Learning to Listen by Actually Listening
6 02 2007I’ve been meaning to write about this since last week. BusinessWeek had a great article called Why Leadership Means Listening.
Today’s employees want to be asked for feedback and they want to be heard. Here are four tips to help you become a better listener.
The four tips they mentioned were the following:
1. Fix your gaze
2. Ask questions in response to a question.
3. Incorporate feedback.
4. Be available for the tough questions.
I think it’s a great list and I would add just one tip to the list. It’s important when doing all of the above that you don’t start formulating your response as the person is asking you a question. I know I’ve been bad at this myself. You’re all ready with an answer to their question before they even finished asking it. I heard this on television, from all places, when I was in my early teens. Really focusing on the person and you to can become a great listener.
Hey great post about listening. Our society is so big on having the right things to say that we are formulating our words instead of listening…NO WONDER WE’RE AT A LOSS FOR WORDS! We’re not listening!
Dale Carnegie, Jim Rohn…and others stress listening as an essential people skill.
and as Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad said…”the richest people build networks”, and that can only be done with good people skills.
Hey Bryan
Thanks for the comment. Society could use a good kick in the ass when it comes to listening.