How (and why) to become a better listener

Have you ever been speaking to someone and found that they are distracted by something and not really listening to you? Or have you finished talking and it’s crystal clear they didn’t understand what you said? You probably thought this was annoying, frustrating, and disrespectful. At that point you may have even become angry or shut the conversation down.

But what about in the other direction? Ever zone out while someone is talking? Of course. We all do. The average human has an eight-second attention span. With electronic distractions competing for your time and an abundance of responsibilities at work, it makes listening attentively to someone else speak pretty difficult.

We tend to pay a great deal of attention to our ability to speak. From Toastmasters to an unlimited amount of courses, workshops, and training available we see that speaking, especially public speaking, is a highly desirable, sought-after skill. But considering all the noise concerning the importance of speaking, listening is virtually ignored.

The truth is that listening is every bit as important as speaking. Everyone desires to be heard and understood, and we reward people who provide us with those opportunities—and just like them better overall.

Here’s how to become a better listener.

Why good listening is important

Walking around with closed ears is fine if what you’re doing is the right thing and the world doesn’t change. “But if the world changes and we happen to not be doing the right thing, it becomes critical to pay attention to other people’s thoughts, emotions, words, feelings, and perspectives,” says Hal Gregersen, executive director of the MIT Leadership Center. “It’s important to be open to new information that you’re not looking for but need to hear.”

 Being a good listener is especially important for leaders. It establishes your role as effective and empathetic–someone who keeps an open mind and is willing to learn from others, says Fred Halstead, author of Leadership Skills that Inspire Incredible Results. 

To help others succeed you have to become good at listening. Listening is more than simply hearing what someone has to say. You also need to be thinking how you can help the other person achieve the best results by carefully considering their words and asking thoughtful questions, says Halstead.

“If you just hear the words without hearing what the person actually intends to say, you will miss the opportunity to gain the essential clarity and results you seek,” he says.

Why you might be bad at listening

Here are some reasons you might be a bad listener—or at least a bad listener in certain situations. Knowing the reason you’re not listening well can help you improve your skills.

• Your natural desire is to talk: Most of us want to create a favorable image, and one way to appear knowledgeable and smart is by sharing what we know. This can stop us from listening to the other person because we’re thinking of what our response will be, Halstead says. “When you really listen, however, you are able to form insightful questions that naturally continue the conversation.”
• You have strong preconceptions and biases: If you have preconceptions and biases about someone, it can stop you from listening to them. “For example, I may know you to be a person who has no experience in this area, therefore, it’s hard to listen to you because I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,” says Halstead. 
• Your ego gets in the way:  It can shut down your listening, says Halstead. “Your ego tells you, ‘I’m really smart. How much do I need to listen to this person? It prevents you from listening to people you think are intellectually or socially inferior.” 
• You’re trying to multitask while listening: Despite what you may have heard, our brains are unable to take in multiple sources of information at once, and trying to multitask will shut down your ability to listen. “It’s easy to do on conference calls or when someone walks into your area distracts you,” says Halstead. “Your brain’s frontal cortex processes what we hear, but it processes serially, not in parallel.”
• You disagree with what you’re hearing: If we disagree with someone, it’s easy to focus on the disagreement rather than the kernel of truth they may have to share. Additionally, when someone says something that you think is wrong or misguided, it’s easy to dismiss their input. “Disagreement with what someone is saying stops listening” says Halstead. “If you’re judging me and think I’m not a smart person, why listen? That can get in the way.”
• You think you know what the person is going to say. “You might think, ‘I’ve heard George before and this is what he always says,’” says Halstead. But “maybe George will say something he hasn’t said before. If you stop listening you won’t hear it.”

How to be a better listener

So you’re sold on becoming a better listener. How do you do it? Here are some tips:

1. Embrace active listening.

According to an earlier Fast Company article, active listening is “fully concentrating on the other person, trying to understand not just the words being said but also the emotion behind them, responding appropriately, and then also remembering what was said.” Basically, active listening isn’t just passively receiving information. It’s engaging in what’s being said and really committing to understanding what your conversation partner thinks, wants, and feels.

Active listening has “been around for a long time, and works if done right,” says Adam Goodman, director of the Center for Leadership at Northwestern University. The basic concept is repeating back to the speaker what you heard. If the speaker agrees that what you heard is what they intended to say, you can move on. If not, the speaker needs to reword their statement until the listener really does understand.

Many of the following tips are also aspects of active listening.

2. Listen to learn, not to be polite.

“Often, whether realizing it or not, people listen to each other out of generosity, not out of curiosity,” says Ajit Singh, partner for the early stage venture fund Artiman Ventures and consulting professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. “Listening is good, but the intent has to be curiosity, not generosity. True dialogue does not happen when we pretend to listen, and it certainly cannot happen if we are not listening at all.”

3. Be fully present in the moment. 

When someone is speaking, it is vitally important to be fully present and in the moment with them. If something else is on your mind, like a call you have to make, or a text you need to answer, let them know, do what you need to do, and when you are finished let them know you are ready to listen.

When listening to pay attention, absorb not only to the words but the tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. This will give you information that will be as important as the words themselves.

4. Quiet your agenda.

It’s normal to go into a conversation thinking about what you want out of it, but if you’re focused on only your point of view, you’re unlikely to really listen to the other person. “Turn off those agendas,” says Gregersen. “Really listen to what someone else is trying to say. We need information that is disconfirming, not confirming. If we ever finish a conversation and learned nothing surprising, we weren’t really listening.”

