Listening Skills for Managers
Writing by Kalyana on Wednesday, 11 of March, 2009 at 9:14 am
In today’s fast paced world, listening skills have become critically important for being successful managers. I would like to share my views on this aspect. I firmly believe that our ability to influence others is directly in proportion to how well we listen to them. I would like to emphasize that ‘listening is not hearing’, it is ‘hearing and understanding’. A very common assumption people make is, ‘if you have listened to some one, it means that you have accepted what ever the other person said’. This is not true. Listening simply means understanding. Whether we agree with what we have heard is another matter. This simple clarity of thought about listening is very liberating and sets the stage for us to effectively ‘listen’ to others.
I would like to lay stress on some of the blocks in the path of ‘effective listening’.
1. It is natural human tendency to see a situation through our own colored glasses (Read it as experience). Because of the similarity of situations experienced in the past, we tend to presume, often imagining things that are non-existent. We also selectively filter out information that does not fit into our thinking pattern. This leads to reading the situation incorrectly which in turn blocks us from getting total insight into the situation.
2. I have also observed especially in meetings that we have a tendency to evaluate the speaker’s thoughts, or give our suggestions and inputs before he /she finishes speaking, thus interrupting the speaker.
3. Another listening barrier is a “pre-occupied mind” which means we are not paying enough attention to the speaker but pretending that we are actually ‘involved’ in the conversation. This can annoy and irritate the speaker to a great extent. I would like to present one fact here. The rate at which people speak is about 150-200 words/minute but the human mind processes about 800 words/minute. This translates to about 75% of additional time that is available for the mind. How well this additional time is used differentiates a good listener from an ordinary listener. Good listeners use this additional time to their advantage by concentrating on non-verbal cues (things that are not explicitly told), body-language; gauging emotions of the speaker, tone etc….
4. Another common irritating factor for the speaker is ‘distraction’ from the listener which include telephone calls, interruptions by visitors, frequent glances at the monitor to check email etc.
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Good listening requires giving undivided and complete attention to the speaker. This allows the listener to capture what is being told, what is being masked and also helps in assessing the speaker’s emotions etc… There are numerous advantages of good listening such as, leads to empathy, enriching relationships, productive work, resolving disagreements, better team work and helps one learn to become a good listener.
The fundamentals of good listening require courtesy and respect for the speaker. Below are some of the ideas around as an action plan for improving listening skills. This is mostly common sense. Registering these thoughts in our mind & making them as a habit can make a huge difference to our listening skills.
- Complete focus on the speaker
- Let the speaker finish what he/she has in mind completely with out interruptions (Mainly judgments and confrontations)
- Avoid/minimize distractions like the ones mentioned above
- Be visually enthusiastic about the speaker
- Use your eyes, hands to show that you are giving un-divided attention to the speaker. Try to maintain eye contact to re-affirm to the speaker you are attentive and is interested in what he/she is saying
- Listen with empathy
- With-hold judgment while speaker is talking
- Resist the temptation of disagreeing with the speaker before he/she completely finishes his/her view point
- Gain in-sight by asking open-ended questions
- Open-ended question does not have a binary answer like Yes or No. Try to deep dive into the situation by asking questions like “What happened”, “How did it happen”, “when did it happen”. Avoiding “Why” helps us to have a very spirited dialogue
- Try to paraphrase and summarize
- When discussions are happening with “high-emotions”, these two basic skills are of great help. Paraphrasing and summarizing helps us to get on same page with the speaker.
Category: Industry
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