HELLO?? ARE YOU LISTENING??

I recently gave a communication workshop that I called “Hello?? Are you Listening??” to a wonderful group of professional women. The premise of this topic was to raise awareness of the importance of listening as an equal counterpart of speaking, to understand why listening is not as easy as we like to think, and to get the practical ways of how we can enhance our listening skills and therefore improve the quality of our communication. The workshop went tremendously well, with all the ladies actively participating and attentively listening! *big smiles on my face

Photo credit: technorati.com

How can I be more interesting to people?

I completed my day at one of the chambers’ networking evening event. You always meet different, unique and interesting people at these events. Personally, I like to ask questions to and about the person I’m talking to, especially when I’m just meeting them for the first time, with the intention to explore about them – and make conversations. Dale Carnegie, an international communication guru said in his book “How to win friends and influence people” that in order to be interesting, you must first be interested! He also said that the rule of thumb of a good conversationalist is to be a good listener.

Here’s a fact, most of us think that the only person we think is interesting is ourselves!

As the story goes, I met a gentleman at the event who was very interesting. He had a story for everything,…and apparently the stories never stopped coming. What I came to realize was that he was a talker, as he started monopolizing the conversations. At one point of the conversation, I made an attempt to reply to his comment by telling a short story. And sure enough, he interrupted me halfway by starting a new topic altogether. I was actually quite dumbfounded by this notion. I found it ironical and comical at the same time, knowing the fact that I’d just given a workshop about listening earlier that day.

Okay, are you listening now??

The incident I had with that gentleman just re-confirmed my belief that listening is NOT easy and that it’s a skill everyone can learn and practice. You know when you’re having a good conversation with someone when there’s an equal amount of interaction, equal amount of asking and equal amount of answering or story telling. Conversations are like a game of tennis, it’s fun when two players are hitting the ball back and forth to each other. Good communication or conversations are also based on respect. When you respect someone, you’re able to listen to them better. But don’t forget, the opposite also holds true, respecting someone means giving them a chance to be heard. When you’re sharing a story to a friend, and she gives you an undivided attention, doesn’t it make you feel really good about yourself? Like you’re the most interesting person on earth?

I hope some of you can benefit from my (unfortunate) encounter. But we can change things around in our daily communications and make a conscious effort to listen better. Next time you want to interrupt someone in the middle of their sentence, stop and listen more – there might be something very interesting you wouldn’t discover otherwise.

This article has been published on Outward Bound Indonesia’s blog