How can you become a better listener in your career in Internet Services?

1 Why listening matters

Listening is not just hearing what someone says, but also paying attention to their tone, body language, and emotions. Listening helps you to build rapport, trust, and empathy with your interlocutors, which can improve your communication and collaboration. Listening also helps you to learn new information, solve problems, and avoid misunderstandings. By listening well, you can deliver better services, create more value, and enhance your reputation.

2 How to listen actively

Active listening is a technique that involves engaging with the speaker, asking questions, paraphrasing, and giving feedback. It helps to show that you are interested in what they are saying and that you want to understand their perspective and needs. Maintaining eye contact, avoiding distractions and interruptions, using verbal and non-verbal cues to encourage the speaker, asking open-ended questions to clarify and explore, summarizing and restating what you heard in your own words, and expressing appreciation are all important aspects of active listening.

3 How to listen critically

Critical listening is an essential skill for making informed decisions, finding solutions, and avoiding errors. It involves analyzing, evaluating, and questioning what you hear to assess the validity, reliability, and relevance of the information. To listen critically, you should keep an open mind and avoid jumping to conclusions. You should also consider the context, purpose, and source of the message, compare and contrast different viewpoints and evidence, challenge and test the logic, consistency, and accuracy of the arguments, and seek additional information and perspectives.

5 How to listen creatively

Creative listening is a skill that requires imagination and curiosity to generate new ideas and insights. This type of listening can help you uncover possibilities, opportunities, and solutions. It is beneficial for innovation, growth, and differentiation. To practice creative listening, it is important to have an open-minded attitude and be willing to learn. Additionally, drawing inspiration from diverse sources and perspectives, using your senses and intuition to perceive beyond the words, associating and combining different concepts and information, and experimenting and testing your assumptions are all important steps.