Listening: the key to http://www.business-spotlight.de 29
business successMauritius LISTENING BUSINESS SKILLSM
any people who use En-
glish at work, whether as
a first or second language,
want to be better speak-
ers. They want to be more
convincing when they talk and to in-
fluence others more effectively.
There is nothing wrong with this
desire. But curiously, few people think
about how they can become better lis-
teners. In many ways, our priorities
are wrong here. The ability to listen
well is often a far more effective way
of being persuasive, not least because
it gets others to listen to us.
In this article, we provide ten tips to
help you to become a better listener.TIP 1 Doubt your listening skills
Do you evenrecognize the need to
improve your listening skills? You
may think that you hear what people
say and that their messages are most-
ly clear. But we should challengethese
assumptions:
nHow many of us really understand
the complexity of other people? We
can work and live with others for
years and never fully understand
them.
nWorking internationally means lis-
tening to people expressing them-
selves in a foreign language — foreignto us and/or to them. People some-
times use words and expressions that
they do not intend to use. And we, in
turn, may not always understand cor-
rectly the words we hear. As a result,
what we hear is not necessarily what
people want to say.
nWords (and behaviours) do not ne-
cessarily have the same meaning in
different cultures. Indirect disagree-
ment (“I’m not really sure about
that”) could be politeness or evasion.
“That’s interesting” may be a sign of
genuineengagement, polite indiffer-
ence or even disagreement.
nWe all listen with filters, bias, de-
fence mechanisms and emotional in-
fluences, which means that we may
be ready to find fault or weakness in
what others say.
In the following tips, we look at
positive approachesto listening that
might improve our chances of doing
it well.^4“We can work and live with
others for years and never fully
understand them”
This is the first part of a special new skills series. In each article, Bob
Dignen will provide ten top tips for a key area of business communi-
cation — and each time, a training plan (see p. 33) will be included,
so that you can structure your learning.approach [E(prEUtS] Vorgehensweise
assumption Annahme
[E(sVmpS&n]
bias Voreingenommen-
[(baIEs] heit
challenge (sth.) schwierige Aufgabe;
[(tSÄlIndZ] etw. infrage stellen
engagement Sich-Einlassen
[In(geIdZmEnt]
evasion [i(veIZ&n] Ausweichen
even [(i:v&n] hier: überhaupt
genuine [(dZenjuIn] echt, aufrichtig
persuasive [pE(sweIsIv] überzeugend28-32 Business Skills mainB 2_14gruen 16.01.14 15:44 Seite 29