Managers that pay attention to their staff have a greater beneficial influence on them, reducing employee dissatisfaction and turnover. Effectively guiding teams to success, good listeners provide superior teaching and direction.
They also have a knack for saying the perfect thing at the right moment (because they heard and understood concerns).
Despite this, approximately 80% of business programmes make presenting skills a goal, whereas just 11% make listening a goal.
According to Robin Abrahams and Boris Groysberg’s Harvard Business School research, “becoming proficient at active listening is a lifetime endeavour.”
“However, even slight gains in your listening effectiveness can make a difference.”
Here are the top recommendations and tactics from the researchers on how to become a better listener at work (and life).
This is the most crucial of all the suggestions: Return the last few words of the other individual to him or her. It has three functions:
You may have heard that rephrasing what others have said is a good idea. It only adds to the uncertainty. One example: if you need to double-check that you comprehend what they said, then say directly, “I’m going to rephrase this to make sure I understand.”
Make eye contact, stand alert, nod, and use other nonverbal clues – but only if it seems right to you! You won’t listen as closely as you should if you have to think about giving such signals.
It’s critical to pay attention to speakers, whether you’re dishing out nonverbals or not. Check to see if their tone, facial expressions, and body language match what they’re saying.
It should go without saying, but it’s always worth repeating: When talking with people, keep distractions to a minimum. Remove all gadgets from the room and turn off all alerts.
Minimize internal distractions as well. Refocus before you chat if you’re engaged with anything else. If the chat is going to be emotional, try to remain as calm as possible beforehand.
In a serious discourse, there can never be too many questions. You should ask more questions than you believe you need to. Questions:
While the other person is speaking, do not practise your reply. Instead, take a few moments after he or she has finished speaking to collect your thoughts. This will take time and effort to master.
Slow down if you or the speaker is having emotional reactions.
Almost everyone has bad listening habits, such as tuning out, disengagement, and planning replies, all these are triggered by strong emotions.
Getting ready for a one to one meeting? See how HealthBoxHR can help your business and managers create and clearly oversee all one to ones, their frequency as well the agenda & description of the meeting with our Performance management feature!
Should HR leaders see the increasing adoption of AI and automation technologies within the business as the single biggest threat to their workforce?
It’s very unlikely that those who predicted this technology would decimate the workforce will be proven right.
According to a new study from The Open University, 69% of firms are having difficulty finding employees with adequate digital skills.
According to the study results, the majority of employers (77%) believe they have a digital skills gap in their organization and are struggling to hire new personnel with suitable digital abilities and upskill their present employees.
