From crawling to walking to uttering that first word, we develop our earliest skills by instinct. No one tells a baby to do these things. Babies just do.
But then babies morph into toddlers, and the walking and eating become less impressive. And suddenly, we adults all about telling them what to do. And what are toddlers told to do more than anything? Listen!
“Listen to me!”
“Be a good listener.”
“WHY AREN’T YOU LISTENING?!”
After enduring all that nagging in your youth, it should come as no surprise to you that sometimes your rebellious inner toddler doesn’t want to listen.
But listening—and I don’t just mean passively perceiving words and sounds but truly engaged listening—is one of the most powerful tools in your success toolbox. Listening, when done with purpose, makes you smarter, faster, better.
Smarter because you perceive more detail, more clarity, greater alignment on what needs to be achieved and addressed.
Faster because with greater clarity upfront you have less need to double back; and because listening builds empathy and rapport so you’ll have a more open door to pose questions.
Better because having clarity positions you to deliver what was asked for.
How to be a better listener at work
Listening well can serve you in many different ways—in building relationships, learning new skills, finding your next opportunity, and more. But for today’s episode, I’m going to focus on the power of listening in service of delivering a work product or outcome that will win you accolades every time.
So how can you demonstrate that brand of listening? Here are some can’t-miss techniques.
1. Begin with intention
Great listening is not passive. Engaged listening requires your attention, focus, and conscious energy. Establish a goal ahead of an important conversation and ready yourself to take in key facts, instructions, details, and opinions. And—this is key!—do this with the intent of receiving information, not responding to it.
Most successful listeners head into a conversation with a sense of what they want to learn and the intent to extract what’s essential to their goal.
In 2010, University of Ottawa researcher Larry Vandergrift published a study about listening for the purpose of learning. One of his findings was that the most successful listeners...
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