Become an Effective Listener in 5 Easy Steps!

"The art of conversation lies in listening." - Malcolm Forbes

A few months back I completed a course on "Effective Listening". This course has truly impacted how effectively I listen to people.

Today, I’m sharing some of my key learnings and interesting insights from that course.

Each conversation is unique on its own. It’s important that you identify what kind of information needs to be extracted from an ongoing conversation. In order to do so, there are different approaches to listening that you can apply while communicating with someone and increase the effectiveness of your listening:

1. Recall listening - When the communicator expects you to take action or execute a task, it is crucial that you give the utmost attention and try to find the information required to do the task. It is advisable to extract such information from the conversation and note it down somewhere.

2. Understanding the big picture - There are many conversations where paying too much attention to the details is not required. For instance, when your friend is sharing its experience of an amusement park, it might not be important to know about the color of rides, age restrictions, etc. You just need to understand the big picture. 

3. Evaluate content - When you need to take a decisive call on a matter, try to look for information such as - is this idea good or bad, how will it impact you and people around you, is the source of information credible/accurate/recent?

 4. Attune to subtle cues - Action speaks louder than words. An effective listener not only pays attention to the words that are being said but also understands the non-verbal signs, body language, posture, and gestures.

5. Empathize & match emotions - To build a long-term and good relationship with the communicator, it is important that you listen to them with empathy & match their emotions. Put yourself in their shoes, paraphrase the emotion as well as the content of their concern, match & mirror enthusiasm/concern/happiness/seriousness.

Now keep these points in your mind while listening to others and try to pick the most appropriate listening approach for a situation.

Happy learning!