Active Listening: The Best Way to Win Hearts!

Have you ever wondered that why we have two ears and only one mouth? Mr. Mark Twain once replied to this. He said – “This is because God knew that listening was twice as hard as talking!” Today active listening holds a great importance across all levels of hierarchy in every organization. Often poor listening leads to terrible situations of conflict in an office. Developing good listening skills is one of the most important skill development aspects that organizations intend their employees to imbibe and practice.

Significance of Active Listening

Active listening enables a person to clearly understand and connect properly with another person. This greatly assists in gaining him the trust and the confidence of the person who is speaking. Take the case of a patient talking to his doctor. Unless the doctor hears out the problems faced by his patient, he will not be able to diagnose the problem and accordingly prescribe the appropriate medicines. A wrong diagnose can cause even a fatality and raise doubts on the credibility and professional skills of the doctor!

Categories of Listening

Ability to ‘filter’ vital information, ability to focus and enthusiasm levels of the listener are the factors that broadly decide the categories of listening. These are:

a)      Hearing – Means hearing sounds without focusing on anything else

b)      Simple listening – This mainly represents only the physical presence of a listener

c)      Active listening – The best situation where the listener is aptly present both physically and mentally

Barriers to active listening

Even if one decides to practice active listening, some natural and self-imposed barriers emerge to spoil the party. 

a)      Forcing others to listen first and speak later

b)      Listening to multiple people simultaneously

c)      Not updated with previous conversations

d)      Rapid/Slow flow of communication from the speaker

e)      Distractions like nearby conversations, running TV or radio etc.

M/s Global Academy of Consulting & Training conducts specific and need-based skill development training programs for individual professionals and organizations. The module-based training program on “Business Communication” covers such important facets of listening skills. For more information on this and other training programs, simply log onto http://globalact.in or write to info@vivkbindra.com.