Listening
Research
has found the most successful sales people spend 75% or more of their time in
front of customers listening and
less than 25% talking. In contrast, people who have short careers in sales
spend 90% or more of their time in front of the customer talking and less than
10% allowing the customer to speak. This only makes sense because we cannot
learn while talking. Learning requires listening.
Those who talk the most usually have
the least to say.
Who is
the most interesting person you have ever met?
You!
We all
love to talk about ourselves.
At the
start of the work day in just about every office, someone can be heard saying:
“Let me tell you what happened to me on the way to work this morning” which is
soon followed by: “That’s nothing, from a co-worker; wait till you hear what
happened to me.” We love to talk about ourselves, because we are the most interesting person we know. We spend more time talking
about ourselves than talking about anything else. It is for these reasons sincerely listening naively is
difficult.
To listen,
we have to put someone else’s needs ahead of ourselves. Setting our ego aside
and turning our interest to another person is not easy. Listening is not passive
activity; it’s actually a lot of work.
There are three levels of
listening
·
Not
hearing
·
Hearing
but not listening
·
Active
listening
Active
listening causes the heart rate to increase, respiration to increase, and blood
pressure to rise. Active listening requires focusing our full attention on what
someone else is saying. Active listening is so difficult most people can only
do it for mere minutes at a time without lapsing into intermediate daydreams,
or search for past experience or prepare a response. The average brain is
capable of processing approximately 500 words per minute, yet the average
person speaks at a rate of about 200 words per minute – leaving a lot of spare
brain time (about 300 words per minute) to think about other things. It takes
discipline to listen, because our spare brain time wants to think about other
things. With the extra space, our brains wants to start thinking about what we
are going to do this evening, or a phone call we need to return, or the coffee
stain on the shirt of the person who is talking.
Even
more important is learning to listen naively. Listening naively requires a
commitment to listen without trying to formulate a response until the speaker
has completed their thought. We all have prejudices and frames of reference
from previous life experiences. Unfortunately, those experiences come into play
with every communication experience in life. Becoming a naïve listener requires
the discipline of not jumping to conclusions or finishing other’s sentences,
which is difficult with 300 words per minute of unused brain space. It is very
easy to hear a word or phrase, which then sends our brain spinning off thinking
about something other than what the speaker is intending, which is when we
sabotage the intent of the message.
The most important
component of communications is listening.
Great
listeners need to possess the ability to listen with an open mind if they hope
to learn anything. Listening to another person’s full thought without jumping
to conclusions is critical to effective communication. How often have you been
in a conversation where the person you are speaking with finishes your sentences?
This is not listening. To listen naively requires control of emotions. Reacting
to preconceived emotions can cause us to begin formulating a response, rather
than listening to full thoughts. When listening to another person, our natural
human reaction is to respond quickly.
A magnificently
presented question in which no one listens for an answer was just a waste of
time and energy. Listening is an even more important skill than the ability to
ask a well-structured, properly positioned question. Another trait possessed by
great listeners is the ability to be patient. After asking a useful question,
too often the askers get impatient while the potential responder formulates an
answer. The questioner winds up answering their own question.
Answering
your own question is insulting to the other person in the conversation. Not
providing another person the time to formulate an answer and respond does not
provide an opportunity to learn anything. After asking a challenging question a
second of silences seems like five minutes and a minute of silence seems like
an hour. The ability to wait patiently, quietly and confidently with sincere
interest while another person contemplates their answer takes discipline and
practice. While you sit quietly waiting for a response to your question, your brain
now has 500 words per minute of unused brain space which is impatiently waiting
to be used.
Tools to improving listening include
Asking questions = 15%
Taking notes = 20%
Reporting learned information back to others = 35%
