At the beginning of this year, I held a workshop with 25+ people from the team at JAA, a media agency in London.
The workshop was all about inspiring individuals to have more commercially curious conversations in 2023 – challenging them on how they might be able to better serve clients and in turn impact business growth.
Before we got together in person, I asked the team to do a short piece of self-analysis on listening. Specifically asking themselves to honestly judge how good a listener they are.
I hope you already realise the value of being a good listener on successful commercial conversations.
Chances are, that you probably think of yourself as a pretty good listener. And that’s because most people believe that listening requires these three things:
– Not talking when others are speaking
– Letting others know you’re listening through facial expressions and verbal sounds (“Mmm-hmm”)
– And being able to repeat what others have said, practically word-for-word
But the truth is that great listening requires much more than that.
Research from Zenger and Folkman (as cited in a Harvard Business Review article) sets out to say that a skilled listener should not simply be to be a sponge—absorbing everything but providing little feedback – but instead be thought of as a trampoline who amplifies and supports a speaker’s thoughts by providing constructive feedback. I love this analogy.
The first step in becoming a better listener is, as with many things, an awareness of you’re current skill levels.
If you want a starting point to gauge how good you really are at listening, then here’s the simple exercise I set out for the team at JAA.
Two ears, one mouth – here’s how it works:
Score yourself VERY HONESTLY using the grid in the article. A key part of being curious is your ability to listen. Knowing how good (or bad) you are will help you focus on this critical skill.
![](https://etc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1.png)
What did you score?
31–35 points = Effective Listener
21–30 points = Good Listener
14–20 points = Not-so-good
Listener 13 points or less = Huh?
Reflect on your answers and spend some time being self-observant.
Knowing your listening strengths and weaknesses you are now able to work on your skills to become a better listener.
I’ve also included some follow up reading in case this piques your interest.
What Great Listeners Actually Do – I like this Harvard Business Review article because it is a new take on active listening.
10 Steps To Effective Listening – I loved the “try to feel what the other person is feeling” point in here. That’s a powerful idea.
The Art of Listening – International Coaching Federation – a few hundred words, all of which are dynamite. If this is what professional listeners do, it’s worth…listening to!
Have fun with this and be curious.
Andy