Can You Hear Me Now?

Listening could very well be the most valuable skill in any relationship. Wasted meeting time, unhappy customers, confused employees, and lost sales are only some of the costs of ineffective listening. The most common barriers to listening include assumptions about the person's motives for what they are saying. We derive approximately 55 percent of a message's meaning from the speaker's facial expressions, 38 percent from how he says the message, and 7 percent from the actual words spoken. Reflective listening shows the person that we are striving to comprehend what was said. There will be times when we will need to take reflective listening to the next level-to empathic listening. Here, one has to do all the steps of reflective listening, and also check for understanding of the emotions behind the speaker's words. By practicing GRIT, listening becomes easier.