Listen, Learn & Earn

Are there times where you are not fully engaged with members of your team, a customer, or a vendor?

They talk, and you nod your head in agreement while multi-tasking, only to realize hours later that you really don’t know what the other person said or what you agreed to do.

It won’t surprise you to learn that poor listening skills can damage relationships and cost you sales. Listening to understand – not just to respond – is crucial to your success in business and life.

Effective listening shows respect and helps gain the trust of others. It impacts two critical aspects of business operations: people management (employees/coworkers) and customer experience (customers/vendors).

In manager-to-report and employee-to-employee interactions (people management), strong listening skills will increase productivity, engagement, and collaboration.

Listening to truly understand your customers’ problems will make them feel validated and earn their respect – and of course, their business.

There are a few key tactics to keep in mind that will that will improve your listening skills. It’s important, however, to first understand how listening happens.

Barriers to Effective Listening

Of course, there are plenty of barriers that can get in the way of effective listening. The obvious barriers include interruptions, distractions, and actual noise. Some barriers you may not recognize are part of your internal “noise.” For example, if you hear yourself thinking the following:

“This is boring.”
“This doesn’t relate to me and my situation.”
“I am completely against this idea.”
“I have something to say when this person takes a breath.”

While barriers to listening may seem significant in the moment, they will ultimately undermine your ability to gather key information and connect with the person speaking.

If you notice yourself getting distracted, multi-tasking, or listening to your internal monologue instead of the speaker, take a moment to refocus on listening. You may even want to acknowledge if you missed something and ask the speaker to repeat it. He or she will likely have noticed when you “checked out” and will appreciate that you respect him/her enough to get the whole message.

Beyond listening to what people are saying, you can also develop skills to hear what people are not saying.

Use Your “Third Ear”

Have you ever heard someone saying one thing, but had a strong suspicion that he or she meant something else? This is an example of using your “third ear.”

Psychoanalyst Theodor Reik came up with the concept of the third ear. He realized that what isn’t being said can often be more important than what is vocalized.

Your third ear can notice underlying emotions, connections to past experiences, or a sensitive topic that is intentionally omitted. Using your third ear can involve both focus and context.

For example, your boss comes out of a management meeting and you greet him as he walks past your office. “How was the meeting?” you ask. “It was fine,” he says, and does not elaborate.

If you know that the management meetings have been contentious lately, with changes coming down the pike (context), then the brevity of your manager’s response could indicate that the meeting may not have been “fine.”

His tone of voice can also be an indicator; did he say it with levity, with a touch of sarcasm, with a sigh of resignation? If you focus on these signals, they can give you important clues as to what is really happening.

A brief response also can provide the opportunity to ask a follow-up question. “Any news?” “Anything I should know?” “Did they make a decision on the…” (fill in the blank.)

While you may not always be able to uncover hidden meanings, the ability to use your third ear is a powerful listening technique for building connection, relationships, and fully understanding the person speaking.