Listening There Are Many Methods

¶ … Listening

There are many methods and tactics that people use during discussions and meetings that are completely counteractive to listening well and communicating effectively. This report seeks to define ten major "commandments" for good listening so that the conversation is fruitful and accomplishes what it should. Good listening is not easy and many people do it quite poorly. This report seeks to offer steps and solutions to avoid such a happenstance.

The Commandments

The first step to being a good listener is to actually listen and comprehend what the other person is saying before any sort of response is completely formulated. The person listening should not simply be waiting for their turn to speak. This leads to the second commandment and this to never interrupt or try and talk over the other person. The third commandment is to ask for clarification if anything was unclear or opaque about what was said to them. The fourth commandment is to look the person in the eye and make sure they know that they have your complete attention. The fifth commandment is not to take the fourth commandment too far and leer at the person to harshly to in a fixated manner.

The sixth commandment is to pay mind to your body posture and make sure it's not aggressive, dismissive or otherwise not conducive to listening openly and fruitfully. The eighth commandment is to decipher the tone of the person as well as non-verbal cues such as posture and positioning of the arms as this will almost always give away the true demeanor of the person even if they portend otherwise. The ninth commandment dovetails with a lot of the above but it bears repeating, that being to give the person speaking your full attention and make it clear that you are respecting them enough to take in the full conversation. The tenth commandment also dovetails with a lot of the others, and that is to not fidget with anything, look at your phone or otherwise act distracted or disinterested in the conversation.