What Did You Say?: The Five Principles of Good Listening

Often we forget to listen to what people are saying. It is the idea of being physically present but mentally gone. Good listening is essential to excellent communication. This should be important to us as potential managers. We often listen but do not process the information that is being communicated to us. So how to we become better listeners? Luckily, the book gives us five principles of good listening.

Managers often have trouble being active listeners. You have to focus solely on the person who is talking and you have to be genuinely concerned with what they are saying. This is especially hard in our industry. We do not have the time or the patience to fully listen to what others are saying. The communication is lost between the sender and receiver. We are supposed to be giving the person our “undivided attention” and “hearing the person out.” These are the first two principles of good listing and formulate active listening.

The three last principles of good listening are to “look for the real message,” “keep your emotions out of the communication” and “maintain you role as manager.” To look for the real message you need to look at body language, listen for the tone of voice and look at facial expressions. All of these verbal cues will lead you to the underlying message that the speaker is trying to relay. Being able to notice and feed off these cues will help the listener to understand the whole message. Keeping emotions out of the situation helps you make rational and level headed decisions that you won’t regret later. This also helps the other person vent their feelings and release the tension in the room. The ultimate goal is to maintain your role as manager. You can listen to everything they are saying but you also have to be able to keep your authority and make sure they respect that authority.

Listening is vital for true communication to happen. We forget how important communication is and how our industry thrives off this communication. I am glad that we had the chance to re-learn the value of good communication.