Your listening skills aren’t as good as you think they are

Your listening skills aren’t as good as you think they are

And don’t worry - I think the same about myself, not just you. We could all be better at listening.

We all know why it’s important to listen closely to others, right? We get more data when we listen well, whether that’s from content, body language, emotion, energy. The quality of our conversation improves.

The default setting for most people is to listen for similarity and agreement. This means our minds are filtering information looking for the nuggets we agree with and distorting the rest. The danger with this is you’re not hearing anything interesting that clashes with your world view. Your brain is literally ignoring it. Being surrounded by diverse thinking is no good if you don’t have the capability to listen and then refine/ edit your opinions.

So here’s a pro tip - listen for insight. Actively pay attention to what you disagree with (or previously may have avoided hearing) and write it down. If you really challenged yourself, can you see their point? What if you did agree with their different opinion - what would change?

This is a straightforward (but not always easy) way for leaders to benefit more from the broad perspectives around them and make better decisions. Interested to hear your listening tips - drop a comment below!