Now What, Grad? by Chris Palmer

Author:Chris Palmer [Palmer, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2018-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Panel presentations sink or swim on your leadership as the moderator, on your interpersonal skills, and on your ability to provoke a stimulating discussion. If you do your homework, prepare your panelists, and stay on top of the panelists’ remarks and the audience’s questions, you will have a successful panel presentation.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Be a Good Listener

Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening than talking.

—Bernard Baruch

Chatter fills our lives. This means that we tend to tune out more. A person might be saying something important, but the words aren’t getting through. Many of us are guilty of being in conversations where the speaker’s words go in one ear and straight out the other. Increasingly, it feels like people are talking at each other, not to each other.

The common denominator? A lack of listening. Listening is a critical component of communication both in the workplace and in personal relationships. We could all benefit from improving our listening skills. Here are seven suggestions on how to be a better listener.

Don’t try to split your attention. No matter how good you think you are at multitasking, you can’t do two things well at the same time. You certainly can’t hold a conversation when your attention is elsewhere. Every day, we see people only partially engaging with the human being right in front of them because their faces are glued to computers and smartphones. Listening is a full-time job. Give the speaker your full attention. Make eye contact, turn your body toward the person, and don’t attend to other tasks. Put your phone on silent.

React, don’t anticipate. Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about what we are going to say to someone based on our expectations that we completely miss what the speaker is actually saying. Staying inside your own head and being primed with a prepared response is the antithesis of listening. Live in the moment with the speaker, absorb what he or she is saying to you, and then respond directly.

Put yourself in the speaker’s shoes. One of the best ways to be a good listener is through the practice of empathy. Be receptive to what the speaker is saying to you and make an earnest effort to relate to it. This means taking yourself outside of your personal realm of experience to grasp what the speaker is feeling and saying.

Read between the lines. Good listeners seek understanding. Don’t simply hear the speaker’s words at face value. How a speaker says something can mean just as much as what he or she says. Only through listening carefully can you identify the subtext behind a speaker’s words and decipher the intent of what is being said.

Be approachable. Dialogue occurs only when there are two willing parties. Being a good listener means opening yourself up both mentally and physically to the speaker. Positive, approachable body language contributes to a comfortable conversation. The listener must take on the majority of this duty by facing the speaker,

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