How to Improve Your Listening Skills

Listening is the ability to accurately receive and interpret messages in the communication process. 

Listening is key to all effective communication, without the ability to listen effectively messages are easily misunderstood – communication breaks down and the sender of the message can easily become frustrated or irritated.

Listening is so important that many top employers provide listening skills training for their employees.  This is not surprising when you consider that good listening skills can lead to: better customer satisfaction, greater productivity with fewer mistakes, increased sharing of information that in turn can lead to more creative and innovative work.

Many successful leaders and entrepreneurs credit their success to effective listening skills. Richard Branson frequently quotes listening as one of the main factors behind the success of Virgin. Effective listening is a skill that underpins all positive human relationships, spend some time thinking about and developing your listening skills – they are the building blocks of success.

See our pages: Employability Skills and Customer Service Skills for more examples of the importance of listening in the workplace.

Good listening skills also have benefits in our personal lives, including:

A greater number of friends and social networks, improved self-esteem and confidence, higher grades at school and in academic work and even better health and general well-being. Studies have shown that, whereas speaking raises blood pressure, listening brings it down.

Listening is Not the Same as Hearing

Hearing refers to the sounds that you hear, whereas listening requires more than that: it requires focus.  Listening means paying attention not only to the story, but how it is told, the use of language and voice, and how the other person uses his or her body.  In other words, it means being aware of both verbal and non-verbal messages.  Your ability to listen effectively depends on the degree to which you perceive and understand these messages.

Source : http://www.skillsyouneed.com

Three Steps to Effective Listening Skills

Step 1: Tune in. Tuning in, of course, is the very first step to effective listening. In order to be a successful listener you must be physically and mentally prepared to tune in. For me, this means aligning my body with the other person and maintaining eye contact--giving him or her my undivided attention.
It also means turning off any mind chatter. Sometimes I’m still thinking about something else and I arrive late to the listening. Or sometimes, I start listening, but before my conversation partner finishes, I begin planning what I am going to say in response. Or worse, I pass judgment and think, “This isn’t important. This is stupid” and I stop listening. Good listeners suspend judgment and wait until the other person is finished before they create a response. If you feel like you might forget a point just take notes.

Show You are Listening

By the way, it’s also nice if you are able to show that you are listening: lean in, tilt your head, or occasionally nod at your partner. The idea is not just to listen, but also to encourage the speaker.
In this step, the key is to concentrate on the words you hear and the body language signals you see. Are they smiling? Are they talking rapidly? How’s their posture? Are the words and body language congruent?
For example, if someone is smiling and talking rapidly they’re likely to be genuinely excited and interested in the topic. If you notice slumped shoulders and a chin tilted toward the ground perhaps the person is experiencing sadness or a lack of self-esteem. The clues can be very subtle. It might be that you barely notice a slight side to side “no” headshake at the same time the person is saying, “Sure, we can do that.”
For this step, you need to tune in to what and how something is said and be alert for what is left unsaid.

Understand What You’ve Just Heard

Step 2: Decide what it means. Next, you’ll need to translate and interpret what you heard and observed. You’ve got to decide what it all means. We all create meaning based on our own experiences, so it’s important to confirm that your understanding of what was communicated is really what the speaker was trying to communicate.

Sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding.

For example, even if I say something as simple as “I opened the door” what exactly are you imagining in your mind? Am I opening an office door? Am I opening a car door? Maybe it’s a door to a house?
The point is that sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding. Such as, “When you said X, what did you mean?” “Why do you think X, is it because of A?” “Can you give me an example of what you meant by Y?” “Tell me more about your feelings regarding X”

Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Communication

In addition to paying attention to the meaning of the words, you’ll also need to understand the non-verbal behaviors you observed. Were the tone of voice, gestures, and words all in agreement? Did the words say yes, but the body language said no? Did your conversation partner seem excited, disappointed, angry, confused? These non-verbal gestures and actions reveal inner thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that may not have been expressed verbally. 

Avoid Miscommunication

Step 3: Paraphrase to confirm understanding. The final step to effective listening is to confirm your understanding. To do that you’ll need to paraphrase, or reword what you heard including the content and the emotion. For example, the speaker might say, “I can’t stand that I need to repeat the instructions three or four times in excruciating detail and she still doesn’t seem to understand how to complete the task.”
The listener might respond, “It sounds like you are frustrated because she’s not following instructions even after the steps of a task have been explained more than once.”
The structure of paraphrasing is:

• lead-in
  
• plus feelings summary
  
• plus content summary

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/how-to-improve-listening-skills#sthash.yYwkNZMc.dpuf

Three Steps to Effective Listening Skills

Step 1: Tune in. Tuning in, of course, is the very first step to effective listening. In order to be a successful listener you must be physically and mentally prepared to tune in. For me, this means aligning my body with the other person and maintaining eye contact--giving him or her my undivided attention.
It also means turning off any mind chatter. Sometimes I’m still thinking about something else and I arrive late to the listening. Or sometimes, I start listening, but before my conversation partner finishes, I begin planning what I am going to say in response. Or worse, I pass judgment and think, “This isn’t important. This is stupid” and I stop listening. Good listeners suspend judgment and wait until the other person is finished before they create a response. If you feel like you might forget a point just take notes.

