Listening Skills

Why listening is important

One reason listening is so important is that we do so much of it every day. According to research, listening occupies about 80 percent of our waking hours. Studies confirm that good listeners make good managers. Members of the Academy of Certified Administrative Managers selected active listening as the most crucial management skill.

Listening is not...

The act of hearing
Preparing a response
Waiting for your turn to talk
Anticipating what the speaker will say
Ignoring the speaker

Why don't we listen?

	We are in a hurry. In today's modern world, we are so busy and there is so much information fighting for out attention that we simply can't pay attention to everything. The solution is to decide quickly if something is important, and then to slow down and focus on it.
	We are distracted. Email, snail mail, voice mail, twitter. The all compete for our attention. In addition there are enviornmental distractions liske background noise and visuals that provide lots of opportunity for distraction.
	Stereotypes interfere. Becuase of stereotypes, we think we know what is going to be said, so we don't actually listen.
	Not interested. Sometimes we are simply not interested in the speaker or what we think is being said so we tune out.

How to listen effectively

Here are three steps to effective listening.

Make it a priority.

Decide right now that you are going to pay attention and become an effective listener. Once you are aware of the need to listen effectely and make this decision, you are on your way to becoming an effectively listener.

Pay attention.

Have you ever shook someones hand and forgetten their name within seconds? This happens because we are so busy thinking about what we are going to say, they we don't really pay attention to what the speaker is saying. Decide right now that you are going to pay attention.

Check your understanding.

Repeat back in your own words what you think they said. Do not use the same words that they used. The purpose of paraphrasing is to verify your understanding, not to verify that you heard them and can repeat back their words. This will give the speaker the opportunity to clarify their message if you have not received it they way they intended.

Here's how to paraphrase.

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