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How to improve your listening ability
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The number of blog posts, twitters, and articles posted online each month reaches into the millions. This clearly means that there are many people out there with a lot to say. While it’s good to provide worthwhile information and exchange ideas, effective communication includes employing good listening skills. This is especially helpful when you are sitting in job interviews.
Listening is an active process that involves more than just hearing what a person is saying. It requires a high level of focus and concentration because people often talk fast and use terminology that takes time for the listener to process. Sometimes a speaker will backtrack or stop and rephrase statements to clarify the message. Unfortunately, spoken messages aren’t always delivered in an organized fashion. When speakers talk, they can visualize the process or concept that they are speaking about. However, because the information is second nature to them, they often inadvertently omit pertinent information. It’s your responsibility as the listener to capture what the person is saying and organize the information in such a way that you can understand the meaning of the message.
To improve your listening skills, communication experts encourage practicing reflective listening when you are conversing with others. Reflective listening is an active listening process where you repeat a person’s statements almost word-for-word. Sometimes you can rephrase the statement as long as you keep the same meaning as the original statement. This helps you become more engaged in the conversation and ensure that you understand the person’s message. This doesn’t mean that you constantly interrupt the speaker to repeat his or her statements. You need to wait for natural pauses like when the person shifts to another thought or topic.
Often when you are listening to someone, another thought might pop into your head that will draw your attention away from the speaker causing you to miss key parts of the message. Reflective listening helps keep your attention from drifting away from the conversation. You are able to dismiss random thoughts because you need to concentrate on the speaker’s statements in order to restate them.
Unless you have a photographic memory, it’s difficult to retain every word a person says. Instead, try to focus on keywords and phrases that are relevant to the overall message. Write down these keywords and phrases so you can remember the topics that were discussed. Then when it’s your turn to talk, repeat the statements back to the speaker to clarify that you understand them correctly.
Quality listening is an important part of effective communication. People recognize and appreciate when you offer your full attention and truly strive to hear and understand what they are saying. When you are in a situation where you need hear and understand new information, you are at liberty to take notes and refer to them so you can clarify the main points of the message. Reflective listening is especially useful for when you ask questions so you don’t inadvertently ask about something that was already discussed.
