Are You A Good Listener?
Your listening skills don’t simply begin and end at the words being spoken to you so we suggest that you need to pay careful attention to “non-verbal” behaviours as well.
Use your eyes and your ears and pay attention to the individual’s facial expressions, their eye, and body movements, as well as the intonation of their voice.
Use the visual clues that these behaviours provide while listening to their words. These visual clues may help to spark your questions, focus on the individual’s feelings and to give you a clearer understanding of what lies behind the words that are being expressed. (Keep in mind that you too are sending off similar non-verbal messages).
Skilled communicators aren’t afraid to engage others and quite often will ask questions as a means to gather information and ideas to help them understand what they are hearing and seeing. The best communicators often ask those open-ended questions that; encourage communication, help to clarify, or validate their understanding of the person’s thoughts and feelings.
When we probe with questions, often we are digging deeper into the persons thoughts and at times their values and beliefs.
Empathy can also help to bridge the communication divide.
By acknowledging a person’s emotion you demonstrate that you understand how and what they’re feeling without being judgmental. This helps you, as the listener, to build trust and confidence with the person. Empathy will help demonstrate that you not only understand their message but also that you can connect with their feelings.
When you can restate what you have heard in your own words you will also build a connection and demonstrate that you are listening and that you understand what the speaker is saying.
The use of paraphrasing as a communications tool is a powerful bridge building devise and quite helpful in those difficult conversations where one of the parties may be extremely difficult or enraged. (That often happens when they believe no one is listening or they are being brushed off as being irrelevant).
A very useful tool to bring a conversation together is the art of summarizing the gist of what has been discussed. Being able to wrap the conversation into a succinct package helps to capture the salient points and demonstrates that the party has been heard.
So the art of listening is more than just focusing on the words. In order to develop your listening skills it will take an investment of your time and energy. Remember that an effective communicator is one that can build trusting relationships!
Are you listening?