Good listening skills are critical to building lasting business relationships. However, listening is one of the most difficult skills to cultivate and even good listeners must constantly work on honing their skills. Effective listening takes more than just hearing the words; it means one must engage both body and mind in order to fully understand the message.
The steps to good listening are simple:
1) Give your undivided attention to the person who is speaking, show empathy and respect.
2) Exhibit your attention through body language, by maintaining eye contact, nodding or shaking your head, and through facial expression – smiles, frowns and maybe even a laugh.
3) Think about what the speaker is saying – really engage your mind in the process.
4) Let the speaker finish – don’t interrupt.
5) Show you understand by repeating what the speaker said in your own words.
6) Ask questions and provide feedback.
While we know the steps for effective listening when we interact face to face, we need to consider how to utilize some of these same skills online. First, we must recognize that the proliferation of social media tools threatens to further erode our listening skills. It’s easy to become preoccupied with posting another tweet or answering that ever-present question on Facebook – What’s on your mind?
Even so, the importance of creating and building relationships through social media continues to increase. The word listening has a different meaning in the world of social media, where it primarily refers to monitoring key words through a variety of Web applications. But many conversations are happening online, through blogs, social networks and in private topic-centered networks. And, these require active listening skills.
1) With so many conversations going on, choose wisely and carefully consider what’s being said. Your choice might be predicated upon the person’s reputation or the topic of discussion.
2) Exhibit your attention through posts that exhibit empathy – sort of a written nod.
3) Show your understanding through re-tweets, links in your blog post, or comments.
4) As always, ask questions and provide feedback.
5) And finally, remember that social media requires reciprocity, relevancy, transparency, authenticity and commitment. (10 Best Practices in Social Media – http://stwem.com/2009/07/24/10-best-practices/)
As social media and all its possibilities continue to evolve, we must continue to look at best practices for engaging in conversation and effective listening.