Why mastering the art of listening is the springboard to touch professional zenith

To survive and even thrive in a changing world, nature offers another great lesson: the survivors are those who at the least adapt to change, or even better learn to benefit from change and grow intellectually and personally. That means careful listening and constant learning-Frances Arnold

The professional world is presently seeing unprecedented and limitless opportunities. With technology spearheading a revolution in the field of communication, we are always bound in correspondence with one another. Work has become 24x7 and with emails, video conferencing and several other resourceful tools at our disposal, it has never been smoother to stay connected. However, these connections do not necessarily amount to meaningful communication.

While surface-level connectivity is easy to ascertain, it has been increasingly difficult to forge crucial bonds and convey necessary ideas to people in the saturated sphere of information that fuels this domain of life. To deal with this chaos, listening can be an indispensable skill one ought to master and an art to become adept.

In a world where everyone is releasing streams of ideas, instead of contributing to a saturated cacophony, you can listen to people, process and respond to vital information. A good listener has the potential to act as a reasonable moderator in a conversation, a mild and informal authoritative figure everyone could use in times of endless conversation. Needless to say, this skill is of interminable significance in the professional world where conversations can determine productivity, output and impact, alongside the value created. Simultaneously, it is also a skill rarely demonstrated in today’s times where impatience is abundant.

In this regard, Matt Toledo, writing for Forbes, observes, “Listening is the single-most crucial skill in communicating and building your business. Listening has the potential to increase productivity, boost confidence levels and reduce the margin of errors. Listening can have numerous benefits, including making you popular, building your personal brand and expanding your relationship network. So, why is listening in danger of extinction? According to Seth Horowitz, an auditory neuroscientist from Brown University, “Listening is a skill we’re in danger of losing in a world of digital distractions and information overload. In fact, researchers estimate that we only remember 25–50% of what we hear. Successful people hone this important life skill.”

It is important to understand that listening, by default, involves a conscious application of the mind. Employing it as an art or a strategy would require us to become all the more attentive and responsive to the source that we listen to. For instance, in an online office meeting, where it is difficult to establish whether a person is being listened to, your superiors can feel disrespected, your juniors can feel disregarded and people can feel alienated in general. An artful listener, however, will draw all speakers in to ensure conversation proceeds seamlessly and productively. This can be done by keeping the video on and physically responding to the points made through gestures, drop messages in the chat box and respond to very specific expressions and ideas in the feedback session. Such listening will not just secure all the stakeholders on professional and emotional levels but will also ensure that you take away everything you could from the meeting, from the ideas discussed to the trust you fostered for yourself among your superiors, colleagues and juniors.

Artful listening is about adapting to circumstances, paying attention and deftly managing your behaviour as per the context. This also requires a lot of other conscious decisions.

Eugene Rodsepp, in a 1981 article for Inc. Magazine, writes about how we must resist the urge to monopolize conversations, avoid judging the speakers and faking attention, must listen for both ideas and facts, as well as stay alert to nonverbal cues or body language. Rodsepp essentially states “Listening is an art that requires work, self-discipline, and skill.”

For conversations to become rewarding, therefore, we must rigorously commit to the art of listening.

To listen carefully is to be tethered to a mission of learning and to listen artfully is to be on a mission to make the most of professional opportunities, for yourself and on a more subtle level, your organization.

The art of listening can elevate the impact you create as an individual and can make the workplace synergy conducive to achieving extraordinary success. So, go ahead, lend your ears to what matters and craft brilliant success stories.

(The author is Founder Upsurge Global, Venture Partner Silverneedle Ventures and Adjunct Professor EThames College)