The Importance Of Listening: One Of The Most Important Skills

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Q1 – Listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others. For instance: • We listen to obtain information. • We listen to understand. • We listen for enjoyment. • We listen to learn. Given all this listening we do, you would think we'd be good at it! In fact most of us are not, and research suggests that we remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we hear. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation. This is dismal! Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented …show more content…

We often tend to make judgements before the other person finishes what they are saying. When working in groups, we are often so concerned with getting our own views across that we do not make the space to hear what others are saying. Examples include situations where you are: giving or receiving instructions; disagreeing with a colleague; discussing a problem; coaching or mentoring a new colleague; conducting an appraisal interview. Active listening means: • giving whole-hearted attention to the person speaking • demonstrating, or checking, that you have understood • not doing anything else! Reasons for using active listening are: • to avoid misunderstandings • to build relationships by giving respect to the other person • to encourage people to say more and to speak frankly • to enable people to become clearer in their own thoughts and minds Guidelines for active listening 1. Give people your attention Face them and make eye contact 2. Be ready to paraphrase or ‘play back’ what they have said 3. Use questions if you do not understand: Do not ignore things you do not understand 4. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings. Acknowledging feelings can be a way of demonstrating your understanding of the situation. 5. Encourage if the other person appears uncertain: Ask open-ended questions 6. Do not react or respond in other ways until it is clear that the other person has

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