I'm generally a talker, with opinions, so I have to work at listening. It's important:
- The effective listening rate is 25% (a Sperry study.)
- 45% of our day is spent listening. (80% is spent in the overall process of communications.)
- Most of us are roughly 50% effective in listening (or half assed listeners as a pundit might put it.)
Lyman Steil used to teach listening at Sperry, and he found four components:
- Hearing what is being said
- Interpreting what is being said
- Evaluating the message
- Responding to the message
That's OK, but as a behavioralist, I'd put it into simpler terms.
- Pause! The most powerful behavior for listening, whether you are selling or in a casual conversation.
- Eye communications - look at the speaker continuously
- Mirror the actual words (mouth them in your mind - ie. you don't need to move your lips)
- Stay in the moment. (A great improv principle.) Don't worry about what you are going to respond - trust yourself that when it comes your turn, you'll respond just fine.
It's worth working on - many of the missed sales, production errors, business misunderstandings - not to mention the rising number of broken relationships - come from downright lousy listening.