Knowledge is power and the more you listen, the more knowledge you’ll gain.
In our office, we endeavour to listen to our clients’ stories and to each other to gain more knowledge on how we can all help each other, both in business and personally. Failing to listen sometimes won’t deliver the right outcomes.
Some things to consider:
- Make eye contact: this demonstrates you are engaged and intently listening to the person or people in the meeting.
- Suspend judgment/evaluation: we are making judgments and evaluations all day to help us make decisions. But when it comes to individuals, we need to put that aside and be open to what the speaker is saying. Allow their message to sink in.
- Paraphrase: summarise the speaker’s content to demonstrate and provide recognition of understanding.
- Reflection of feeling: demonstrate you understand the emotion they are feeling.
- Summarise: bring together elements from the conversation into a cohesive form: that is, by saying “What I heard you say was …”
- Ask questions: this shows you understand what they are saying enough that you want to learn more.
Katrina Brennan is the principal at SRJ Walker Wayland – business growth advisers, accountants and auditors based in the Moreton Bay, Brisbane and Sunshine Coast regions.
