Effective Listening

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Effective Listening
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Effective Listening

• The single most important skill in personal
  relationships, selling, negotiating, and managing
  is listening.
• You cant have a successful relationship unless
  you are firmly committed to listening a majority
  of the time.

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Effective Listening

• Listening
• 60 in most relationships -The minimum
• 80 in some relationships - The maximum
• If your partner wont listen at least 20 of the
  time, it is not a two-way relationship.
• Its a one-way relationship like in theater,
  movies, print, broadcasting, or cable -- you are
  the audience.

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Effective Listening
Listening is an essential component of
communication.
The Communication Process
Source
Message
Channel
Receiver
Listening
Understanding
Feedback
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The Elements of the Communication Process

• Caring - The ignition system that starts it and
  sparks it.
• Respect - The generator that creates its own
  electricity and keeps it going.
• Understanding - The pistons that power it
  forward.
• Fairness - The cooling system that keeps it from
  overheating and running smoothly.

The Power of Ethical Persuasion, Tom Rusk M.D.,
Viking, 1993
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Effective Communication Depends On

• Source credibility
• Message strength
• Channel effectiveness
• Receiver characteristics
• Listening effectiveness
• Responsive feedback

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Effective Communication

• Elements that enhance source credibility
• Trustworthiness
• Competence
• Objectivity
• Expertise
• Physically Attractiveness
• Dynamism
• Similarity
• People like and trust people exactly like
  themselves.

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Effective Communication

• Elements that enhance message strength
• Two-sided argument
• Ordering effects
• Primacy and recency
• KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)
• USP (Unique Selling Proposition)
• Focus on benefits to the other person

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Effective Communication

• Channel effectiveness
• Face-to-face most effective
• Full, two-way verbal and non-verbal communication
  with instant feedback
• Video (film, TV, e.g.) next most effective.
• Audio (radio, e.g.) next.
• Video and audio can convey emotion and control
  emphasis, even though they are one-way.
• Print least effective unless the message is
  complex.
• Cant convey emotion, one-way.

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Effective Communication

• Receiver characteristics that affect
  communication
• Intelligence
• The receiver can understand and evaluate
  messages.
• Self-confidence
• The receiver trusts self to evaluate
  communication and make an assured decision.

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Effective Communication

• Effective listening is the foundation on which
  effective communication rests.
• You can improve not only your listening
  effectiveness but also the listening
  effectiveness of your partner on the road to
  agreement.
• The beginning of knowledge, learning,
  relationships, communication, and conversation is
  a question -- an open-ended question.

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Effective Listening

• Ask an open-ended question.
• Adopt the proper attitude.
• Optimistic, open, confident, trusting,
  respecting, non-defensive, and non-judgmental
• Shut up and listen.
• Listen actively nod, use gestures, smile
  (Responsive feedback).
• Concentrate on the speaker.
• Dont take notes unless its absolutely necessary.

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Effective Listening

• Do not step on sentences.
• Do not respond to negatives, objections, concerns
  too quickly.
• If you do, you appear to be defensive.
• Do not think of a rebuttal.
• If you continually rebut arguments, youll stop
  getting them and wont learn anything.
• If you think of a rebuttal while trying to
  listen, you cant receive 100 of the information
  you hear.

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Effective Listening

• Respect the other sides statements.
• Respect and learn about their view of the world.
• Listen for themes.
• Risk averse, conservative, entrepreneurial, needs
  recognition, affiliation needs, goal oriented,
  etc.
• Be very sensitive to emotional cues.
• Listen in synchronization dont mimic.

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Effective Listening

• Concentrate on the speaker (open body language).
• Acknowledge, dont always agree.
• Oh, Uh-Uh, I see, e.g.
• Dont say Good, or Youre right,
  judgmental.
• Do not react emotionally.
• Control your emotions.
• Listen with authenticity.
• Be yourself, others can tell when youre not
  sincere.

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• What good listeners dont do
• Interrupt
• Respond too soon.
• Editorialize in midstream.
• Jump to conclusions.
• Judge the speaker.
• Try to solve the problem too quickly.
• Take calls or interruptions in the course of a
  meeting.

The Trusted Advisor, David Maister et al, Free
Press, 2000
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Non-Verbal Communication

• Non-verbal communication conveys 65 of a
  messages meaning.
• Look for individual body language.
• No universal body language.
• Use gestures, space, openness, and your body
  language to
• Give the message you care about and like the
  other person.
• Match their style and pace.

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Non-Judgmental Listening

• Listen, understand and accept other peoples
  perception of the world.
• Spend time in their shoes.
• Develop a non-threatening, non-confrontational
  attitude so people feel secure in opening up,
  revealing personal information.
• Offer personal information first and then trade
  it.
• Find something you have in common with the other
  person.

Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and
Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993
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Non-Judgmental Listening

• Security creates an atmosphere of openness,
  honesty, and trust.
• Open discussion is now possible.
• Remember, trust is the oil and grease that keeps
  the communication engine moving along the road to
  agreement.

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Non-Judgmental Listening

• Vary your responses, otherwise listening becomes
  a monotonous technique.
• Show genuine concern and caring.
• I dont care how much you know until I know how
  much you care.
• Never ask Why?
• No challenges
• No obvious, manipulating techniques or leading
  questions Have you stopped beating your wife?
  e.g.

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Non-Judgmental Listening

• Goals
• To understand the other persons needs
• Often, the other person just needs to talk.
• To understand another persons unique perception
  of their world.

Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and
Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993
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Listening Roadblocks

• Denying, minimizing
• Cheering up, reassuring, encouraging
• Sympathy, indignation, me-tooing, story-telling
• Advising, teaching
• Become condescending

Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and
Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993
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Listening Roadblocks

• Taking over, rescuing
• Analyzing, probing, playing detective
• Criticizing, moralizing, warning
• Arguing, defending, counterattacking
• All of these responses are judgmental.
• So the point is to shut up and listen and
  acknowledge unemotionally like a therapist does.

Sales Effectiveness Training, Carl Zaiss and
Thomas Gordon, Penguin Books, 1993
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Effective Listening

• Listen carefully, actively to other people.
• Rephrase their position/objection.
• - Let me make sure I understand your
  positionyou feel our prices are too high?
• Get their agreement that you understand.
• - Is that correct?
• Respond with a form of an I understand
  statement (vary your responses)
• - I understand,
• - Feel, felt, found.

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Feel, Felt, Found

• Respond
• I understand how you feel
• Acknowledges their feelings and honors them.
• Many customers have felt the same way
• Reinforces and legitimizes their opinions so
  they know they arent stupid or silly.
• But we have found that higher prices are based
  on three things highly targeted content, high
  demand, and high response rates. We have a 95
  renewal rate.