Listen!

One thing comes up regularly when I do my “360” background interviews for my coaching clients: “Listen, I want him/her to listen to me.”

Let’s face it, most of us don’t listen well. Instead of truly listening to our partner in a conversation, we often take the time to develop our thoughts so that we can start to speak again just as soon as we get the opportunity. So we make our point, but at what cost? My experience tells me that the cost is great. Rather than being impressed with our linguistic prowess, people are often annoyed, discouraged, or worse…

As a result of this input, I often work on listening skills with my coaching clients. There are various techniques, such as: offer one thought at a time before stopping and waiting for a response; give yourself 30 seconds to make a point, then wrap it up, really. One that I like is more of a concept than a technique: to make them think that you are the best listener in the world. This is easy to say, hard to do. You must put aside your ego and your insecurities. You must let your brilliant thoughts go unuttered. You must hear and understand the words and the message.

Try it. You may learn something.