The Magic Of Listening

Listening is a skill that we don't teach and for many of us, unfortunately it's a skill we don't master. When we ask people about 'communication' they talk to us about how they speak or write, but rarely about how they listen.

Whilst attending my MHFA course a few months back, one of the activities involved us 'being ignored', it showcased a lack of active listening, but also demonstrated that many of us are too busy to properly listen to the people who are speaking to us. I became instantly frustrated by this exercise - by the lack of eye contact and interest, whilst others in the room just thought other participants were a 'bit rude'.

Listening is the one thing I believe we need to do more of.

For me, whilst I've not always mastered perfectly, I want to give people my attention. As a leader I've wanted to listen to my teams, as a coach I want to listen to my clients, as a consultant I want to listen to the needs of my clients. But listening isn't about just what's being said, it's about listening to what's not being said - reading the body language of the person in front of you, or paying attention to the tone of their voice and the subtle changes that take place as they talk about challenging times or of times of success.

We can create the most amazing connections with other people when we listen, when we allow them to feel heard, when we hold the space for them to say what they need to say - yet all too often we're 'listening' whilst sending emails, texting, checking updates on our phones or at home whilst we're cooking, cleaning or 'busy'.

Because of the huge importance that I place on listening, we've been creating two workshops and we'll be rolling these out to a wider audience in 2019 - Learn to Listen and The Listening Leader. Learn to Listen will teach active listening skills, an essential skill not a 'soft skill'. And the Listening Leader is a day that allows leaders to learn to listen to themselves.

On Saturday I attended a silent retreat day on Saturday - a full day of not speaking, just listening to the meditations we were presented with and listening to myself. I find it intriguing that silence is the one thing that many of us go without - there's noise, or music or the TV or the sound of others in the background - but when we are in total silence, it's wonderful what we hear.

And at such a busy time of year it was totally needed.

Silence also allows for a slower pace - silence allows us to flow more, and notice more and acknowledge more. It allows us to really pay attention to what's going on in our head, and what's going on for those around us. It allows us to tap into our intuition and really notice how we feel and what's the best decision or step for us to take next.

Schools are paying attention to the fact that meditation and silence is great for the concentration and behaviour of students, yet workplaces are encouraging more open plan working, more noise, more interaction and more ways for us to stay connected online.

So as an HR professional with the opportunity to create a fantastic workplace - how can you introduce more silence? How can you introduce more listening?

Kelly

Not one for thinking outside the box – mainly because she believes there isn’t one, Kelly founded Chrysalis in 2014 after being appointed as the UK’s Youngest HR Director (something she was told she couldn’t achieve with two young sons), after feeling that consultancy needed to more people and less process-driven because – well that’s what gives consultants a bad reputation.

Through her consulting, coaching, talks, presentations, workshops and books, she rips up the rule book and helps people create what’s best for them, their teams and their organisations – not what’s best for their competitors.