Displaying Respect by listening

 Displaying Respect by listening

(Execution Excellence -"Ability to get things done" Series)
 

We discussed some of the mindsets of highly influential people in the workplace to get things done. We mentioned win-win, how they look at work, and clarity of what they need.
Regarding practices, effective people work on themselves to build their credibility through relationships and expertise. The second practice is giving others their time, energy, and knowledge.
 
The next practice the people do is consistently displaying Respect by listening.

Relevance of listening and Respect:

One of the basic longing needs of all human beings is: Being heard.

Listening is beyond hearing the words. It is all about  GIVING ATTENTION to others and being willing to listen to others. Attention can be demonstrated to someone when they speak through our body language, like posture, eye contact, and acknowledgment.

When someone spends time actively hearing, it conveys Respect to others; in turn, the other is obliged to give it back.
Conveying Respect is not about expressing salutations like Mr/ Mrs or Sir / Madam; it represents positional hierarchy and will not influence people.

Beyond positional power, displaying Respect through listening will impact influencing.

Listening is a sign of Respect. It shows that you value what the speaker has to say. If you take the time to listen to someone by focusing on the speaker, you are showing them that they are important to you.
 
How do highly influencing people demonstrate in the workplace?
 
Create more forums for dialogue and feedback. 

They create forums to meet people and share information. That could be structured review forums or mail communication encouraging others to voice their views.

One of my bosses shares some of his learnings /outcomes after he attends some programs and encourage others to voice their opinion. By the way, he conveys that he respects others by sharing and allowing them to talk.
 
Moving around beyond hierarchy:
One of the habits of highly influencing people is they move around in the office and are keen on approaching people easily.
 
In all the above demonstrations, the essential quality they display to others is "I respect you as a human being"… when that message is imbibed to others, others will reciprocate when they are influenced to get things done.

Let us discuss some other practices next week.
 
Have a great week ahead.

Awareness of body language

Improving communication in the workplace

Awareness of body language and state of mind

As discussed last week on the importance of making others feels good in your presence to improve communication, let us consider the importance of body language on the quality of communication.

Whether in face to face or telephonic conversation, before the actual discussion, we are communicating through our posture, quality of tone, eye contact, and facial expression. That is body language. Body language is something others are seeing from you. Your body language is the outcome of your state of mind at any point in time.

If you are happy, energetic, and with enthusiasm, your posture, tone quality, and facial expression would be pleasing to others. Alternatively, when you are angry, fear, sadness, anxiety, your posture, tone, and facial expression would be terrible to others. That sets the quality of communication.

State of mind and body language are interrelated and good news is that you can change your state of mind by changing your body language and vice versa.

For example, when you feel dull, you use to sit with bending posture and your voice may be low. When you stand up, stretch and take a long breath, you feel relaxed and your voice, the expression will be positive.

The point is that you can change your state of mind by changing your posture and vice versa, and this needs to be aware when you are communicating with others as a conscious effort.

Other aspects of effective communication let us discuss next week!
 

Emotionally connecting with others.

As discussed, to make effective communication in a professional environment, three factors are essential viz, your subject expertise, emotionally connecting with a person, and logically connecting with facts.

Having discussed the need for developing your expertise, let us understand“emotionally connecting with the person.”
 What is meant by emotionally connecting with the person?

It is preparing yourself and another person to be in a comfortable zone before and during an interaction.

Unless both are in the same level of comfortable zone, there is a chance for misinterpretation of communication.
 
Some of the factors help to be in a comfortable zone.
 Displaying respect / making others feeling good
Your friendly body postures
Your undivided attention to others
Listening and prompting
Addressing the lingering question of what is in it for me
Feedback

Naturally, not all people are capable of deep listening while interacting since many emotions are being processed inside the minds like fear, curious, the anxiety of what next, etc.

When different emotions are being processed internally, listening capability is reduced, and misinterpretation happens. So, it is essential to make others prepared to be in a comfortable zone during interaction by using the above factors.

Even if you are expert in a subject and excellent in logic and not equally good in connecting with others, your communication will get failed. It would help if you learned the art of connecting with others with simple, robust processes in all factors.
 Let us discuss the techniques with simple examples in next week!