The Power of Listening Skills: 5 Tips to Become a Highly Effective Listener
From an early age, we learn to read and write; however, there is little instruction on the art of truly understanding people through listening. Despite this void in our education system, learning how to listen is a powerful tool that helps us build meaningful relationships with those around us.
To be listened to is a striking human experience, partly because it happens so rarely for many people. Think about a time when another person was 100% totally with you — totally engaged in what you were saying, interested in every word, eager to empathize — you most likely felt valued and understood. People open up when they know they’re being listened to and heard; they expand; they have more presence. They feel safer, more secure, and trust grows.
In his bestselling book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen Covey offers a framework for personal effectiveness and presents his teachings through a series of seven habits, number five of which is: “Seek first to understand and then to be understood”.
Dr. Covey believes that how we interpret the world is dependent on our own perspectives. In order to have a positive effect on any situation, then it’s essential for us to carry out an evaluation of whether or not our viewpoints are accurate and make alterations accordingly; if we adjust ourselves, everything else will follow suit.
People often listen with a goal of responding, not listening. In other words, while someone else is talking, one might be more concerned with voicing one’s opinion than hearing the essence of what another person is saying. This creates a selective listening habit where we just focus on keywords instead of gaining a ballpark understanding of the conversation — which often leads to misinterpreting the speaker’s meaning entirely.
As Covey explains, “…we sometimes listen only to prepare ourselves for what we want to say next. We filter everything we hear through our own past experiences, or our frame of reference. We’re checking what we hear against our own ‘autobiography’ and consequently, we decide prematurely what the other person means before he or she finishes communicating.”
Does any of this sound familiar? Seeking to understand involves stepping into the shoes of the other person and asking for clarity in what their words mean, rather than making a judgement.
In other words, asking people questions before responding to what you think ‘might’ have been said — this will allow you to tailor suitable and unbiased responses to people. Learning to listen is essential for building connected relationships, and individual who make developing their listening skills a priority will develop strong relationships that encourage commitment and trust.
Here are five tips to help you hear people with clarity:
Tip 1. Maintain eye contact with people. Maintaining good eye contact is an effective way to demonstrate your sincere curiosity and investment in their story. It can make all the difference when it comes to connecting with someone on a deeper level.
Tip 2. Always be present. Although it may be tempting to allow your thoughts to drift while maintaining eye contact, remember that people can see when you’re not fully present. Work on staying focused and engaged with others in order to make meaningful connections.
Tip 3. Reflect and paraphrase. As already highlighted, it is essential to respond back to people appropriately when they express themselves. It will help you better comprehend their words and also demonstrate your genuine interest in the conversation.
Tip 4. Remain objective. Listen to hear, and never to respond. The moment you let your biases or opinions flood a conversation is the same moment that you’ll prove to another person that you are not even remotely interested in understanding them or their perspective.
Tip 5. Probe, probe and probe some more. Asking questions that you are genuinely interested in knowing the answer to is non-judgmental and flows from what has previously been said. Asking relevant questions is the best way to show people how trustworthy you are.
Imagine for a moment, that you are climbing a mountain with a friend, but rather than walking together, you each decide to tackle a different face from each another. You take the north face; your friend takes the south, and en-route, you communicate with each other via walkie-talkies.
Your side of the mountain, you find, is rocky and slippery due to the ice, but your friend’s terrain is greener, full of foliage and is wet rather than icy. Just because you climbed the same mountain as someone doesn’t mean your experience of climbing the mountain was the same. You may have had it easier than others and reached the top faster, or another person may have had an incident along the way which affected their climb. Perhaps the path chosen by your friend was too treacherous and they had to stop.
Thus, your perspective of certain life mountains will be limited by your performance and your experience and thus will be different from everyone else’s, even if you climbed the same mountain. There’s no right or wrong perspective, just varying degrees of difference.
And in exactly the same way, there is no right or wrong way to climb any mountain, live life, do relationships, build a business, raise children or leave behind a meaningful legacy, but you need to be mindful that nobody starts their journey of life on equal footing, and everyone spends their full lifetime climbing within different climates and via different terrains.
Therefore, it’s wise to understand the importance of listening with open ears and an open mind to comprehend other peoples perspective. Asking questions will provide you with greater clarity on topics that may be difficult to understand. In other words, asking people questions before responding to what you think ‘they meant’ will help you better understand their unique journey, and highlight yourself as a person who’s worth talking honestly to.
By doing this you’ll be able to not only listen more effectively, but also build deeper relationships with people and gain a greater understanding of the world. This is why listening is an invaluable skill — it’s our gateway to connection, growth and knowledge. Embrace it!
The concepts discussed in this article merely scratch the surface of the deep well of knowledge we can tap into. But remember, learning is not a solitary journey. The Achology peer-learning community delves deep into this topic, where every question sparks a conversation, every idea fuels learning, and every member contributes to our collective growth. May your learning sustain you for life.
