ARE YOU ACTIVELY BEING A GREAT LISTENER
Can we develop great listening skills?
Now this process of listening is imperfect – we are imperfect and the systems we generate are imperfect. We are human and as such are not perfect but we can develop skills that will give us a real edge, and that will help us to help our clients specifically.
When you are listening to others, do you pay attention to what your body is saying and ensure that it reflects a positive listening attitude. Do you lean forward slightly to indicate that you are listening? Do you avoid the temptation to roll your eyes or make other negative gestures?
In research, Albert Mehrabian found that when it came to discussing emotions, only 7% of the speaker’s message was communicated by words, and that tone of voice was responsible for about 38% of the meaning and body language about 55%. This means that the words themselves played only a very small part in conveying meaning. In other conversations (not the ones about emotions), we know that tone of voice and body language have a large impact on those messages too.
As active listeners, we want to show others that we are listening while they are speaking. We’ve talked about how our body language can help (or hinder) us in sending the right message. Our attitude is another important part of a positive listening.
It’s important to show respect and empathy while another person is speaking. Empathy means understanding the other person’s feelings and recognising what those feelings mean, including their context. (Have you ever heard the metaphor that in order to understand someone fully, you need to walk a mile in their shoes?)
Empathy is different from sympathy, which means feeling sorrow or pity for someone. While in some situations sympathy is appropriate (for example, when someone is discussing the loss of a loved one), it can often mean that you are judging the other person, which interferes with receiving the listener’s message.
What about establishing a frame of reference?
A frame of reference is a way in which we judge other people. We all make judgments about people but in order to really get the meaning of what’s going on, we need to be able to suspend those judgments and let meanings come to us unfettered. A listener’s ability to suspend their frame of reference is a critical and important skill because it can build their credibility and make them a more effective communicator.
Your frame of reference is made up of your beliefs, assumptions, values, feelings, judgments, emotions, advice, moods, thoughts, biases, and stress levels at any given moment. Because your frame of reference is so personal and so deeply embedded, it is very difficult to practice suspending it on a regular basis. We all often interpret reality from our own vantage point and react in a self-serving manner.
Interested in being the best listener, call Glen from Minds Tomorrow for a confidential chat on 0402 306 725.
Next blog we will look at establishing a positive intent and maintaining focus. Until next time, this is Glen Palmer NLP Master Coach and Trainer from Minds tomorrow.
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Enrol in the Active Listening Workshop.
