The Simple Skill That Will Improve Your Job
In television, being a good interviewer is not just about asking the right questions.
It's about listening to the answer.
Some of the greatest television interviews happened not because the interviewer asked the right question, but because he or she asked the right follow-up. Just watch interviews by Barbara Walters or the late David Frost, both of whom extracted information from their subjects (Monica Lewinsky, Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson) nobody else could get. At moments more inexperienced interviewers would have glossed over, they would pause and ask, "why" or "how come." And bingo - that would be the one great moment in the interview.
What's amazing is that listening is one of the most underrated skills in the workplace and yet, one of the most important. It is the skill that can help you seal a negotiation, make you more amiable to your boss or simply win you friends. Jim Reynolds, the CEO of a boutique investment bank in Chicago, Loop Capital, told me he sometimes has to tap his sales guys under the table in a negotiation to get them to be quiet.
"The secret to effective selling is not the guy who goes in talking ‘I can do I this and I can do that and I can make your business better,'" he said. "That was never the guy who was the top salesman. The top salesman was always the guy that could ask leading questions and then listen to the answer. I learned this early on in my twenties and I’m still trying to teach it to my bankers."
"Whoever is doing the real listening is improving the art of effective communication and that person will get even better,” he said.
Jim noted that the reason why listening was so effective in sales was because most people, without realizing it, will tell you what problem they need solved. If you just listen carefully enough, you can present the solution right back to them.
(Click here to read the rest of Betty's article!)
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Did you like this post? Then you'll like Betty's new bookWork Smarts: What CEOs Say You Need to Know to Get Ahead. You can read more at www.betty-liu.com and buy her book on Amazon.com and other booksellers. She is Editor-at-Large and anchor at Bloomberg Television and an ABC News contributor.
Secretary at CSRI-SARI, Tamale
9yListening is very good when there is care as stated below but where there is contraction that means u're not in the mode and u're to listen to the other party what would be the outcome of feedback to what u have received from. It will be better for u not to listen at all. It is good to be concern on what will be deliver to u by listening when u are in peace of mind and proactive of what have been delivered to u to give a positive responds.
incharge at Al-Karam Textile Mills Pvt. Ltd.
10y"Whoever is doing the real listening is improving the art of effective communication and that person will get even better,”
Leadership development coach and training specialist
10yI believe that people have the answers within them if you just listen, they just need the space to draw it out! 'Tryit
I agree! People usually get the lead out, being sure in this way they won't lose time. But they can't understand that if they don't listen or have a look around, they're gonna loose a lot of time. For example, when I'm at work (I'm a clerk at the Information Office of my town's airport), tourists are often in a hurry: they ask me for the timetable of a certain bus/train which will leave in 1-2 hours...at that point, I usually provide them a quicker solution but, as I start saying "But If you don't want to wait...", I'm already seeing the tourists' backs disappearing in the crowd...anyway, 5-10 minutes later the same tourists come back to my desk and ask me: "Is there any other means of transport going to... before?"...and 99% of times, the solutions I wanted to provide them isn't available anymore. I can't understand this kind of behaviour...why do people ask for information if they don't want to listen to it?? This is another unresolved mystery of the human being...
Communications Director - Joshua Anthony for District 153
10yYes, after reading Dale Carnegie's book "How To Win Friends and Influence People, I will agree with Betty. Listening is the greatest skill that we can have. You will be VERY valuable as a listener.