7 Steps to Master the Art of Listening

Don’t you know that more often we waste so much time talking when we should have been listening, and that we tend to waste more time solving a problem even before we discover or realize what the real problem is? Why? Because we simply love to talk more than listen and each one of us believes or wants to believe that he or she has been heard and understood –all the time. Problems at work, at home or anywhere could have been easily identified and resolved if only if we took the time to listen.

Listening is an art. Like any art, it takes practice to learn how to listen, that is, listening with the intent to understand the meaning of the person talking. It takes efforts and concentrations. We need to look past to what is being said to what the person is really trying to communicate and mean. It was observed that most people speak at about 100 words per minute. While our hearing channels can actually absorb almost 400 words per minute, and our CPU (our brain) can probably function 10X faster than that, leaving us actually large amount of time to think and digest what we are hearing. Hence, trying to talk in those times would mean diminishing your chances of understanding what is being communicated. Here are 7 steps to help you master the art of listening:

1. Try to anticipate what the person is going or about to say. Discern the speaker’s intention, and find-out what he/she really wants to say and mean.
2. Keep checking out the facts and illustrations you're hearing. Are they accurate? Are they biased? Are some facts (purposely) omitted? Are there exaggerations?
3. Logically arrange in your mind the thoughts of the person talking. This is a sort of editing what you are hearing in order for you to see the whole picture of what is being communicated. More often, people simply talk without organizing their thoughts.
4. Observe body language. People’s actuations and facial expressions convey a lot of meanings, and sometimes are more coherent and powerful than the words being spoken.
5. Listen to the emotion behind the words. The choice words, the inflection, the rise and descent in the voice tone could be indicative of an emotion, which is an integral part of what is being communicated.
6. Repeat what you are hearing in your own words, from time to time, to check out whether you are hearing accurately what is being said. Better yet, paraphrase in your own words what you have heard so that you will be on the same reference of mind with person speaking. Words are dynamic, and meaning varies depending on the context used.
7. If you are presiding over a meeting at the office or in any gathering, try to set aside time for simply listening to the input of others before you pontificate yours. In this way, you will gain the confidence of the people present in the meeting and they will be more likely to listen to you afterwards. Do this more often at the office and pretty sure, you will earn the trust and confidence of your people.
   

Alright, that’s quite a long list. Huh. I have probably missed a lot of good points, can you please add on the list? Now, let me listen to you. I will defer all my comments for this post here on.