Look around you. Not physically, but around your realm of execution: your colleagues, your family, your friends. It is probably fair to say that most members of these groups acknowledge that listening is important. The issue is that very few of them actually work on improving this skill, and even less of them have it.
Few people work on improving their listening skills. Even fewer people know how to actually listen.
The meaning of listening
The Cambridge dictionary has an unexpected definition for the verb to listen.
“Listen: to give attention to someone or something in order to hear him, her, or it”
First, listening is about giving attention to someone. While we have a language bias that likens the verb “to listen” to the verb “to hear,” the closer cousin of listening is actually paying attention.
When you are listening, you are paying attention to someone. Raising the bar one level higher, effective listening is a much more comprehensive skill to have. As Rick Fulwiler, PhD from Harvard University, states: “the overarching principle of effective listening is to seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Effective listening is a paramount skill for any effective leader.
What makes up an effective listener
What lies behind Dr. Faulwiler’s statement is a set of actions that enable people to actually understand each other through verbal and non-verbal communication. Effective listening requires you to gather inputs from other people’s verbal statements with the same emphasis and focus as from their non-verbal cues such as tone and body language. According to Harvard University, research shows that only seven percent of a message is expressed in words.
An effective listener does the following:
1. Pays attention: an effective listener focuses his or her five senses onto the interlocutor.
2. Manages judgment: we are judging everything we hear and see all the time. An effective listener knows this and considers judging a liability during the listening process for two reasons: 1) it takes attention away from the communicator, and 2) it incentivizes uninformed conclusions based mainly on human biases.
3. Mirrors: the effective listener mimics the communicator in two ways: 1) through body language, thus making the communicator feel more at ease; and 2) through repetition of key pieces of information – this gives confidence to the communicator and keeps him/her focused on sharing.
4. Paraphrases: summarizes key points in his/her own words in order to reach consensus with the communicator about what has been said, which creates a stronger bond between the two interlocutors and also uncovers any needs for clarification.
Shows curiosity: asks questions about what is being said in order to help the communicator portray a complete story, clarify, and focus on key pieces of information that are interesting to both parts.
Photo credit: Unsplash by Alireza Attari
Learn to listen in order to be happy
In a world in which digital technology has become a key agent of distraction, an effective listener is a rare find.
But the benefit of good listening skills is not necessarily to stand out, but to develop stronger relationships.
In one of the world’s longest studies on life, a group of researchers at Harvard University studied the secrets of a happy and healthy life. They followed the lives of 268 Harvard sophomores for 80 years, and one of the key findings of the study was that our relationships and how happy we are on them has a strong influence on our health. The study also revealed that close relationships are what keep people happy throughout their lives.
Listening is the way towards empathizing and thus developing stronger relationships with people around us.
Learn to listen in order to be a healthier and happier person.
OK, but what about the practical world?
Whether you are acting as a leader, a direct report, a team member, or a partner, learning how to listen effectively will greatly impact your level of success as a professional.
There are two arguments to this point. The first one relates to practical elements of doing business and working within the professional standards established by our capitalist society. The second one brings back the fact that, in the end, we are all people first and then professional people – the human connection between to people goes further than any methodology when the objective is to work for a common goal.
Whether you are giving direction, following someone else’s direction, collaborating, or negotiating, you will move quicker and reach a stronger outcome if you are a good listener. The reason is that all of these activities are involve three main activities between two people or amongst a group of people: communicating, deal-making, and executing. If a person does not communicate effectively, the deal with the other might be flawed or miss some details, and the execution will exaggerate the error in the deal.
Take the Chief Marketing Company of a technology startup. She is in a status update about the launch of a new feature of the company’s product, which might revolutionize the entire market they play in. One of her team member brings up the fact that the marketing agency they are working with will not be able to deliver on time due to an issue with their video editing software. What the CMO did not pick-up was the fact that the agency had communicated this issue over the weekend. Had she stopped and had the curiosity to ask why they were working on a Sunday at 12pm, she could have potentially found out that the agency was working on a multimillion new deal for a top tech client, and they had deprioritized the startup’s work. The CMO was not able to identify the root cause. The details of the course of action post status update are irrelevant at this point, but we can be sure that she attacked the wrong issue.
Photo Credit: Unsplash by Austin Distel
The second point supporting effective listening as a tool for work effectiveness goes back to looking at workers as human beings. Any leader, follower, coworker, or partner is a human being first. If and when he or she is able to build a strong relationship with any counterpart, the collaboration between the two parties shall be more effective.
Take the example of marketing colleague A that arrives to sales colleague B’s desk to ask him to share the latest sales report with her. Her only objective is to receive that report from colleague B in order to process some information, and she needs it as soon as possible. What she doesn’t know is that there was a change of direction from the sales team going forward, which was said in the sales meeting but not written on the report. This detail is important for colleague A as it will change her future strategy and it would be great to find out sooner rather than later. But, when colleague B shares that “this meeting was a bit more interesting than the others” between phrases, she unconsciously ignores it because she thinks colleague B typically shares information that is more than what is needed – in essence, she is judging colleague B, instead of listening. Furthermore, she has been judging him for a while, so she tries to deal as little as possible with him, outside of getting what she needs from him. Thus, she misses a key piece of information, finds out about the changes later, and has to redo the marketing strategy.
In the end, building more connection with others is a key benefit of effective listening.
At Renspire Insights we work with top-performing clients, helping them uncover and solve their deepest business and human challenges.
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