How to Help Other People Listen Better

We deliver a lot of communication training. None the many sessions we deliver to our clients focus on listening skills. The topic of listening skills usually appears as part of a broader programme—effective communication in virtual teams, coaching skills for managers, giving feedback, difficult conversations. Is that because our clients think everyone is already a great listener? No. They know that poor listening causes problems at work every day. I think the reason is simpler: listening feels like a life skill. Unlike presenting, writing reports or leading a department, it’s something we assume we’ve learned simply by growing up.

The trouble is, research consistently suggests that we’re not nearly as good at listening as we think we are. Great listeners are rare. In leadership, some studies estimate they make up only a small percentage of people. Research on informational listening—the ability to accurately retain and understand information—shows that most of us overestimate our own ability. Which means there are probably people in your life who interrupt, jump to conclusions, filter what you say through their own experiences, get distracted halfway through the conversation or begin solving a problem before they’ve fully understood it.

Most articles and also our training solutions focus on becoming a better listener. This one takes the opposite perspective.

Consider for a moment, all those people who aren’t being listened to. The colleague whose explanation gets interrupted before they’ve finished. The project manager who keeps raising a scheduling conflict that nobody seems to hear. The employee who leaves a meeting thinking, I don’t think anyone actually understood what I was trying to say.

What can you do to help other people listen better?

We can’t control how someone else listens. We can, however, make it easier for them to succeed.

Here are nine ways to do that.

• Prepare them for listening.
• Ask whether they have time to listen.
• Look for the type of listener you need.
• Tell them how you need them to listen.
• Ask them where they’d like to start.
• Highlight what matters most.
• Give them time to process.
• Ask them to summarise what they heard.
• Acknowledge the listening.

Prepare them for listening

We often assume that if someone doesn’t understand us, they’ll simply ask questions. They don’t always do that.  At work we explain complex situations, hoping the other person will recognise the issue, validate our concerns or arrive at the same conclusion we have. If we’re still organising our own thoughts—or we’re communicating something emotionally charged—that makes listening even harder. A listener has to separate facts from feelings, context from content and assumptions from evidence.

If you know what kind of conversation you want to have, you can set expectations with your listeners.

For example:

• “Would you mind if I just talked for a few minutes before we start troubleshooting this problem?”
• “I’m nervous about Tuesday’s meeting. Could I talk it through with you?”

Those simple introductions prepare people for the kind of listening you’re asking them to do.

Ask whether they have time to listen

Listening requires space, attention and willingness. Those three things aren’t always available. If someone is rushing between meetings, answering emails or thinking about the next deadline, they probably aren’t going to give you their best attention, however willing they may be. Sometimes the simplest question produces the biggest improvement.

For example:

• “Is now a good time to talk about something?”
• “When would you have ten minutes to properly listen to this?”

Look for the type of listener you need

Listening is a skill, but people don’t all listen in the same way. The right listener often matters just as much as the right message.

Some listeners are naturally time-oriented. They appreciate concise explanations and want you to get to the point. Others are people-oriented. They naturally focus on relationships, emotions and experiences. Some enjoy analysing ideas, identifying risks and solving problems. Others excel at helping you think aloud without rushing to conclusions.

So, If you need someone to challenge your thinking and pressure-test an idea, look for a critical listener. If what you really need is someone who understands your frustration before suggesting solutions, look for an empathetic listener.

Tell them how you need them to listen

Don’t assume people know what you need simply because they’ve heard your words. Do you want understanding? Reflection? Practical advice? A decision? Emotional support? Giving people a listening role helps them listen with purpose.

Imagine you’re presenting a new idea to six colleagues. Everyone hears the same words, but they process them differently. Some notice your enthusiasm. Others immediately start evaluating the risks. Someone else begins reflecting your ideas back to you, while another starts thinking about implementation.

People can listen in different ways – they have a preferred style and type but for many listeners, the situation and the speaker determine which listening style they use.

So, tell them which listening style or type to use. For example: “I would like everyone to use their best critical listening skills, do you think this idea has any merit, and if yes, how can we get it implemented?”

Ask them where they’d like to start

How do you get someone to listen? By presenting the information in the way they prefer it. This is especially useful when you’re communicating something complex. Perhaps you need to explain the background, the data, the risks, your recommendation and the impact on the team. Rather than deciding where to begin yourself, ask your listener.

For example: “Would you prefer the short version first, or would it help if I explained the background?”

Some people want the conclusion before the detail. Others need the context before the recommendation makes sense. Starting where your listener is naturally interested makes it much easier for them to stay engaged.

Highlight what matters most

Conversations rarely stay on track by themselves. A discussion about a project suddenly becomes a discussion about workload, customer satisfaction or team morale. All of those topics may be important, but they can also distract from the reason you started talking in the first place. When you notice the conversation drifting, gently bring it back.

For example: “Those are all important conversations, and I’d like to come back to them. Right now, the priority for me is resolving the issues with this project because my team have been waiting for feedback.”

Your listener doesn’t have to remember everything. They won’t. Help them remember the part that matters most.

Give them time to process

Listening doesn’t stop when you stop talking. Many people need a few moments to organise what they’ve heard before responding.

Resist the temptation to fill every silence. Don’t immediately ask, “Does that make sense?” after two seconds. Don’t jump back in because you’ve thought of one more thing to add.

Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is simply wait.

Ask them to summarise what they heard

Great listeners often summarise naturally. “So what I’m hearing is…”

But you don’t have to wait for that to happen. Especially in important conversations, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask: “Just so I know I’ve explained this clearly, would you mind summarising what you’ve understood?”`

If their summary differs from what you intended, you’ve discovered a misunderstanding while there’s still time to correct it.

Acknowledge the listening

Finally, recognise that listening has taken place—even when the other person hasn’t interpreted your message the way you hoped. Perhaps you wanted to discuss a solution, but your listener focused on the problem instead. Perhaps they heard additional work where you saw opportunity. That doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t listening.

Listening is an active process of interpretation. People hear your words through the lens of their own experiences, assumptions, priorities and concerns. You can’t completely control what someone hears.

What you can do is acknowledge where they have understood you, clarify where they haven’t and continue the conversation from there.

Conclusion

Listeners have different needs, different attention spans, different ways of processing information, and different expectations about the conversation. The more we can prepare them, guide them, and make it easier for them to listen well, the more likely we are to achieve understanding.

Listening will always be a shared responsibility. While we should all continue to develop our own listening skills, we can also become better communicators by taking some responsibility for how our message is received.

Key Takeaways

• Listening is a shared responsibility. Yes, we should all try to become better listeners. But if we only think about listening from the listener’s perspective, we miss half of the conversation.
• As speakers, we have more influence than we sometimes realise.
• By preparing people for the conversation, choosing the right listener, explaining what kind of listening you need and making your message easier to process, you dramatically increase the chances of being heard.
• Sometimes the difference between feeling listened to or not listened to isn’t finding a better listener. It’s helping the listener you already have.