Establish Effective Communication Skills By Overcoming Listening Blocks Is Essential

 While we all agree that effective communication is the key to a successful relationship – be it with our family and friends, or in our professional world, yet a majority of our problems arise due to poor communication. Have you ever had a critical look at why this happens and happens so often? You would be surprised how the art of ‘listening’ or better still the lack of it, can be the starting point of most of our communication problems. Considered to be the basis of all good communication, most of us are poor listeners.  While it is not uncommon to have mental blocks of many aspects of like, we also suffer from listening blocks which come in the way for maintaining effective communication. 

There are various factors which cause these listening blocks – most of which are really unknown to us. For instance, it is a common occurrence that our minds are continuously either assessing or comparing when a speaker is talking to us. Who is better between us? Who has gone through more pain? How is it similar to the other story I heard the other day? What is lost here is not only your undivided attention, but an opportunity to develop any meaningful communication. Then, imagine a person describing a lovely vacation he had. You immediately start identifying it with a similar vacation you had last year. How are you going to hear what the speaker is saying?

Another very familiar attention distracter is our constant endeavor to prepare a response to what we are hearing. While we appear attentive, we have already prepared a reply even before the speaker has completed what he started to say.  Daydreaming can be a nice and relaxing pastime, but if you continuously indulge in it while someone is talking to you it shows that you are not interested in the situation or the person who is speaking to you. Communication can never develop in this type of situation.  

Probably the best book written on transactional analysis is a book called “I’m OK; You’re OK’ where our ego states which continuously come into play when we are communicating has been described in great detail. Most of us suffer from this ‘I have to be right’ syndrome. This has tremendous negative impact in communication. We shy away or react sharply to criticism, refuse to listen to another point of view and behave most obstinately in situations which make effective communication impossible. This also has a very negative effect on negotiating table.

Effective communication also gets adversely affected with either person or one person in a group deviates and digresses from the main topic of discussion. This is undoubtedly caused by poor listening abilities. If you want to develop effective communication with another person, you have to stop being “Mr. Agree”. When someone is in constant agreement with nearly everything which the other person is saying, it is hardly any communication – it is almost a soliloquy.

In summary, effective communication starts with good listening skills. Empathy, an essential ingredient in communication can only develop if you listen to another person’s point of view and not get stuck with yours. Mutual understanding is therefore possible when you hear each other out and talk with utmost frankness and honesty.