By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance | Retain your best people | Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour | Practical Behaviour Analytics
Today, I’d like to talk about ‘The Three Levels of Listening’.
Because listening is one of the most fundamental skills that any leader, manager or individual team player needs to have in order to be highly effective at work. And, in order to be able to influence and have an impact on other people, you need to be an excellent listener. Because, Stephen Covey said a wonderful thing that really stuck with me the first time I read his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It was that it’s about “Seek First to Understand Before Trying to be Understood”. That made a huge impression on me, that it’s really about finding out where other people are at and, what’s going on for them before you can even begin to try and help them to understand where you’re at and where you’re coming from. So, a great way to begin with that is to really understand these three levels.
‘To Me’
Level 1 is ‘I’m just listening to my own thoughts rather than to what you’re actually saying. So, for example, if you’re talking to me about an issue at work or with a colleague or a problem that you have. I’m thinking about what would I do in that situation or how am I going to respond next or what’s the next question I really need to ask. It’s all about me and my thoughts and how I’m going to respond to you. Rather than really listening to you. And that can have a sort of distracted feel about it.
