Hear What People are Really Saying
In many cases, conflict in the workplace just seems to be a fact of life. We've all seen situations where different people with different goals and needs have come into conflict. And we've all seen the often-intense personal animosity that can result.
It is obvious to say that if you have poor interpersonal communications skills (which include active listening), your productivity will suffer simply because you do not have the tools needed to influence, persuade and negotiate – all necessary for workplace success. Lines of communications must be open between people who rely on one another to get work done.
Considering this, you must be able to listen attentively if you are to perform to expectations, avoid conflicts and misunderstandings, and to succeed - in any arena. Following are a few short tips to help you enhance your communications skills and to ensure you are an active listener:
- Use Nonverbal Communication
Use nonverbal behaviors to raise the channel of interpersonal communication. Nonverbal communication is facial expressions like smiles, gestures, eye contact, and even your posture. This shows the person you are communicating with that you are indeed listening actively and will prompt further communications while keeping costly, time-consuming misunderstandings at a minimum.
- Be An Active Listener
People speak at 100 to 175 words per minute (WPM), but they can listen intelligently at up to 300 words per minute. Since only a part of our mind is paying attention, it is easy to go into mind drift - thinking about other things while listening to someone. The cure for this is active listening - which involves listening with a purpose. It may be to gain information, obtain directions, understand others, solve problems, share interest, see how another person feels, show support, etc.
If you're finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say it - this will reinforce their message and help you control mind drift.
- Give Feedback
Remember that what someone says and what we hear can be surprisingly different! Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. Repeat back or summarise to ensure that you understand. Restate what you think you heard and ask, "Have I understood you correctly?" If you find yourself responding emotionally to what someone said, say so, and ask for more information: "I may not be understanding you correctly, and I find myself taking what you said personally. What I thought you just said is XXX; is that what you meant?"
Feedback is a means used to clearly demonstrate you are actively listening and to confirm the communications between you and others. Obviously, this serves to further ensure the communications are understood and is a great tool to use to verify everything you heard while actively listening.
Keeping team member performance high, and well-integrated
"Performance review."............Does the mere mention of this event make your heart sink? Employees and managers the world over dread this ritual and therein lays the main problem: We have institutionalised the giving and receiving of feedback. We save up our comments and document all the things we note about a person’s performance. And then, like a big cat ready to pounce, the manager brings a hapless employee into the office and springs a year’s worth of “constructive criticism” onto him or her.
No doubt the process is seen as unnerving and fear provoking. And this is exactly the wrong emotional environment in which to discuss performance, introduce suggestions for improvement, and talk about goals for the future. This is a shame, because giving and receiving feedback is some of the most important communication you can engage in with members of your team.
When done in the right way and with the right intentions, feedback communication is the avenue to performance greatness. Employees have to know what they are doing well and not so well. For them to really hear your thoughts and suggestions on ways to improve, though, that feedback has to be delivered carefully and frequently.
© Mind Tools Ltd 2005-2007