Soft Skills : Listening

Listening is a skill on its own. Why? Because we all need to know and learn the importance of getting this skill right. It feels as if we should know how to listen well as we move into adulthood because we would have all heard 'Are you listening to me?' throughout childhood and teenage years. But, perhaps that is the reason that we have stopped listening so much now.

There are so many styles of listening and the one we all engage with on a daily basis is 'Conversational' listening. The ability to hold a conversation with anyone - friends, family, colleagues, teammates and more. This one should be easy and come naturally.

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.” Dalai Lama

But other styles of listening can be more difficult and can be something you need to learn and work on so that it can become natural.

Some of these other styles are:

Active Listening - where you use a complete combination of hearing what someone else is saying, not only through their word but also their non-verbal such as tone of voice. On listening to the speaker you should be able to show you have been completely attentive by providing feedback on the topic back to the speaker.

Empathetic Listening - this focuses in on emotional intelligence and the way the speaker comes across when delivering their words to you. In a similar way to Active Listening, you gain a sense of what a person is feeling, but the difference is the person is wanting to tell you something which is based more on emotion rather than facts.

Informative Listening - this involves you taking on new information such as starting a new role or learning a new skill. These require a lot of concentration on the part of the listener. You will want to advance in your knowledge and therefore to do so, you will need to be fully engaged with the person speaking and imparting knowledge.

Critical Listening - this type of listening comes into its own when you need to analyse situations to solve a problem in a very comprehensive way. Lots of people feel that they are great at problem solving, but without listening and taking everything into account related to the speaker/s and the greater business as a whole, you will not be able to reach a successful outcome for any project.

Sometimes you need to use a combination of all of the above to ensure that you are handling everything to the best of your ability and being able to communicate to your team and the business in a very professional way.

"If you make listening and observation your occupation, you will gain much more than you can by talk." Robert Baden-Powell

A type of listening which is better left alone, especially when it comes to business is - 'Selective Listening'!

This type of listening is when instead of actually taking the time to listen to someone speaking, you drift in and out of the topic. Sometimes this can be because you think you know the answers already or perhaps you have lots of things to do and stop focussing on the speaker. However, this detrimental because as the style of listening suggests, you are only going to now a select amount of information on the project at hand.

An example of how this can go extremely wrong for you and your team is:

You are in an important team meeting and your Line Manager is not only providing details on what he/she requires each member to do by close of business the following day, but they also advise what time you are expected to start work the following day.

You have plans later that day and also feel that you already know what is expected of you, so start switching off and only listen to parts of what is being said.

The next morning, you arrive at work at 9.00am, the same as a normal day in the office. However, there is one difference - everyone else has already started work and are in the middle of a lot of small meetings in relation to the required tasks.

Your boss immediately wants to speak with you in their office to find out why you are late and where you are up to with your required task. Neither of which you have answer for, as you were not listening.

You are now behind everyone else with a warning from your boss.

This type of example is real and can happen to you. So, avoid 'selective listening' but focus in on 'Active', 'Informative', 'Critical' and 'Empathetic' instead.

Questions

• What types of listening do you use every day?
• How important do you think listening is to what you do every day in your career?

I would love hear from you.

Hazel