacting before it’s their turn to speak.
Can you think about a time when you have had someone really listen to you? When it was their turn to follow up, they even summarized what you said. It’s like "Bingo!" That person got it. A sense of connection is reached when a speaker knows that they’ve been listened to and understood by their listener(s). Even if disagreeing with a speaker’s views, a good listener first conveys an understanding of what the speaker said.
Again, quoting author Michael Nichols: "Few motives in human experience are as powerful as the yearning to be understood. Being listened to means that we are taken seriously, that our ideas and feelings are known and, ultimately, that what we have to say matters."
Oh, one other important business advantage to listening: It costs nothing! Not only that, when employees and customers feel that they matter, a business can soar to greater than ever-imagined heights!