 The class gave me an opportunity to quantify, measure and grow my abilities as a listener with a scoring checklist. For somebody who prides himself to a be a good communicator, my score in this listening checklist was a sobering one - putting a big dent in my ego's hull. It did not comfort me when I came to know that most of my class was within my range - which I was later told is the range for humanity as a whole. I believe, this enlightening moment has given me an enormous opportunity to grow. Among all the listening tools I was given at this course, the ones that I can implement right away are 'Being fully present' and 'Confirming my understanding'. In the world of beeping Blackberrys, I aim to disengage myself from the outside world and have single-threaded conversations with people who speak to me. It is impossible for me to live a 100% single-threaded life-style, that is without multi-tasking. But at least in my face-face conversations, from now on, I can close my laptop, blog notes, books or whatever and be fully present in my conversations. Confirming my understanding, at the very least, prevents my mind from racing ahead with responses to a speaker while he/she is speaking. This also hinders me from completing the speaker's sentences - which is a symptom of bad listening. I will share more about listening when I write about the chapter on listening skills. This article was first posted in Karthik's personal blog in May. 2006 |
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