Listening? How to improve!
Importance of good listening skills
Among the 7 habits of highly effective people, the importance of good listening skills is emphasized. Attention given to improving listening skills in business will always be rewarded. It's worth a little time looking at this - the art of listening.
Among the tips to be an effective person, these qualities are stressed because they are tools that get results. Public leaders know this. There are three related communication techniques: speaking, writing and listening. These are skills that the 7 Words method can help you with.
From Our Questionnaire
7 Words Works!
- the importance of good listening skills
- improving listening skills in business
- the art of listening
- tips to be an effective person
- tools that get results
- leaders communication techniques
- speaking, writing and listening
7 Words can help.
How?
The 7 Words System is defined by the idea that in all the complexity of human relationships, there are only seven core gestures of communication. They are encapsulated by the 7 primary words and accessed by 28 keywords. For example, Thanks keywords are these:
- Appreciation
- Valuing
- Giving
- Heart Essence
It is very difficult to see oneself objectively, well actually impossible, so it is a true service to another to give them a degree of honest feedback. Many of us have involvement with others that centres on the giving of attention—and in some cases it is mostly a one-way conversation rather than an exchange, perhaps because the other has more need than we have at the moment. This can be in friendship, or even as a healer, or maybe with a stranger. Whichever it is, let’s simply define the other person as ‘the client’. Although it may sound a little too formal, it will help to remind us of the nature of the involvement, which is an opportunity for healing and actually does have a degree of formality.
The secret to being a good healer is to have big ears and a radiant heart. Let’s focus for the moment on the ears—the importance of listening to others—since in general this is an area where so much improvement can be brought about with such a small degree of effort. Listen.
Listen doesn’t mean hear; there’s more. Hearing is passive and uncommitted and listening is much more involved. There are two distinct aspects to the process of speaking—the verbal and the non-verbal—and good listening requires that we relate well to both aspects. Non-verbal messages are delivered mainly in the tone of voice and body language and can be seen as the most important part of the message because this is the aspect that the person cannot easily conceal, so is much more authentic and free from social and other pressures.
However, though it may be the tip of an iceberg, it is the verbal content that we have to work with—these are the words we are offered and represent what is consciously (partly) opened up for the exchange. There are clues in the specific choice of words that show how best we can relate to our conversational partner. For example, if John says ‘my wife is going to have a baby’, we may want to focus some attention on his concerns about her; if he says ‘I’m going to be a father’, we would be likelier to form better rapport by talking about John’s new life role and its attendant issues and responsibilities.
Good listening requires that we are able to some significant degree to suspend our own attention needs, to pull back from expressing our opinions or experiences. Here: Alice says ‘I’m feeling depressed because my boyfriend has left me’; it is hardly appropriate to grab the focus of attention back with a pseudo-empathy ‘I know how you feel, Peter left me last week’, because Alice wants to talk about Alice not Peter. Great help can be given to the process of healing our thinking if we can learn to improve listen skills, and apply them more often.
Let’s look again at the opening statement:
Among the 7 habits of highly effective people, the importance of good listening skills is emphasized. Attention given to improving listening skills in business will always be rewarded. It's worth a little time looking at this - the art of listening - and in fact with all types of writing, speaking and developing listening skills – you will find it of key importance to plan your ideas carefully first. Here is the fundamental suggestion behind 7 Words—that there are seven basic qualities of life experience, including personality profile and compatibility, which can be described by 7 primary words:
They are among the first words we learn in childhood and yet they are not understood or used particularly well, despite their simplicity. By renewing our focus upon these primary words we can simplify and deepen our attitudes to how and with whom we choose to live.
Among the tips to be an effective person, these qualities are stressed because they are tools that get results. Public leaders know this. There are three related communication techniques: speaking, writing and listening. These are skills that the 7 Words method can help you with, the system offers a complementary and alternative approach.
If you have enjoyed this brief summary of 7 Words and would like to know more about how it can be applied in detail to improve relationships and other aspects of life in general...
..further information and suggestions are available in the form of free questionnaires, reports, eBooks, and other study material... and for even more detailed explanations and examples of 7 Words applications, try the workbook: 7 Words Principles and Practices.
So we encourage you to use 7 Words to explore all of these:
- the 7 habits of highly effective people
- the importance of good listening skills
- improving listening skills in business
- the art of listening
- tips to be an effective person
- tools that get results
- leaders communication techniques
- speaking, writing and listening
