Make Effective Listening your superpower at the workplace

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“Why do we have two ears and one mouth?” asked the instructor.

It was a rhetorical question.

“So that we listen twice as much as we speak.” he proceeded to answer.

It was a workshop on communication skills and the 15 year old me was hanging on to the instructor’s every word.

That was the first time someone had explicitly made me realize the importance of listening.

Since then, I can distinctly recall the same lesson being repeated by a number of teachers and elders.

With the importance of listening drilled at an early stage, I have consciously made efforts to become a good listener. No matter the setting — classroom, a phone call, business meeting or a religious gathering, I try to be completely involved in the conversation.

However, over the past few years, as I have settled into the corporate life, I have slipped up on my listening skills on multiple occasions. The result — surface level conversations which aren’t very valuable.

In a world where everyone is in a perpetual hurry, becoming an effective listener is more crucial than ever.

Effective listening unlocks the doors to stronger relationships. It brings clarity and prevents misunderstandings. It helps us communicate and collaborate better. Ultimately, it helps us and those around us to become the best versions of themselves.

In the subsequent paragraphs, I will discuss what prevents us from listening effectively and then give some suggestions to fix it.

The roadblocks towards effective listening

1. Distractions —There is always a distraction lurking around the corner — our meandering thoughts, our buzzing devices, our surroundings etc. The moment we tune into these, we tune out of the conversation. The fact that our attention spans are consistently decreasing doesn’t help matters. (According to Research average attention span has decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to just 8 seconds today.)
2. Overloaded schedules — So many of us have our days packed with back-back meetings. We are either exhausted from our previous conversation or are worried about our next meeting. This means that we are in a perpetual hurry and never fully present in conversations.
3. Not valuing the opinion of others — Sometimes, we feel the other person doesn’t know much about the topic at hand. We are just ‘being polite’ by lending them an ear.
4. Intolerance towards opposing viewpoints— Sometimes, we have a point to make or an argument to win. We are listening to others not to understand but to respond. We are certain that what we know is correct and what they are saying is incorrect.

Reclaiming our ability for effective listening

Personally for me, becoming an effective listener involves making changes around four aspects — attitude, environment, schedule and engagement during conversations.

Here is a brief overview of each of these four aspects.

1. Change our attitude towards others

Every change starts with changing our mindset. In the previous paragraph, we saw how lack of empathy and respect for others, makes us poor listeners. From my personal experience, developing the following traits can be really helpful on our listening journey:

A) Be Curious

Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning — William Arthur

Approach every conversation with the prospect of learning something new. Think to yourself — What can I learn from this person during our conversation?

B) Develop Empathy

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply — Stephen Covey

Often, when we feel somebody is wrong, we go all guns blazing at them. This gives us a temporary high, but in the long run doesn’t benefit anyone. (Example: I used to blame the engineers whenever a project was delayed. Over time, as I began to understand the reasons for delay, I realized that many of the delays were due to lack of clarity from my side)

Take time to understand things from other’s perspective before jumping to conclusions.

C) Be Respectful towards others

One of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another has to say — Bryant McGill

How often have you dismissed somebody’s opinion at the workplace because they were not ‘experienced’ or ‘qualified’ enough? I have made this mistake myself and see most ‘senior people’ make it.

For some reason, many of us feel that what we have to say is more important than what the other person has to say. So, we interrupt them midway to insert our viewpoint into conversation.

Imagine how would it feel if somebody does this every time you speak?

If this behaviour doesn’t sound right to you, that means its time to change it.

Start respecting each co-worker for their knowledge and experience. If somebody is making a point, the least we can do is to quietly listen to them.

2. Minimize distractions

Cultivating the right mindset is the first step. But good intentions are not enough to achieve good results.

You must take steps to tackle the biggest obstacle towards effective listening — omnipresent distractions.

Here are some tactics I use while attending virtual meetings.

1. Keep your mobile phones at an arm’s length — If they are out of reach, we are less likely to fiddle with them.
2. Close all other tabs except for the one where the meeting is happening — When other tabs are open, they always seem more interesting than the conversation we are having.
3. Take notes— Jotting down important points is my favorite way of staying present in the conversation. This is especially useful in group meetings where getting distracted is very easy.
4. Try taking group meetings standing up — I have started taking some meetings by standing behind my chair. I did this for health reasons. But it has also helped in improving my focus as well.

If you find yourself loosing track of conversations or frequently ask others to repeat what they said, it might be time to take stock of what’s causing you to be so distracted.

3. Change the way we act during conversations

Once we have the right attitude and the right environment, its time to work on the final piece of the puzzle — the actual conversation.

Being fully engaged is vital in having a quality conversation. When we are not completely engaged, we are more likely to get distracted.

Here are some ways to make your conversations more enriching.

A) Make the other person comfortable

Its important to build a rapport with the person you are talking to.
To do this, engage in small talk for the first few minutes.

This is especially important if you are meeting for the first time or haven’t talked for a long time.

People are more likely to open up when they are at ease with the person they are talking to.

B) Understand what others are saying

• Asking clarifying questions: When people talk, its based on their personal experiences. Since you don’t have full context, its natural to be confused in certain situations. Its important to clarify your doubts at the spot and not let them hanging.
• Summarizing: Many times, what someone means to say is different from what we understand. A useful tactic here is to summarize your understanding of what the other person said. Doing this helps eliminate any chance of confusion.

C) Reduce your propensity to interrupt

Nothing derails a conversation more than frequent and unecessary interruptions.

A cardinal rule to follow is not to speak until the other person has completed their argument. To do this, one of the following tactics can help:

• Change the goal of your conversations: For a moment, forget about winning the argument or making a point. Just focus on understanding the other’s viewpoint by mentally repeating what they are saying.
• Take notes during the conversation, especially when you are expecting the other person to speak for a longer time interval. (I use this tactic to great effect during group meetings)
• Pause for about 2 seconds after the other person has stopped speaking. This helps you from accidentally interrupting.
• If you find that you have interrupted someone, stop yourself. Quickly apologize and hand over the floor back to them.

4. Keep yourself fully recharged for important conversations

We have limited time and energy. If not used wisely, we will be tired and exhausted for important conversations. Its essential to set boundaries and make sure that you are not taking too much on your plate.

• Avoid conversation which are not important — If something does not require you to converse real-time, why not accomplish it through email or chat?
• Have a breather between meetings — In general, try to avoid back-back meetings on the same day. However, if that’s unavoidable, keep a gap of atleast 5–10 minutes between successive meetings.

Putting the above ‘guidelines’ into practice

Now that we know what needs to be done, its time for the difficult stuff — taking action.

There’s just one way to do this — self awareness coupled with diligent action.

Carefully observe your behaviour in the next conversation. Ask yourself — what went well? what didn’t go well? What could be better the next time?

Identify what action do you need to take to have a better conversation. Resolve to put that into practice the next time onwards.

That’s how we become better listeners. One conversation at a time.

Summary

Effective listening is not rocket science. It starts with changing our mindset and attitude. We have to develop traits of curiosity, empathy and being respectful towards others. We also need to set up our environment and schedules in a way that’s conducive for deep conversations. Finally, in order to understand others better we can adopt the simple conversational tactics of summarizing and asking clarifying questions.

The journey to becoming a better listener starts one conversation at a time. It will help you not just in your professional life but personal life as well.

So, its time to stop talking and start listening.

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