It is amazing what natural every-day activities you can be taught to do better! There's the Effective Reading course (though you've read since you were five years old), Effective Dressing (though you've dressed yourself since you were three), and Effective Speaking (you've been speaking since you were one). There is even Effective Listening, though you have been listening since the day you were born.
Effective Listening aims to cultivate skills for getting the most out of what other people say. It addresses techniques like anticipating, avoiding mental argument, and focusing on meaning, not mannerisms. Surprisingly, even this course plus a lifetime's listening is not enough!
I was once part of a vigorous informal discussion group at a conference, and had a few observations of my own to make. Yet as fast as I raised my hand or cleared my throat in preparation, someone else spoke first. After some minutes of this I became disenchanted with Effective Listening: I wanted people to Effectively Listen to me. So, in an inspired move, I simply rose to me feet, and waited.
One by one people looked round, curious. Soon the speaker succumbed to my dominating silence and came to an early close. By this time all eyes were on me, and I went on to make my point to a fully attentive audience.
Listening skills, sadly, are in decline in our culture of egotism and instant gratification. Too many people, puffed with self-importance, confuse wordiness with worthiness. Even if at last you are lucky enough to start speaking, you must beware the short attention-span typical of the television age. Even as you tell of some intriguing personal incident (your drive to the office in a snowstorm, a curious dream, a remarkable achievement of your children) there will be yawning, checking of watches, and attempts to butt in.
The challenge for the would-be speaker - whether at a meeting, around the coffee table, or in the back yard - is twofold: not simply to capture attention, but to hold onto it. As it is not always convenient to stand while your audience sits, I present below some additional techniques for keeping others in a state of Effective Listening.
How To Capture Attention
How To Retain Attention
Practise these simple techniques for five minutes a day, and you will soon earn a reputation as a unique speaker.
A Professional Engineer with a BA from Cambridge and an MSc in Solid Mechanics from Aston University, Barry spent 30 years in IT development and management. He now works as a freelance communicator.
Barry has written articles for in-house & external publication - in user manuals, technical documentation, reports, newsletters, websites, conference papers, speeches, skits, poetry, and a coffee-table book.