By Coach Nancy – Proffitt Management Solutions – December 17th 2024
Listening may be the most difficult skill to master when communicating effectively. But master it, we can!
The non-verbal part of communicating is the most telling. Try this for a fact:
Research has shown that only 7 percent of what we take in from a speaker is from the actual words; the rest is non-verbal. The speaker’s tone of voice accounts for 38 percent of the message received. Over 55 percent of our perception of the message comes from the speaker’s body language.
This means that how something is said is far more important than the actual words. This also means to be an effective listener, one must “listen” to the non-verbals. This means being tuned in to what is being said and what is not being said.
This brings this discussion to a significant part of listening: asking questions. It is not enough to assume you know what the person means. Non-verbals can lead you to “hear” something not being said. Asking questions deepens the discussion and explores more of what the person means.
Some useful questions are:
“Can you give an example of this?”
“Tell me more about that…”