Communication success is about listening, which to be more effective means summarizing and understand first
Listening is THE most important communication skill there is, demonstrating that you are listening is the second.
How to listen and why is summarizing so important!
Through summarizing (and prompting with questions) you can ensure you understand the person you are communicating with. Lets face it the whole point of communication is create understanding of an issue, fact or point of view in the listener. If you go to the effort of summarizing you will gain an additional benefit of creating better empathy with the sender, as you will have actively demonstrated that you have both listened and understood.
The biggest difficulty with listening is to bring your brain along to the conversation and fighting the natural tendency we all have to wander off or “check out”. We do this a number of ways; either we are distracted by other stimulus around us, other pressures intrude or recent past interactions come to mind. We can also be distracted by plotting our response based on our assessment as to where the speaker is heading based on a couple of opening statements. You need to develop patience and focus on the message in its entirety before you set about to explain your point of view or formulate your response. I, at the risk of repeating myself on this very important point say again… it is imperative if you are to be a successful communicator not to jump into early with your own views. Listen and understand first, summarize the other’s points and then respond.
Other points to remember:
If you have mentally wandered off and lost the plot admit it and ask if the sender will reiterate or restate the points you have missed.
The thing all message receivers tend to do is pretend to understand when we don’t out of a fear of looking impolite or worse stupid and we commit other sins:
- We don’t indicate when don’t want to listen
- We don’t indicate when we haven’t heard properly
- We don’t indicate when haven’t understood
- and we usually don’t attempt to clarify the senders message
Feedback is a reversal of the communication process in which a reaction to the sender’s communication is expressed. Since the receiver now becomes the sender, feedback goes through the same steps as the original communication.
Feedback is optional (however to my way of thinking essential) and may, exist in any degree, in a variety of forms, in any given situation. In most communication, the greater the feedback, the more effective the communication is likely to be. If you can’t summarized at least lean forward maintain appropriate eye contact and or say yep or aha or something.
Always advise the message sender if you:
Haven’t heard properly
Haven’t understood
Want more information
Want clarification
Want a repeat or re-phrase (the best most unused skill of all) to ensure you have understood
Two-way communication ONLY exists when the receiver can and does provide feedback to the sender.
Finally a great little self test I found for us all (and particularly for salespeople)
When you are communicating with a prospect or customer, what do you usually do? Take the following quiz to find out more about your listening habits:
_____________________________________________
Yes | No
_________________________________
___ | ___ Do you ever look at your watch while the customer is speaking?
___ | ___ Do you ever finish other people’s sentences?
___ | ___ Do you often find yourself patiently waiting for your turn to talk?
___ | ___ Is it hard to maintain eye contact with people talking to you?
___ | ___ Do you ever interrupt while someone is trying to make a point?
___ | ___ Do you ever think to your self, “I’ve heard all this before?”
___ | ___ Do you anticipate what the other person is going to say?
___ | ___ Are you often distracted while the other person is speaking?
___ | ___ Do you ever wonder what the other person has just said?
___ | ___ Do you think about your response while the customer is talking?
___ | ___ Do you really know the customer’s needs before you present?
___ | ___ Could you do more to encourage the customer to speak?
From: Rick Phillips http://www.progressivedistributor.com/progressive/Online%20exclusives/ListeningHabits.htm
Remember summarizing is a skill and you will have to practice it and learn to be a little patient no matter how fast you believe your brain is!
Ric (orglearn) While you’re here take a look at the free blank resume form with examples!
* Link for direct page viewers return to main career success blog to check out other posts!
