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Listening and speaking skills are important parts of professional life. So, improving listening skills is always a good point to grow professionally. A good listener can understand, analyze, and solve problems. This helps to build trust and improves relationships
Effective listening skills are equally important in a professional circle as speaking skills. With effective listening skills, an individual would contribute to fewer errors. This helps to reduce time and improve work efficiency
This article will discuss how to improve listening skills through different strategies and why effective listening skills are important.
Why effective listening skills are important?
Listening has always been an integral part of communication. So, improving your listening skills is important. So, let’s look at some reasons why effective listening skills are important.
- It improves your ability to effectively motivate, influence, and develop relationships with people.
- It reflects your quality of paying attention to the feelings and behavior of individuals
- It improves basic human interaction. It helps to build professional and personal relationships.
- It helps the organization to work efficiently with the provided information that would help them to adapt to the latest market trends or the customer’s needs.
Some important business roles played by effective listening skills are
- Interview
- Sales & Marketing.
- Negotiation techniques.
- Mentoring & Coaching.
- Facilitation & managing
Activities to improve listening skills.
To be a good speaker, you have to be an effective listener. Let’s look at some strategies for effective listening
Active Listening Strategies
- Active listening skills can be developed with regular practice. It is a difficult skill, but it can be mastered with practice.
- Practice active listening skills like
- Non-verbal signs.
- Eye contact.
- Smile.
- Attentive posture.
- Mirroring your expression with the speaker.
- Avoiding distractions
Paying attention to non-verbal cues.
- A lot of information can be collected by analyzing the language and tone of the speaker. So, paying attention to different non-verbal cues while listening to someone is important.
- You can identify enthusiasm, irritation, and boredom by paying attention to body language. These signs would be visible in their mouth, eyes, and the position of their shoulders.
- This would help you to make assumptions regarding what the person is talking about.
Asking clarifying questions
- Asking questions regarding the discussion would keep the flow of the conversation. A good listener would ask questions regarding the topic of the speaker.
- Asking clarifying questions indicates your interest and attention regarding the discussion and that you look forward to taking it forward.
Preparing to listen.
- Developing listening skills by practicing listening and being aware of someone talking to you. Practice it by writing down what you have heard and acknowledging the person after it.
- Another way to prepare to listen is listening to podcasts and audiobooks without reading the transcripts. This would help to improve your listening skills. Try to listen to a minimum of a four-minute clip and try recollecting all the information.
- These listening skills would help increase communication skills and alert you while listening.
Creating a positive listening environment
- There can be several distractions while someone is speaking. This would discourage the speaker. Some examples of distractions are.
- Checking the watch.
- Checking Smartphone notifications.
- Showing disinterest while listening.
- So, having a positive and clear environment helps provide attention to the speaker, which is always important.
- You need to avoid all distractions while listening. This would look hard initially, but it would be easy with practice.
Clearing your mind during listening.
- It would not be easy to understand when your mind is cluttered. Your listening skills would go for a toss as your attention would be lost because of other issues.
- So, always have a clear mind when you start listening to someone. This would require a lot of practice, but with time you would get a hold of it.
Minimizing distractions.
- It is impossible to remove all distractions while having a conversation. But minimizing distractions as much as possible should be practiced.
- Giving your 100% attention by not getting distracted by mobiles or looking at some other stuff while talking are some distractions that can be practiced over time.
- This would help increase your listening strategies and help gain the speaker’s confidence.
Focusing on the speaker.
- Putting your focus on while the speaker is speaking would help to retain all the information broadcasted in the conversation.
- Prepare mental images of the conversations to help store the information easily.
- A visual memory of the speaker would prepare you for what to say next. The visual memory would be stored as keywords and phrases that would be easy to recollect.
- Losing focus is very easy. Practice staying focused and improving your listening concentration.
Reflecting on what was said.
- Take your time to analyze what you have heard from the speaker. Never be in a hurry to answer. You may lose the essence and skip some important conversation parts.
- Effective listening skills allow you to recollect and analyze the discussion and prepare your answer accordingly.
- The practice of patient listening has to be developed over time. Your recollection and analyzing skills improve as you enhance your listening skills.
Providing feedback.
- Feedback is of two types – verbal and non-verbal.
- Some examples of verbal feedback are, ‘Ok, I understand’, ‘I understand that must be difficult’, and ‘I agree with you on it.’
- Some examples of non-verbal feedback are nodding the head, smiling, or using your eyes to express yourself.
- Your feedback during or after the conversation indicates your attentiveness towards the discussion. So, always be prepared to provide feedback.
- The aim of providing feedback is to send the speaker a message that you are actively listening. Writing down the points also reflects the attentiveness of the listener.
Following up on what was said.
- It is a good practice to repeat the instructions. This would clarify any confusion and indicate that you were an active listener.
- With this practice, you will slowly learn effective listening skills.
Also read:
Why is Feedback in Communication Important? 8 Tips for Effective Feedback
Effective Strategies to Improve Speaking Skills
How developing listening skills can improve quality of life?
Improved personal and professional relationships.
- When the develop of listening skills, you will gain trust and confidence in your personal and professional circle.
- People like to talk about various subjects and appreciate someone who would love to listen to them. So, this would give you a healthy chance to improve your relationships.
Increased empathy
- When you develop listening skills, you display increased empathy towards the speaker. Your presence would give a sense of trust in the speaker.
- This makes the speaker feel more valued, and it helps to grow more trust in you.
Better decision-making
- When you are a better listener, you can make informed decisions. As you would be aware of all the discussion, you would be in a situation to take a better decision.
- In the professional world, earning the trust of people around you is difficult. This would lead to people putting their trust in you for decisions.
- You can do that by being an effective listener while becoming a good decision-maker.
Improved self-awareness
- When you have effective listening skills, your self-awareness towards the surroundings and the people will increase.
- You would be alert, and your response would always be around the discussion. This would increase your confidence around people.
Enhancing Your Professional Success
Having good listening skills is essential. It would help to motivate, influence, and develop relations with people. There are several ways to develop listening skills. Some activities to improve listening skills are building non-verbal cues, asking clarifying questions, being a patient listener, and reducing distractions
Good listening skills would improve your empathy towards people, help you make better decisions, and improve your personal and professional relationships. So, effective listening is an important part of communication and must be practiced by all.
And for more career tips and useful information view our more blogs on Life Skills.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
Try to keep your mobiles away while speaking to someone. Do not try to lose eye contact with the speaker. This may be hard at first, but it can be achieved with regular practice.
Have a small notebook. Write down the points that are important while listening. Important phrases, words, or sentences would help you to recollect the entire discussion.
Just repeat the instructions to ensure that you understand the message properly. Putting your points on the discussion would ensure you understood the conversation.
Some ways to practice the development of listening skills.
1. Clear your mind before the conversation.
2. Practicing non-verbal communication.
3. Providing feedback.
4. Taking notes.
5. Minimizing distractions.
You gain people’s trust and confidence when you are a good listener. It would give a sense of confidence in you around the people. As people develop trust in you, your professional and personal relationships will grow.
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