Listening Skill

Listening Skills

· Listening, always is a signal of respect.

· When people don’t feel listened to, they don’t feel respected.

· And when they don’t feel respected, they feel anger and resentment.

Listening facts

10% is Content; 90% is Intent.

· As a good listener, you have to show your presence by your body language.

· Listening depends on your intention to listen

· Listening comes from practice

Ten reasons to be a better listener:

§ Get information

§ Be more efficient

§ To learn something

§ Show you care

§ Satisfy curiosity

§ To avoid embarrassment

§ To save time

§ To build rapport

§ To make intelligent decisions

§ You find out other’s needs

How to be good Listener

• Practise listening

• Show your intent to listen

• Don’t interfere in between the communication

• Use appropriate tone of voice as a listener

• Understand communication

• Provide feedback

• Feedback is empathetic and nonjudgmental

A better listener accomplishes:

§ Better understanding of problems

§ Retains information better

§ Improves working relationship

Behaviors that support effective listening

· Maintaining relaxed body posture

· Leaning slightly forward if sitting

· Facing person squarely at eye level

· Maintaining an open posture

· Maintaining appropriate distance

· Offering simple acknowledgments

· Reflecting meaning (paraphrase)

· Reflecting emotions

· Using eye contact

· Providing non-distracting environment

Behaviors that hinder effective listening

· Acting distracted

· Telling your own story without acknowledging theirs first

· No response

· Invalidating response, put downs

· Interrupting

· Criticizing

· Judging

· Diagnosing

· Giving advice/solutions

· Changing the subject

· Reassuring without acknowledgment