Listening to Team Members – Are You Making the Most of Your Team?

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Listening Skills to Develop:

Active listening is one approach that can be beneficial in the workplace, and it can take practice and a shift in your own thinking to make it work. Some areas to focus on include:

• Ensure the other person knows that you’re listening – Give them your full attention, don’t check your phone or email, and pay attention.
  
  
• Don’t jump in constantly – There are times in conversation when it is appropriate to interrupt, but if you’re doing it all the time, then you might find that you’re not actually listening to what is being said.
  
  
• Paraphrase and repeat – Once the person has finished speaking, paraphrase what they’ve raised (for example, “So we’ve discussed the open position for X-Job, and you want to apply for the role.”) – this gives you the opportunity to not only show that you’ve listened, but also invite the other party to raise any points that you might have missed.
  
  
• Respond appropriately – Sometimes you’re going to need to look into things before you can give a response, let the other person know this (and a general estimate of how long it will be before you get back to them), give feedback where appropriate, and make sure to ask any questions that haven’t been answered.
  
  
• Don’t jump to conclusions – Let the person speak, even if you’ve already got a good idea of where they’re taking the conversation, and have solutions in mind – allow the person to express themselves and their concerns / issues.
  
  
• Request feedback – If your team is raising an issue, there’s always the option to ask them what they feel about the situation, and how they would like to see it resolved. By respecting their concerns and identifying what they consider to be a good solution, you can increase their morale, make them feel engaged, and it gives you a good idea of what you need to do in order to make a situation right.

There are lots of different tools and techniques to build your listening skills, and these stay with you for life – making it valuable for yourself as well as your team members.