Honing Your Best Listening Skills

When it comes to business, being able to express what you want to say is critical to your success. However, listening is just (if not more) important. You are clearly not in a world of one ever so if you want to interact with another person, you must speak and you must listen.

There is listening and there is listening

You may think that you are listening all of the time but you may not really be listening to anyone except you. If you are listening to the other person, you may think that you have gotten the meaning of what they were trying to say to you and then you may have a time gap, in which you can think about other things that are not connected to the speaker in any way. In that case, it is not pure listening and you will want to avoid that.

If you find that you have spare time as you are listening to the other person speak, use that spare time to think about something connected to what the other person is saying so that you can have a more effective interaction with him or her.

Listen in an effective way

If you are truly listening to the other person, you will probably be able to anticipate (or predict) what he or she is going to say next because you are really in the discussion and have an understanding of what the other person is saying to you. Those predictions will actually make your interaction fun and really interesting, not to mention relevant to why you are listening to the other person in the first place. Aside from listening effectively, you must also get a real grasp of what the other person is actually saying.

Put it into your own language

As you are listening and comprehending what the other person is saying, you will naturally be doing a type of, “translating.” In other words, you will be putting what the speaker is saying into your own words. The concepts won’t change but the way that those concepts are expressed most likely will change so that they are in your language, which will be comfortable for you. That is considered active listening. Not only does active listening help you to grasp what the speaker is saying effectively but it also helps you to remember what was being said when you want to share that information with someone else.

Concentrate on the big picture

There will be many details in what the speaker is saying to you but you don’t want to get distracted by so many details that you lose focus of the big picture. You will need to retain some of the details but the concepts contained in what is being said are more important than anything else. It is those concepts that you will walk away with and the heart of what you need is encapsulated within those concepts. If you truly understand the concepts, the details will be memorable to you (at least enough to be able to share those details with other people as you are speaking about what you heard).

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, the way (the approach) that people interact has changed over time but the fact that the proper listening skills and the most effective way to process what you hear have not. If you do them properly, you will prevail. It is important to keep in mind that hearing and listening are not the same. One is based on the physical and the other is based on the mental. If you are truly listening to the other person, you will demonstrate your curiosity at what they are saying and ask relevant questions. Of course, there is always room for improvement when it comes to listening. The more you practice those skills, the more effective a listener you will become, which will only benefit you and your business.

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