The document discusses effective listening and provides tips to improve listening skills. It states that effective listening is an art that can save time, money, conflicts and marriages by helping people truly understand what is being said. It then outlines some common challenges to listening such as having a pre-occupied mind, being judgmental, and thinking of other things while listening. The document proposes protocols for being an effective listener, including maintaining eye contact, being attentive, keeping an open mind, having patience, asking relevant questions, being empathetic, giving regular feedback, and understanding unspoken messages. Following these guidelines can help anyone become a better listener.
2. Effective Listening
An art to understand something said in its undiluted form and in the
right senses.
An art that can save money, time, conflicts, misinterpretation and
marriages.
An art that can make you an effective performer by increasing your
clarity.
3. Challenges in effective listening
Pre-occupied brain
Judgmental thoughts
Parallel thinking while listening
Comparing with own opinion
4. How to be an effective listener
To be an effective listener and understand clearly what the speaker
wants to convey we need to follow some protocols.
If we follow these measures we can perceive the presentation in
the most effective and pure form side-lining the amalgamations.
Lets discuss the points necessary to be an effective listener.
5. Maintain eye contact
Eye contacts helps in better communication because it prevents
other thoughts run into mind simultaneously. Even if the speaker
doesn’t look at you, you as a listener should focus on him to
understand the message conveyed.
6. Be attentive
Discard all the deviations such as background noise or thoughts
while listening. Being mentally present while listening increases the
grasping capability.
7. Keep an open mind
Don’t criticize mentally or judge the speaker for what he is saying.
Don’t try to jump to conclusions in between because you are
unaware of the ground works. Judging in between will reduce the
effectiveness of learning or understanding.
8. Have patience
Wait before asking, interrupting in between gives a negative
message. Never impose yourself, if you want to share your idea,
seek permission and then go ahead.
9. Ask relevant questions
Irrelevant questions distracts the speaker from the topic and the talk
goes off direction. If it happens its your responsibility to remind and
pull the talk back on track.
10. Be empathetic
Try to understand the context and feeling of the speaker for an
effective understanding. Being empathetic facilitates
communication and increases the bond.
11. Give regular feedback
Giving regular feedbacks keeps the communication engaging and
interesting. It also coveys the speaker that you are listening to him.
12. Understand between the lines
To understand what is not being said is an art. We can understand
most of the things through kinetics, voice modulation, tone etc. a
happy tone says that the person is happy even if he doesn’t say it.
13. summarize
When the topic is crucial or informative it is necessary to summarize.
Summarization helps to recollect all the data and information and
we can use it for our purpose as we get a better understanding
through it.
14. If we follow these guidelines we can definitely become a good
listener. You can go through the blog of information developers
foundation for more details and informative posts. Visit
http://informationdevelopers.in/2017/11/17/art-of-effective-
listening/