I was spending a lot of mental energy and time thinking of how to emphasize the importance of listening… but LOTS of other people already have so here is what they say:
Why is listening important?
(from Bangor University in Wales)
Listening plays an integral part of communicating and the differences from actively listening can be seen in multiple facets of our lives and development.
Active listening helps to:
- Learn and understand things better in a social and professional environment
- Become better at socializing
- Better sympathize with people
- Build stronger relationships by making people feel valued
- Improve problem-solving skills
- Absorb information better
Check out some of the specific problems that better listening can help solvefrom the Harvard Business Review
- Require less paperwork
- Upward communication improves
- Human relations are stronger
- Listening to sell is effective
- Facilitate the exchange of ideas
“Listening skills are crucial to giving leaders access to the knowledge and diversity in perspective needed to make better business decisions, mitigate risk and improve the employee experience.” According to the Forbes article The Importance Of Listening For Organizational Success
Enlightio even published 70 Reasons Why Listening Is Important but I’m not listing them all here!!!
Maybe the real question is: why don’t we spend more time, energy, and effort on improving our listening skills?
I read in a bunch of different places that generally people overestimate their own listening abilities.
I found Oscar Trimboli’s Listening Quiz. It gave me an interesting perspective on the villain that stops me from listening as effectively as I’d like.
I’m listening,
Lynn