Listening Improves Performance:
Today’s Business Strategy
Business Rescue Coach Maggie asks you:
Do you listen well?
Are you always listening for golden nuggets?
Do you give others your undivided attention?
YOUR Business Strategy today is for you to notice if you are really listening
well for what you need to hear. Do this for the balance of the week and notice if your listen well or not. Why?
Listening Improves Performance: Personally & Professionally
Regardless of whether you are in personal or professional conversations, listening well is key – the exact same elements apply. The only difference will be who you are listening to: family, friends, or neighbors are pretty common for the personal listening. Whereas improving this skill in a professional setting will require you to listen to customers, partners, teammates, and other professional peers. Even when you practice improving your listening skills with your neighbors it will benefit you greatly 🙂
Listening improves performance primarily because it is one of two key elements in communication. Humans are social and communication helps us express thoughts and ideas to others. Thus, the other key element of communication is the message. When the message is sent, it needs somewhere to land (much like an airplane).
Better Listening Awareness:
Think about a time when you knew someone was listening to you… really listening. There was a different feeling about that particular conversation, wasn’t there? I bet you felt like you were the only person in the world to the one who was completely present for you. Did that make you feel important or what you were saying was important? Probably – after all, you can still recall that experience can’t you?
Now imagine if you take the time to do this with each conversation you have. Yes, that means the multi-tasking would need to stop 🙂 And why shouldn’t multi-tasking stop? You know when you are communicating to someone and they are checking their email or other things… the “aha” sounds like a drone, doesn’t it?
If you want people to feel important, don’t tell them- show them! Let them experience first hand what it feels like to be listened to for a conversation. Maybe we can start a ripple effect of better listening!!!
I know time is at a premium. I know there are thousands of messages coming at each of us a day whether they are personal or digital. I also know that listening improves your performance. Better listening improves performance with the ones you love. Better listening improves performance with your customers after you ask them a question. Better listening improves performance with your customer service activities and marketing activities. But most importantly, better listening improves performance of us all living on this same rock with one another… Let’s see what we can do to become better listeners 🙂
Listening Improves Performance:
Today’s Brilliant Business Success Action Items
- Be 100% present to someone each day for the rest of the month. Yes, this is best achieved if you aren’t muti-tasking.
- Listen deeply to others. Respond as if they are the only person left in the world.
- Thank others when they demonstrate good listening skills.
READY?
Are you ready to step into experience how better listening improves performance? Why don’t you share what you will focus on for the next month and feel free to “Leave a Reply & Comment” so we can all help each other build Brilliant Businesses 🙂
It can be all different this year…
if you plan to deliver different results in 2013!
If you or your business needs rescuing on this particular topic
or any other Business Strategies we have been discussing,
please reach out to Maggie (262) 716.7750 FYI: I’m in the Central Time Zone
Blessings of Success to YOU ~
Maggie Mongan, Business Rescue Coach
Brilliant Breakthroughs, Inc.
I think I listen at the time. Then I replay the conversation in my head and realize that I’ve not listened as much as is should have. Thanks for the reminder.
Ginger, I don’t think you are alone here at all! We all need to practice, practice, practice and then some times, just release it 🙂
Going to share this will all of my friends. Listening is key to great communication in business. I’m with with Ginger, I think I listen all the time, but I learn after I replay the conversation I skipped over some things and wonder “wait did I really listen? or was I daydreaming again?”
Jane, I hear you loud and clear 🙂 Just the other day, I called a client back re: making sure I hear something correctly. She laughed when I called her back and said how great it was to know that what she says matters to me – even after a session. Funny how listening falls into the category of “soft” skills when it is a hard one to master! Blessings of ongoing success to you~
I willl start the day with #3………..Thank you Maggie for ALWAYS being a good listener!
Your welcome and my pleasure 🙂 Now, let’s see how we can “pay it forward” to others for all the good listening we have rec’d over time 🙂