The Happy and Prosperous Blog

Yesterday I posted about the importance of listening and promised a deeper exploration today.

What Is Listening ?

Listening is one of the most important communications skills. It does not come naturally to many people and we all need to be mindful of our tendency to jump in and give our opinions. In most conversations people don’t listen - they just take turns to speak - many people tend to be more interested in talking rather than really listening and understanding others.

This is ironic since we all like to be listened to and understood. Stephen Covey (author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) says that when we are understood we feel affirmed and validated. He coined the expression: ‘Seek first to understand, and then to be understood’, which serves as a reminder for the need to listen to the other person before you can expect them to listen to you.

Do We Listen With Just Our Ears ?

Listening does involve more than the ears. Carl Rogers talks about developing an empathetic understanding of the other person. This means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes to get an idea of how they are feeling. It is not enough to have this empathetic understanding - it must also be communicated to the other person.

That can be done non-verbally through

• Maintaining an appropriate level of eye contact
• A suitable facial expression
• Interested and open body language
• Nodding or shaking the head where appropriate

It is also shown through verbal signals

• Making neutral comments (e.g. that must have been very difficult for you) to indicate your are listening and to encourage further expansion by the speaker
• Using what is called para-language, i.e. those noises like uh-huh and mmm that we use to show we are listening

Of course, intention, tone of voice, intonation etc are all vital if we are to show we are truly listening. If we are truly listening, then these things are likely to come naturally.

In the next post I’ll give you a game you can use to develop these skills.

Thanks for reading.

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