You have been talking for a while with a colleague. Do you believe she has listened to you? Or, maybe she has just heard you?

Hearing is totally different thing than listening. In previous articles where I have discussed communication, we talked about how to communicate your message, ensure that the recipient understands it and how to make sure your goals are well understood. May be the most essential part of communication is LISTNING.

As stated above listening is not hearing, but much more. Yes, you should pay attention and hear what is being communicated, but you should also utilize many other senses than the HEARING. To make this easier to understand let us talk about leaders and how they listen and take decisions.

A leader should always listen to her colleagues. It does not mean that she should allow everybody to talk and then just decide something completely different. A leader who is a good listener, allows the talks to take place without thinking and judging what is being said. she makes place for those who are introvert and extrovert in her team so everybody can express his thoughts and ideas. Then she open up for a discussion, a debate where arguments for and against are being thoroughly discussed. This stage needs to be limited so discussions do not last for ever and everybody understand that there is a time limitation before a decision is taken. The best way for running this kind of discussions is to run them face to face as a huge part of the communication goes through body language and non-verbal communication. When the decision is taken, it has to be communicated and anchored in the team. After people have executed based on the decisions, a new evaluation should take place so we evaluate if we really have «listened».

Based on my coaching experience for both individuals and companies I define a good listener to be the one who is able to:

• Establish the right context or environment
• Allow hearing
• Do not think or judge while you are hearing
• Listen also to the emotional content ( non-said words)

What do we mean with «Do not think»? to be able to listen correctly, you need of course to interpret what you are hearing. You may also need to check with the one who is talking with you that you have heard and understood the right thing. Anyway, what you do not need to do is to think about a reaction to what you have heard. Especially when arguing people start to think about their replies before the one who is speaking have finished her statement.

In my coaching sessions with groups of people who are training in listening I try to tell a story to one of the attendees, then ask her to tell the same story to the next person then that person tells it to the one after until the story has circulated through the group. Then we compare the original story with the different versions and try to identify what caused the changes. Usually the final story is completely different from the original one. This is because of many people do not listen and apply their own thinking to what they hear instead of verifying the understanding. You may try this kind of games with your team. You will be amazed on how things change when being transferred from one to another.

To summarize; I believe if we listen with all our senses we will be able to understand each other better and grape the complete message including its emotional content.

Wish you good listening!