What have you done to improve your listening skills?
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn, I must do it by listening.
Larry King
Due to my professional capacity, listening is an integral part of my daily communications. Be able to actually listen your interlocutor(s) is half job done.
As a junior I was struggling to listen the arguments of the people I used to converse with as in my head I was always having a stronger counter-argument thinking that since mine is stronger then their it should be canceled and voided. I now understand how bad this sounds.
In order to improve my listening capabilities I had to work on my self and train on different key points that makes a conversation a “conversation”. The very first key point that I started working on was to quit interrupting people. People have their way to relay a message and we need to be patient and wait before we request to offer our opinion. That goes hand in hand with being patient to ask questions if you haven’t understand something.
Additionally, if you work on your patience, when the time is right to ask your questions, you can further elaborate and request for clarifications which will keep the conversation on topic and relevant.
Another topic I was always interested in, is the nonverbal communication and the tone of voice which I researched for a while through different academic articles, mostly related to psychology and I noticed that it helped me also to improve my listening skills as I was able to understand even better the topic the speaker is making.
Lastly, I am also doing a “trick” since I was little, whenever someone is talking to me I am trying to make a picture in my head or a story of what is been communicated to me as it helps me remember and become more engaged with the topic.