Are You Really Listening?

How good are your listening skills?

When you listen to someone speak, do you make eye contact with them? Are you really hearing what your employees are saying?

Effective listening encompasses self awareness, attentiveness, paraphrasing, and empathizing. Learning how to listen well is key to success in business and life.

Listening is a basic soft skill—so why is it lacking in today's world? Has technology deprived us of the basic skills needed in face-to-face communication?

Do you tend to get distracted easily? Do you listen for facts, not ideas?

If you answered yes to these questions, you need to bone up on your listening skills.

Comments

[Steve Nguyen]

Beyond the obvious qualities of good listening skills which include giving people your undivided attention, it's also very important to use silence, be nonjudgmental, and restating/paraphrasing (clarifying) what you heard.

Sometimes what you hear is very different from what the speaker is trying to convey.

[Hiren shah]

Watching thoughts without reacting to them in a negative or positive way is a good exercise that can facilitate listening. While doing that, one should try and listen to all the shounds that maybe there. That promotes all round attentiveness.