Improve Your Listening Immediately!
July 28, 2008
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We are good at talking, but we have trouble listening.
First, repeat a person's name when you first meet him or her.
Second, when you are anticipating making a comment on what a person has said, ask a question instead. This will keep you listening longer, and often the added information will help you make a higher quality contribution to the conversation. Get information before you give information.
Third, don't rush to answer the phone when it rings. Pause a moment so that you can be mentally ready to listen to the person calling you rather than thinking about what you were doing when the phone rang. Taking these few extra seconds to think will make you a better listener from the beginning of the phone conversation. In addition, listen as though you are going to report the message to someone else. This keeps you focused on the main reason or idea of the call.
Fourth, eliminate clutter around the phone and your desk so you won't easily be distracted when you are talking by phone or have a person talking to you in your office. Notes, pens, folders, clocks, and knickknacks can distract you, and you may not even be aware of the distraction until you realize you have no idea what the person just said.
Fifth, when possible choose your listening time during the part of the day when you are mentally alert. If you are a morning person make your most important appointments, interviews, or phone calls during that time. If mornings are difficult for you, make afternoon calls. You lose listening acumen when you are tired physically or mentally.
Finally, don't be afraid to admit that you're having a hard time listening and make necessary adjustments. You might say, "I'm sorry I missed that last point. Please repeat that for me." Or "I'm having a hard time concentrating; let me move to another chair." Or "Could we pick up the conversation at a later time this afternoon?
Stephen D. Boyd, Ph.D., CSP, is a professor of speech communication at
Coaching Skills Training - How to Listen Effectively
July 2, 2008
By Matt Somers
If we're going to put so much effort into framing coaching questions in the right way then it follows that we should be equally concerned with really listening to the responses we get. We need to employ the skill of active listening.
Listening happens at 3 levels:
Active
Conversational
Superficial
The bottom level, Superficial, is what we do when we're hearing but not listening. We might have a conversation at a party trying to take an interest in what another guest is saying but really having our attention elsewhere, perhaps on some other conversation we suspect would be far more interesting.
The problem is that we are only hearing what the other guest is saying, not listening, so we often get confused, lose track of the conversation or end up having to ask them to repeat what they just said.
This would be extremely damaging in a coaching conversation. People instinctively know if we're only listening to them superficially. The fact that our mind is elsewhere will be revealed in our body language. This will dismantle any trust that has been built up and lessen the chances that the coaching will produce a useful outcome.
The second level, conversational, is the type of listening that we do throughout the day. In conversational listening, we listen while our partners talk and vice versa. However the danger here is that while the other person is talking, we are concentrating on making our next point, rather than truly focusing on what the other person is saying.
This is not an easy thing to do when we start out as coaches. When you're not used to this approach, it can be hard to keep the questions flowing. It's usually better to wait until the person has finished speaking and then decide upon the next question.
We should also avoid the habit of finishing other people's sentences for them. Only rarely do we pick the words they would have chosen themselves and we end up jarring their flow and causing hesitation or confusion.
So we need to work hard to reach the top level, Active Listening. Put simply active listening is about clearing our minds of all other distractions and really tuning in to what the other person is saying with as much focus as we can muster. This is easier said than done and takes a lot of time and practise to develop but is well worth the effort.
On a practical level it means we should try not to coach when we're in a hurry or preoccupied with something else. Neither should we run a coaching session in a noisy environment or one that is likely to get to hot or too cold. In such circumstances it is impossible to actively listen.
Matt Somers offers managers a startling way to achieve results through coaching via his range of training programmes, books, articles and seminars. His popular mini-guide "Coaching for an Easier Life" is available FREE at http://www.mattsomers.com
