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Hot Management Tips ...
Bad Listening Habits ...
If you find yourself not absorbing what people tell you, the problem could be bad listening techniques. First step to overcome a bad listening technique is to identify it. Second step; try to deliberately remove that technique from all conversation for a month. After a month, the improved technique will probably become habitual. The main bad listening techniques are:
- Listening mainly for facts rather than ideas. Facts are just the vehicle a speaker uses to convey an idea. The idea is usually the important thing to listen for.
- Putting your mind in neutral when material being discussed is too difficult. That’s when you need to pay attention most. It’s then that the ideas are not familiar to you. So understanding them will be of more value than listening to easy to understand conversation.
- Thinking about one idea of the speaker - while he/she talks about something else. The problem is your mind runs ahead about four times faster than the conversation. So you cannot develop the idea at the same rate as the speaker tells you. If the speaker has a different solution to you, you will probably miss hearing it.
- Assuming from a person’s appearance that they will have nothing of value to say. Clothes etc., are no longer a good guide to the caliber of the mind. It is especially difficult to pre-judge a person’s contribution if that person is in a different age group to yourself. Their way of dressing may give you the impression that they have nothing to contribute, but within that person’s age group, that style of dress may indicate they are deep or independent thinkers.
- Interrupting the speaker with a question or request for clarification. Interrupting ruins the speaker’s train of though. Once interrupted the idea may be lost forever. Better to hold you questions until a natural break in the conversation. A question can always be answered but a lost concept will often never be regained.
- Being distracted by activities happening around you. Try to consciously ignore anything that tends to distract you, even if it’s important. Dealing with one thing at a time usually takes less time - and you do a more thorough job.
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