When you approach a conversation thinking only of your own agenda, your goal is to maneuver and manipulate the conversation and to come out better than the other person, says Gregersen.

“I might influence you to do, buy, or act, but the probability that I get any surprisingly new data is close to zero,” he says. “I’m thinking that the conversation is about me, or it’s about me controlling you. Neither are great conversation starters.”

Whether you agree with the speaker or even have an interest in what they have to say, what they are saying is important to them. Imagine yourself in their situation, wanting only to have someone listen to them. When they are speaking, make an effort to think of where they are coming from and why. Imagine what their life is like and what struggles they might be facing. People will appreciate that you made the effort to understand and really hear them.

5. Ask more questions.

One of the simplest ways to be a better listener is to ask more questions than you give answers, says Gregersen. When you ask questions, you create a safe space for other people to give you an unvarnished truth.

“Listening with real intent means I’m going to be open to being very wrong, and I’m comfortable with that in this conversation,” says Gregersen. “In a world that’s getting more polarized, being able to listen is critical to reducing unnecessary conflict at any level, within a team, organization, or on a broader political country level,” he says.

6. Pay attention to your listening:talking ratio.

Strive for a 2:1 ratio of listening to talking, says says Scott Eblin, author of Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative. “If you’re a note taker during meetings or conversations, try keeping track of how much you listen versus how much you talk,” he says. “Mark off a section of the paper and write down the names of all the people on the conference call. Whenever a person talks for more than a sentence or two, put a check mark by his or her name. That includes you, too. The visual representation of comparing listening to talking might hold some lessons for you.”

7. Pick up key points and let the speaker know you did. 

Many people have trouble focusing on what someone is saying especially if they speak for longer than a minute or so. It is easy for our attention to drift to something else that we might find more interesting. If that’s the case, try to pick up a few key points in the conversation.

After they finish talking, let them know that you heard them by mentioning the key points you heard them say and ask them to clarify anything that you did not understand. You will be forgiven for not being able to follow the whole conversation if the person talking believes that you made an honest effort.

8. Actually wait until the other person is done talking before you respond.

The most difficult component of listening effectively is waiting for a period at the end of a sentence before formulating a reply, says Leslie Shore, author of Listen to Succeed.

“When we begin working on a reply before the speaker is finished, we lose both the complete information being offered and an understanding of the kind of emotion present in the speaker’s delivery,” she writes in her book.

This is dangerous, says Gregersen. “When I’m the most important thing in the world, that’s the moment when I’m most likely to be thinking about next thing I’m going to say instead of listening to you,” he says. “At the very core, that’s what going on; I’m declaring to the world I am more important than you. That’s an uncomfortable moment of self-awareness, and a self-serving way of approaching life.”

9. Find a motivation for listening. 

Once you recognize the reasons why you’re not listening, you can do something about them, says Halstead. “Understand your purpose for listening,” he advises. “For me, one of fundamental reasons that I try hard to be a great listener is that I want to respect everyone, and one of the coolest ways to respect someone is to truly listen.”

Other motivators could be gaining a better appreciation of someone, fueling your curiosity, improving your focus, or building trust.

10. Develop curiosity, an open mind, and a desire for continuous growth. 

People who are naturally curious see conversations as learning opportunities. They are always looking to discover or learn something new and see everyone they talk to as having the potential to teach them something. They are open to the idea that their own way of seeing things may not be the only, or necessarily the best, way and don’t feel the need to always defend their own point of view or way of seeing the world.

For them, listening to others becomes an easy and natural way to continue on their self-development journey.

“Each day, ask yourself, ‘What am I going to be curious about?’” says Gregersen. “Stewart Brand, [editor of the Whole Earth catalog,] wakes up every day asking himself, ‘How many things am I dead wrong about?’ Both questions effectively open your ears. It’s having a beginner’s mind-set walking into a conversation.”

Bonus tip: Ask yourself, ‘ARE U PRESENT?’

All these tips may be a bit hard to keep in your head at once—especially when you’re trying to actively listen to someone!

Luckily, Cash Nickerson, author of The Samurai Listener, took the act of listening apart, identifying its parts with the acronym ARE U PRESENT:

• Awareness: Get your face out of your phone, and stop thinking about what you’re going to do later today. Pay full attention.
• Reception: Be willing to receive new information. Let go of opinions, and be willing to drop your biases.
• Engagement: Being engaged involves back-and-forth fairness, like a Ping-Pong match. “I talk, you talk,” says Nickerson.
• Understanding: Listen with the intention of interpreting what the other person is saying. Get into a place of understanding, where you’re both speaking the same language, figuratively and literally.
• Persistence: Be willing to stay the course and not let your mind wander. If you get bored and tired, push through to maintain your attention.
• Resolution: Bring the conversation to a close with takeaways and next steps. 
• Emotions: Respect the existence of emotions and their roles. “Emotions can work for you or against you,” says Nickerson. “Recognize their roles and learn to discern them and their effect on your ability to hear others.”
• Senses: Employ your other senses to help you remember. Look for body language clues in the other person.
• Ego: Try to take your ego out of the conversation. 
• Nerves: Look for stress or tension; it can get in the way of being able to listen.
• Tempo: Get in touch with the rhythm of the speaker. Being out of sync with their way of talking can make it hard to listen.

Sure, this isn’t every aspect of good listening, but it can certainly help you out in the moment!

Harvey Deutschendorf also contributed writing, reporting, and consulting for this article.