How to Be a Conscious Listener – What it Means for Us and Others

Contributed by John Keyser

Ultimately, our company’s results will be greatly affected by our organizational culture. Sure, we can drive our people on a short-term basis and can achieve significant results, but if our people are not fully engaged, enthusiastic, collaborative and proud of their work and company, and respect their boss and senior management, their contributions tail off and results become inconsistent.

People want to be appreciated, feel valued and heard. That means we need to patiently listen to them to understand and learn. That is our responsibility. If we don’t, we do not deserve their trust and respect.

This is an important reason why we need to include women in senior leadership positions. In general, women tend to be better listeners and that means a great deal to culture and the spirit of our people. Men need to learn from women about the importance of conscious listening.

It matters, greatly!

I gained my coaching certification at the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program, a rigorous eight months of learning and practice. The very first morning, after each of the 29 in our cohort introduced ourselves, explained our backgrounds and why we enrolled, our amazingly accomplished faculty members, Julie Shows and Kate Ebner, described the journey ahead for us and immediately discussed the very key quality of listening. They were passionate about how important our focus is on what a person is saying – and not saying – and how to sense what the other person is feeling during a conversation.

Julie and Kate described how few are really accomplished listeners because most of us have problem-solving minds. We may think ahead to what we’ll say, judge the other person, or be partially thinking of our to-do list, and on and on. Well, I am guilty as charged. I know my mind is too busy and that I could and should be more present when listening, and that I wanted to commit to learning how to improve.

As a group, we discussed training ourselves to be present, to let our thoughts float out of our minds as if they were clouds. I absolutely agreed with this message. I remember thinking at the time, “This is so true, listening is a critically important skill! So why am I only learning this now? Why wasn’t this discussed in school, or by the companies for whom I worked?”

That night, I went online, Googled listening books, found a few. (Interestingly, there are thousands of books about management and leadership, but just a few about listening!)

I read a few books, stories about business people who became successful, highly effective leaders because of their attentive listening. I read about the people who worked for them, who felt appreciated and motivated to work hard for them. I also read about people who were not good listeners, and how disconnected people felt in their presence, how ineffective these managers were in sustaining their results.

I’d like to share with you the resources, which benefited me in my own quest to improve my listening. I read a book ordered from Amazon, Listening Leaders: The Ten Golden Rules To Listen, Lead & Succeed. It definitely motivated me. And I also found a 32-page booklet published by the Center for Creative Leadership especially informative, as it’s packed with good tips. Go to www.ccl.org, then click Leadership Development, then Bookstore, then Guidebook Series. The guidebook’s title is Active Listening. Just $12.

As I like to emphasize, every business is a people business – our relationships matter greatly. Solid relationships help us gain the respect and trust of others, our clients and our colleagues. It is important to be easy to work with, to have productive working relationships. People must sense that we genuinely care about them; this is how they feel inspired to work with and even follow us.

Here are a few helpful practices to becoming an accomplished listener.

• First, our attitude: we must commit to listen to understand and learn.
• Put the other person at ease, maybe sit side by side rather than across a desk.
• Lean forward, comfortable eye contact, a slight smile.
• Quiet our mind – and stay fully present!
• Give affirmations, “Okay”, “I see”, “Makes sense”
• Ask clarifying questions.
• Maybe ask if we may repeat what we’ve heard to assure we have it right.
• Use silence, don’t rush to fill the space, likely the person will then continue, and we’ll deepen our learning. It is said, “Let silence do the heavy lifting.”
• Take notes, it will help us remember, and even more important, it is a sign of respect to the other person and will be appreciated.

Please remember, it all begins with our willingness to understand and learn, and our effort to be patient and fully present.

Conscious listening is difficult, especially in our crazy busy world today with so many urgencies and distractions. As author Leo Babauta says, “The information coming at us is like trying to drink from a fire hose.”

Practice, practice, practice. That’s what I learned during the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program. I knew my listening was just okay and that I wanted and needed to improve.

My practice was to make it a point at least once a day to go into a conversation mindfully intent on listening attentively and patiently. I did this during the week in business conversations, at home at dinner, and I even practiced in checkout lines wile doing errands, when I’d ask How is your day? Well, I actually stopped and listened, to let the person know that I was genuinely interested.

I kept a notebook, and right after these selected daily conversations, I briefly rated how I did and noted what I observed about the other person, what they were saying and how they might have been feeling. Sometimes I was pleased with my listening, other times I wasn’t. But I believe what gets measured gets improved, and over time my listening definitely improved.

I continue to work on my listening, staying quiet and patient, trying not to jump ahead to conclusions, staying fully present.

Let’s just remember, conscious listening takes our commitment and practice, but our improvement will definitely increase our effectiveness as leaders. It will also deepen our relationships, and that greatly benefits our quality of life!

One more resource for you, a friend, Cary Larson, an amazing leadership coach, wrote a wonderful paper called “Being Heard.” I’d be happy to it send it to you. Being heard is so deeply appreciated by others when they sense we are genuinely interested. Cary describes it this way, “Being truly heard is hard to describe, but you know it when you feel it, like love.”

I hope this is helpful, as I do believe that listening is our most important skill in business and our leadership.

John Keyser is the founder and principal of Common Sense Leadership, www.commonsenseleadership.com. He works with executives helping them develop organizational cultures that will produce outstanding financial results year after year, and a striving for continuous improvement, theirs and their team’s.

Guest advice and opinions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com