Listen Up! Not Listening Is Holding Your Career Back

Hey, there—are you listening? I mean, really listening?

The modern world sometimes feels like a constant run through a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. Things are flashing and binging at us all day, small rewards are ever-available with a single click, and sitting still, letting it all wash over us, is hard to do.

It's no wonder Kate Murphy, author of You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters, claims that so many of us have gotten so bad at listening.

And while being a bad listener doesn’t make you a bad person, it may hold you back professionally. Whether your goal is landing a new job, getting promoted, building better relationships, or bumping up your productivity or innovativeness, listening is something you definitely want to improve.

Click the audio player above to listen to my interview with Kate to glean everything you can from her wisdom and insights. I'll distill the essentials below.

Listening skills—the good, the bad, and (hopefully not) the ugly

In conducting countless interviews for her book, Kate quickly learned that nearly everyone is able to describe a “bad listening” experience. The telltale signs—someone looking at their watch, interrupting you, checking their phone, changing the subject—are universal.

We’ve all been on the receiving end of bad listening. It leaves us feeling disrespected, as though our time, ideas, concerns, or opinions aren’t worth the other person’s attention. We feel devalued.

How to listen better

Leaving others with that experience of disrespect is not only, well, disrespectful, but it has an actual impact on your professional success. And not a good kind of impact. So let’s start by looking at Kate’s suggestions around how to bump up your listening game.

Focus. Don’t multitask or check your phone. Recognize listening as an active process that requires your full attention.

Let the speaker finish. Kate says “the brain is a predicting mechanism.” When someone is speaking, our brain is trying to finish their sentence or idea. But you may be mistaken about where they’re headed. So practice letting go of assumptions.

Let go of "prebuttals." It’s become common practice to begin formulating a response before the other person has completed their idea. Our brains can’t listen and formulate well at the same time. Don't think about how you're going to respond until the other person has finished speaking. It's okay to ask for a moment to think, too!

Ask probing questions. Listening isn’t...

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