People Strategies: Poor listening skills lead to inefficiency at workplace

Linda Bower is a speaker, executive coach and human performance improvement consultant in Rogersville.

We aren't born listeners. We learned how to listen from our families, friends and at school, well before we entered a business environment. To be effective in business, we often have to unlearn negative listening habits as we adopt new, more positive listening attitudes and skills.

Adele Lynn collected 50 activities for increasing people's emotional quotient at work in "The Emotional Intelligence Activity Book." One exercise challenges readers to consider six negative listening habits. Which ones did you see most often this holiday season among your family and friends? Which habits do you practice that inhibit your ability to be an empathetic listener at work?

Lynn identified the following type of listeners:

The Faker All the outward signs are there: nodding, making eye contact, and giving the occasional "uh huh." However, the faker isn't concentrating on the speaker. His mind is elsewhere.

The Interrupter The interrupter doesn't allow the speaker to finish and doesn't ask clarifying questions or seek more information from the speaker. He's too anxious to speak his own words and shows little concern for the speaker.

The Intellectual or Logical Listener This person is always trying to interpret what the speaker is saying and why. He is judging the speaker's words and trying to fit them into his logic box. He rarely asks about the underlying feeling or emotion attached to a message.

The Happy Hooker The happy hooker uses the speaker's words only as a way to get to his own message across. When the speaker says something, and it could be anything, the happy hooker steals the focus and then changes to his own point of view, opinion, story or facts. Favorite hooker lines are, "Oh, that's nothing, here's what happened to me" "I remember when I was"

The Rebuttal Maker The listener only listens long enough to form a rebuttal. His point is to use the speaker's words against him. At the worst, he is argumentative and wants to prove the speaker wrong. At best, the listener always wants to make the speaker see the other point of view.

The Advice Giver Giving advice is sometimes helpful; however, at other times, this behavior interferes with good listening, because it does not allow the speaker to fully articulate his feelings or thoughts; it doesn't help the speaker solve his own problems; it prohibits venting; it could also belittle the speaker by minimizing his or her concern for a quick solution. Well-placed advice is an important function for leadership. However, advice given too quickly and at the wrong time is a turnoff to the speaker.

Empathetic listening requires breaking old habits and replacing them with positive listening attitudes and skills.

According to Lynn, "Listening skills are central to the emotionally competent leader. However, skill in listening requires far more than technique."

Lynn said true listening requires a mindset that includes the following elements:

A respectful attitude toward the speaker even when the content of the speaker's message is abrasive;

An open mind willing to hear and seek understanding of the messages of the speaker; and

Placing the speaker as an equal and thus worthy of the listener's attention.

The real enemy to achieving new attitudes and using our skills is "self-talk." Self-talk is a nonverbal conversation that occurs at lightening speed inside our minds. Often people listen to their own conversation and use negative listening habits to cover it up.

Go back and look at the six negative habits listed above. Every one of them describes someone who is listening to their self-talk rather than to the speaker. Managing self-talk is often the key to breaking poor listening habits and building new ones.

As you go through today, pay attention to the number of conversations you have with yourself. As you are listening to people, stop the conversation in your head. Write the thought down if you have to. Clear your mind and listen only to what the other person is saying and expressing nonverbally. You will discover clarity in dialogue like you have never known before.

Achieving clarity in dialogue is a fundamental performance issue for businesses. What would the numbers look like if we could measure the financial impact of decisions that were based on inaccurate information due to poor listening habits? I shudder to think.