“When we truly listen to someone, we treat them as a Queen or King. Servants never interrupt the Queen but wrap their ears around her, attending to every word & facial expression with ten eyes and one heart.” – Chinese Proverb
Listening is a gift given to those who seek it. Anyone can be a great listener; that is the beauty of listening. With the age of technology, it is quickly becoming a lost art. You have social media with its ten-second videos, news media coverages with their breaking news updates engulfed in minimalist sound bytes, and maybe the biggest culprit, the mobile phone, which is furnished to steal whatever attention span you have left. How can you better your listening skills with everything geared for the “right now” or “instant gratification”?
Here at Atlas Hartmann, we value the art of active listening in our leaders. How can we improve our team and grow our business if we need to listen to the feedback of our customers, clients, and team members? The Atlas Hartmann way when it comes to clients, customers, and team members is face-to-face communication. It can be easy to hide or become distracted when sending emails, text messages, or phone calls. When you’re face-to-face, you have to listen carefully – To be thoughtful, to craft a response, to answer a question.
The internet can be hypnotizing, making it hard to break the cycle of instant information. The best flow of information comes from truly dedicating your full attention to what is being said. Mentors work wonders when you are trying to improve your listening skills. They are comfortable enough to ask for feedback. You can turn your skills into a makeshift project by asking them to watch you in meetings or one-on-one conversations. This form of accountability creates new habits that strengthen your listening skills.
One thing we encourage our team members to do here at Atlas Hartmann is to repeat what another person has said. We use our own biases and experiences to craft a story and may misinterpret what one person has noted for something else. By repeating the information back, a person can see if they truly understood what the person was saying. Have you ever had a time when you misunderstood what a person told you? We all have!
Although we only acknowledged a few, there are many more tools and exercises to help improve listening. Being a good listener is refreshing to colleagues and admired by most great leaders. It is a trait that should be harnessed and developed throughout life. Try to immerse yourself in listening and be surprised by how much you learn.
What are some of your tips for listening? Please comment below!
