In the case of language barriers, a sign of intent listening could be asking clarifying questions or repeating back what you heard the person say. Listening becomes a skill that can make or break the success of a virtual team. If you work with a global team, time zones and language barriers may also be a factor in your meetings. If you manage people in other locations or even countries, you know that communication is critical. If you are not actively listening, then you really are not contributing or adding to the discussion in a meaningful way. I often wonder how many people on a call are truly engaged in the discussion. How many times have you been on a call and decided to check your email or read something that you have been putting off? Have you ever been caught off guard when a question has been directed to you and you weren't listening? I suspect many of us are guilty of this. In order to be truly effective, all parties must focus on the topic at hand and remove distractions around them.

Are they immediately coming back with their response without a pause, or are they taking the time to think about their reply? Are you crafting your response while the other person is speaking and ready to jump in when there is a break in the dialogue? When we are focused on what we are going to say next, this can easily lead to misunderstandings and a lack of openness to new ideas.Īre you multitasking or listening and contributing during conference calls?Ĭonference calls are often hard for the development of our listening skills. One way of determining if this is the case in your conversations is to consider how long it takes for you or the other person to respond. In most cases, this is not a conscious action, but something that is naturally happening as we are speaking with (or at) one another.

It's funny until we actually think back to discussions we have had, we are not aware that we aren't listening. A majority of the time clients tell me that they are so focused on making their point, that they are not actually listening to much of what the other person is saying. Plus, if you’re a 100% silent listener, people start to think you’re zoning our or–ever worse–silently judging them.Are you listening for understanding or are you focused more on what you are going to say next? As the other person is speaking, is that little voice in your head preparing your next response? This is one of the things that I ask my clients when we are discussing communication. Think about how a psychologist or therapist uses questions to help a patient have more of a conversation with him or herself. The key to this is to ask questions that lead the speaker into talking more, and perhaps posing things in a different way. Asking questions to clarify or dig deeper is a great way to clarify understanding and get to the core of discussion. Specific phrases, expressions and sayings may mean different things to the speaker than the listener. It’s a Conversationĭespite popular belief, hard-core listening is not a one-way experience. If you do this, it’s a great preventative for “in one ear, out the other” syndrome. This takes some practice, but it can do wonders for comprehension, understanding and memory. Repeat every single word, not just the last few or a summary. Silently repeat what the speaker is saying as they say it. Remember “silent reading” from grade school? You know, that thing where you read a sentence aloud but silently in your mind? Try doing that the next time you’re listening.

You can get the wrong sense of something if you only hear the words but miss some huge visual clues to true meaning! Listening is about more than just simply hearing spoken words. You also see important cues you might miss, like body language and facial expressions. It’s amazing how much more engaging it is to converse with someone when you’re truly present for them, without distraction. Yes, that means shut the laptop, flip over your phone and ignore your smart watch. Ears are important for listening, but eyes are equally important. It’s a hell of a lot easier to listen to someone if your gaze is focused on them. Listening requires a great amount of both attention and focus. How good of a listener are you: Is it in one ear and out the other, or are you truly a sympathetic ear? Here are some ways to improve listening skills. Don’t get me wrong–I’m far closer to the world’s worst listener than the world’s greatest listener. Most of the time, when someone is “listening” it actually means “I’m pretending to care, waiting for my turn to talk.” Just hearing someone is not the same as compassionate listening.