Productivity Tips for Virtual Assistants – Active Listening Is Sexy – Part 3
Active listening. Do I have you listening based on the title? Full disclosure, I didn’t come up with it. My friend, CEO of PeopleG2 and author of The Power of Company Culture hosted a webinar with this title and I knew I had to tune in. With his permission, I’ll also be sharing it with you as well!
When we think of active listening, productivity isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind. Yet we know we need to be good listeners in order to be productive. However, when running a business if you aren’t actively listening to what is not only being said, but what is not being said it will cost you in the long run. Good listening skills aren’t enough.
For PeopleG2 listening is not only crucial inside the company but also externally with clients.
“It’s important to us as an organization that we connect with our clients, and our clients have been providing us valuable feedback that we have been using. It all comes down to listening…listening to the external feedback, and also having the internal conversations about how we as an organization can become a WORLD CLASS one.”
What is Active Listening?
Active listening can also be very much about finding out the question behind the question. Have you ever had a client give you instructions or tell you exactly what they wanted? Yet when you delivered the person was not satisfied. Obviously, the time spent would not have been productive. Yet how could you have known otherwise? Active listening.
Active listening is more than not speaking. It’s also about not thinking about what you’re going to say or how you’re going to respond once the person stops talking.
We’re not bad listeners simply because you love to hear yourself speak. Often it’s because what the person said peaked your interest and got you excited. Your brain started spinning with ideas of how you could assist. While it’s doing this you are no longer actively listening which means you’re not able to pick up on queues the person may not even know they are sending.
Active listening makes you more productive from the beginning by uncovering potential misunderstandings and by even asking better questions that force the other party to really think about how they are communicating knowing that you are listening – actively.
I’m excited to share Chris Dyer’s webinar, Listening Is Sexy. Not only will he go over the different types of listening strategies and how this is so important to make people feel heard, he also covers the different types of meetings to have that support each one.
Follow Chris on LinkedIn to be notified of all his amazing webinars like this one.
