The Power to Hear

It might seem ironic that my very first post is concerned with listening, rather than speaking but I believe the best speakers are also excellent listeners. Of course, the skill of listening means much more than simply hearing words. Karl Menninger said, “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”As leaders, if it is our goal to motivate and inspire our audience to move toward us, then the importance of effective listening is paramount.

In order to connect with your audience, you must understand where they are coming from and what you are competing with in order to gain their undivided attention. Rather than focusing on why they should be listening to you from your perspective, it's most valuable to find out how they found you, why they are seeking your expertise, what problems they are working on solving and how you fit into that solution.

Listening is action verb! And, as Raquel Welch said, "You can't fake listening. It shows." More than just refraining from speaking, or hearing someone, listening involves quieting your mind and focusing your ears so that your brain can process what the speaker, or speakers is actually telling you before you speak. And, in today's world, this is no easy task! Everyone wants to be heard immediately, our soapboxes exist digitally, 24 hours a day, on social media for all the world to see. And yet, all those posts and rants add up to little more than background feed in most people's lives. How then, do we gain relevance among the myriad opinions constantly being offered all around us? Bernard M. Baruch shares that “Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.”

So how then do we become active listeners? An easy starting point is to put down distractions (phones, computers, competing tasks) and focus completely on the message the speaker is delivering. Good listeners also wait for the speaker to finish delivering their message before asking questions. Things move so quickly these days that waiting for someone to finish their thought before asking a question or posing a counter thought can be a battle. However, in doing this, we allow the speaker to be heard completely, which goes a long way to disarm them and prepare them to listen to what we have to say. In doing this we gain trust. Rather than listening in order to reply, listening to understand means that we will hear the message of the speaker and take that message into consideration before responding. Doing that will give our message credibility and more than likely be better received than if we were to simply spout off our point, regardless of how applicable it is to the actual concerns/needs of the person with whom we are speaking.

Effective speaking and effective listening are two sides of the same coin. As one of the greatest communicators in modern history, Winston Churchill has said, "“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.” Have courage, and listen well.