better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

An Active Listening Tip

13 December 2009

In the run up to Christmas my mind is preoccupied with a host of trivia and I imagine that it’s the same for most people. Presents to buy, people to meet and office parties to attend, where you have to make small talk and look interested. A tip for all of us sipping white wine and pretending to have a good time, is to remember that if we want to look like we’re listening then it pays to switch off our internal dialogue.

What’s going on inside our head tends to show up on our face. If we’re nodding attentively and at the same time musing over the question:

“What shall I have for dinner tonight?”

Then in reality we are listening to ourselves and not to them. A good tip is to stop the ticker-tape spooling between our ears, nod and say to the other person:

“I hear you.”

More often that you might think, people do need to be reassured and it’s much more engaging to do this, than to paper over a vacant stare with a friendly nod.

…Now then what’s for dinner tonight? …Mmmm….let me think….

In the Shop

Christmas generates stress, in the same way that the sun generates heat. If you know of someone who could do with a cool down then I would recommend the Time Management pack in the shop. Look up the Drivers model and find useful ways to do things differently.

Tags: listening, tip