By | Jayati Roy, SHRM – SCP® | Director HR at Barco
For you to be a good speaker, you need to be a good listener, first.
I grew up listening to this mantra but only understood the importance of it when I became a mother 10 years ago. My babbling toddler taught me “to listen”. Not just hear but listen. To understand what he wanted to say, what he was unable to express and what was going on in his mind even though he did not have words.
Research shows that about 85 per cent of our communication is non-verbal. This includes our posture, physical movements, eye contact and our psychological presence. Listening also helps a speaker gain greater perspective in any situation, be it a seminar, 1-2-1 dialogue or conflict.
As technology helps bridge physical gaps across continents, offices today are filled with multi-cultural teams and to maximize performance in such an environment, key is to listen. This kind of multi-cultural interaction is often described as “listening with empathy.”
Janet Reid, a multi-cultural expert and managing partner of Global Novation, describes it as listening to connect with a person’s feelings and thoughts. She says to enable such listening, we not only have to train our ear but also build our multi-cultural muscle by slowing down our knee-jerk reaction to talk over people and listen in the cadence and rhythm [of their culture].
However, as part of our formal education system, we receive almost no formal training on how to be a good listener and usually do not realize that “really listening” to someone is not a passive activity.
So how do we build on our own capabilities to listen more effectively?
As an HR professional with over 17 years of experience, I have been continuously working on honing my listening skill and it has helped me grow as an individual and professional. It particularly came in handy during the 2020 pandemic when all our conversations were remote – over phone or a computer.