The Value of Quality Listening
“Listening moves us closer, it helps us become more whole, more healthy, more holy. Not listening creates fragmentation, and fragmentation is the root of all suffering.” - Margaret J. Wheatley
How well a team communicates is often an indicator of its potential success or failure.
A foundational element to effective communication is high-quality listening. Unfortunately, most of us are not trained to listen well.
If you are on a team and want to improve your communication skills, here are few resources that you might find useful in developing an appreciation and practice of listening well:
The Power of Listening, a short TEDx Talk by William Ury (video | transcript)
The Power of Listening in Helping People Change, an HBR article
The HURIER model of listening summary developed by Judi Brownell of Cornell University
Barriers to Effective Listening, a deep dive chapter
There’s a lot to digest in those links, so here’s the nutshell:
Quality listening increases our understanding and empathy for others. At the same time, it builds connection and fosters real trust.
Quality listening is demonstrated through practicing active listening. Meaningfully active listening is shown by paraphrasing what you’ve heard (in what was said and what may have been expressed but unsaid) and asking questions of clarification and questions that support the speaker’s exploration of what they are sharing.
This type of listening increases productivity, confidence, cognitive pliancy and reduces anxiety and depression.
Quality listening can also be difficult. It’s a craft and takes time to develop. But the rewards are big.
There are also barriers to listening that include:
Physical noise and distractions (e.g., a phone ringing, email window open)
Inner noise and distractions (e.g., anxious thinking and a project deadline)
Cognitive challenges (e.g., unfamiliar words and concepts, disagreeing with the premise)
Manner of the speaker (e.g., speaks too slowly or too fast)
Versions of thinking about self (e.g., what we’re going to say, forming arguments, thinking about similar situations in our life, thinking about how to benefit from what is being said)
Listening well is a muscle and one we have ample opportunity to practice at work and at home. The key is to slow down enough to focus on what we are truly hearing. Once we get comfortable simply hearing what another is saying and not getting lost in the environment or our thoughts, we can start listening for what is not being said.
Then, we can ask meaningful questions, and worlds begin to open.
This skill of quality listening is foundational to creating healthy team dynamics. In fact, quality listening alone can go a long way toward increasing trust, surfacing relevant information, increasing creative problem solving, and building stronger bonds.
All we have to do is start practicing!
“It is the province of knowledge to speak and the privilege of wisdom to listen.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