Show You are Listening

By the way, it’s also nice if you are able to show that you are listening: lean in, tilt your head, or occasionally nod at your partner. The idea is not just to listen, but also to encourage the speaker.
In this step, the key is to concentrate on the words you hear and the body language signals you see. Are they smiling? Are they talking rapidly? How’s their posture? Are the words and body language congruent?
For example, if someone is smiling and talking rapidly they’re likely to be genuinely excited and interested in the topic. If you notice slumped shoulders and a chin tilted toward the ground perhaps the person is experiencing sadness or a lack of self-esteem. The clues can be very subtle. It might be that you barely notice a slight side to side “no” headshake at the same time the person is saying, “Sure, we can do that.”
For this step, you need to tune in to what and how something is said and be alert for what is left unsaid.

Understand What You’ve Just Heard

Step 2: Decide what it means. Next, you’ll need to translate and interpret what you heard and observed. You’ve got to decide what it all means. We all create meaning based on our own experiences, so it’s important to confirm that your understanding of what was communicated is really what the speaker was trying to communicate.

Sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding.

For example, even if I say something as simple as “I opened the door” what exactly are you imagining in your mind? Am I opening an office door? Am I opening a car door? Maybe it’s a door to a house?
The point is that sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding. Such as, “When you said X, what did you mean?” “Why do you think X, is it because of A?” “Can you give me an example of what you meant by Y?” “Tell me more about your feelings regarding X”

Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Communication

In addition to paying attention to the meaning of the words, you’ll also need to understand the non-verbal behaviors you observed. Were the tone of voice, gestures, and words all in agreement? Did the words say yes, but the body language said no? Did your conversation partner seem excited, disappointed, angry, confused? These non-verbal gestures and actions reveal inner thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that may not have been expressed verbally. 

Avoid Miscommunication

Step 3: Paraphrase to confirm understanding. The final step to effective listening is to confirm your understanding. To do that you’ll need to paraphrase, or reword what you heard including the content and the emotion. For example, the speaker might say, “I can’t stand that I need to repeat the instructions three or four times in excruciating detail and she still doesn’t seem to understand how to complete the task.”
The listener might respond, “It sounds like you are frustrated because she’s not following instructions even after the steps of a task have been explained more than once.”
The structure of paraphrasing is:

• lead-in
  
• plus feelings summary
  
• plus content summary

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/how-to-improve-listening-skills#sthash.yYwkNZMc.dpuf

Three Steps to Effective Listening Skills

Step 1: Tune in. Tuning in, of course, is the very first step to effective listening. In order to be a successful listener you must be physically and mentally prepared to tune in. For me, this means aligning my body with the other person and maintaining eye contact--giving him or her my undivided attention.
It also means turning off any mind chatter. Sometimes I’m still thinking about something else and I arrive late to the listening. Or sometimes, I start listening, but before my conversation partner finishes, I begin planning what I am going to say in response. Or worse, I pass judgment and think, “This isn’t important. This is stupid” and I stop listening. Good listeners suspend judgment and wait until the other person is finished before they create a response. If you feel like you might forget a point just take notes.

Show You are Listening

By the way, it’s also nice if you are able to show that you are listening: lean in, tilt your head, or occasionally nod at your partner. The idea is not just to listen, but also to encourage the speaker.
In this step, the key is to concentrate on the words you hear and the body language signals you see. Are they smiling? Are they talking rapidly? How’s their posture? Are the words and body language congruent?
For example, if someone is smiling and talking rapidly they’re likely to be genuinely excited and interested in the topic. If you notice slumped shoulders and a chin tilted toward the ground perhaps the person is experiencing sadness or a lack of self-esteem. The clues can be very subtle. It might be that you barely notice a slight side to side “no” headshake at the same time the person is saying, “Sure, we can do that.”
For this step, you need to tune in to what and how something is said and be alert for what is left unsaid.

Understand What You’ve Just Heard

Step 2: Decide what it means. Next, you’ll need to translate and interpret what you heard and observed. You’ve got to decide what it all means. We all create meaning based on our own experiences, so it’s important to confirm that your understanding of what was communicated is really what the speaker was trying to communicate.

Sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding.

For example, even if I say something as simple as “I opened the door” what exactly are you imagining in your mind? Am I opening an office door? Am I opening a car door? Maybe it’s a door to a house?
The point is that sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding. Such as, “When you said X, what did you mean?” “Why do you think X, is it because of A?” “Can you give me an example of what you meant by Y?” “Tell me more about your feelings regarding X”

Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Communication

In addition to paying attention to the meaning of the words, you’ll also need to understand the non-verbal behaviors you observed. Were the tone of voice, gestures, and words all in agreement? Did the words say yes, but the body language said no? Did your conversation partner seem excited, disappointed, angry, confused? These non-verbal gestures and actions reveal inner thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that may not have been expressed verbally. 

Avoid Miscommunication

Step 3: Paraphrase to confirm understanding. The final step to effective listening is to confirm your understanding. To do that you’ll need to paraphrase, or reword what you heard including the content and the emotion. For example, the speaker might say, “I can’t stand that I need to repeat the instructions three or four times in excruciating detail and she still doesn’t seem to understand how to complete the task.”
The listener might respond, “It sounds like you are frustrated because she’s not following instructions even after the steps of a task have been explained more than once.”
The structure of paraphrasing is:

• lead-in
  
• plus feelings summary
  
• plus content summary

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/how-to-improve-listening-skills#sthash.yYwkNZMc.dpuf

Three Steps to Effective Listening Skills

Step 1: Tune in. Tuning in, of course, is the very first step to effective listening. In order to be a successful listener you must be physically and mentally prepared to tune in. For me, this means aligning my body with the other person and maintaining eye contact--giving him or her my undivided attention.
It also means turning off any mind chatter. Sometimes I’m still thinking about something else and I arrive late to the listening. Or sometimes, I start listening, but before my conversation partner finishes, I begin planning what I am going to say in response. Or worse, I pass judgment and think, “This isn’t important. This is stupid” and I stop listening. Good listeners suspend judgment and wait until the other person is finished before they create a response. If you feel like you might forget a point just take notes.

Show You are Listening

By the way, it’s also nice if you are able to show that you are listening: lean in, tilt your head, or occasionally nod at your partner. The idea is not just to listen, but also to encourage the speaker.
In this step, the key is to concentrate on the words you hear and the body language signals you see. Are they smiling? Are they talking rapidly? How’s their posture? Are the words and body language congruent?
For example, if someone is smiling and talking rapidly they’re likely to be genuinely excited and interested in the topic. If you notice slumped shoulders and a chin tilted toward the ground perhaps the person is experiencing sadness or a lack of self-esteem. The clues can be very subtle. It might be that you barely notice a slight side to side “no” headshake at the same time the person is saying, “Sure, we can do that.”
For this step, you need to tune in to what and how something is said and be alert for what is left unsaid.

Understand What You’ve Just Heard

Step 2: Decide what it means. Next, you’ll need to translate and interpret what you heard and observed. You’ve got to decide what it all means. We all create meaning based on our own experiences, so it’s important to confirm that your understanding of what was communicated is really what the speaker was trying to communicate.

Sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding.

For example, even if I say something as simple as “I opened the door” what exactly are you imagining in your mind? Am I opening an office door? Am I opening a car door? Maybe it’s a door to a house?
The point is that sometimes you’ll need to ask open-ended questions to confirm your understanding. Such as, “When you said X, what did you mean?” “Why do you think X, is it because of A?” “Can you give me an example of what you meant by Y?” “Tell me more about your feelings regarding X”

Pay Attention to Non-Verbal Communication

In addition to paying attention to the meaning of the words, you’ll also need to understand the non-verbal behaviors you observed. Were the tone of voice, gestures, and words all in agreement? Did the words say yes, but the body language said no? Did your conversation partner seem excited, disappointed, angry, confused? These non-verbal gestures and actions reveal inner thoughts, attitudes, and emotions that may not have been expressed verbally. 

Avoid Miscommunication

Step 3: Paraphrase to confirm understanding. The final step to effective listening is to confirm your understanding. To do that you’ll need to paraphrase, or reword what you heard including the content and the emotion. For example, the speaker might say, “I can’t stand that I need to repeat the instructions three or four times in excruciating detail and she still doesn’t seem to understand how to complete the task.”
The listener might respond, “It sounds like you are frustrated because she’s not following instructions even after the steps of a task have been explained more than once.”
The structure of paraphrasing is:

• lead-in
  
• plus feelings summary
  
• plus content summary

- See more at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/how-to-improve-listening-skills#sthash.yYwkNZMc.dpuf