The four building blocks: Listening

- The building blocks of people, message, and context seem simple enough when you apply them to daily life, but there is one final component of stellar communication that must be considered. That building block is listening, an activity that takes up to 55% of our working time, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Between interacting at work, talking to our families, taking in information through radio, TV, video clips, we listen more than we speak daily. Most of us come into the workplace with little to no training on listening. Across the globe, schools prepare us to write, read, and speak, but few of us have had extensive training in listening. Listening is the skill that separates good communicators from amazing ones, and you guessed it. We want you to be an amazing communicator, so here are some tips to being a strong listener. When you are the sender of a message and you're getting feedback from your receiver, you have to listen with your ears, your eyes, your heart. What do I mean by that? Let's refer back to the example Brenda mentioned in her overview of the people building block in which we're deciding who will edit each chapter of some writing Brenda and I had done. As she asks me to start editing the work we do, Brenda may use her ears to pay close attention to my words, my tone of voice, or even my pacing. Am I asking several clarifying questions? Sounding annoyed at the timeline? Responding with more options? Is there a phrase that I'm repeating more than others? To be a good listener, use reaffirming nonverbals to show that you're listening. Feel free to summarize what you hear or simply give some interjections of agreement, uh-huh, hm. These indicate that you are following along. If our conversation about the editing deadline occurs in a face-to-face setting, Brenda will have a chance to listen with her eyes. She will pay close attention to my eye contact or facial expressions. In turn, she will try to moderate hers to match my reaction. Listening with your eyes allows you to be attuned to nonverbal communication. Even when you communicate with words and symbols, there's a lot to pay attention to. And yes, I'm referring to exclamation marks, all caps and our beloved emojis. Finally, listening is about connecting to the other person with your heart. This is a higher level of listening and goes beyond surface level conversation. Empathetic listening is about putting yourself in the other person's shoes, seeing the world from their perspective. Listening with your heart takes more time and attention and is only used in specific situations. Let's say, for example, that when Brenda discusses our editing deadline with me through email, I start bringing up totally different project deadlines that conflict. Since Brenda's a good communicator, she will instantly recommend we get on a call so she can assess the situation. She would ask me what else is on my plate and paraphrase what she hears. She would ask me clarifying questions to better understand my perspective. It will definitely take more time for Brenda to listen with her heart but in the long run, it will make our communication more effective and build more trust in our relationship. Intentional listening happens on many levels and it's a critical part of the communication puzzle. Brenda and I have a whole course in this library on effective listening skills if you want to explore the topic further. Now that you know the four building blocks of an effective communication process, let's put it into action in some actual work situations.