Last week I was called by a close friend that I dont listen. This is not new, since another friend kept telling me the same thing. However getting this from somebody else makes me a bit more concern with the way I talk to people. For someone that talks with lots of people online and that do business with people online, listening is a key part of figuring out things.
I really want to know how to fix the way I get too focus on a topic and I shut down anything around it including some side comments to the conversation.
A few years back I read the book how to make friends and influence people, a key part of that book was about letting people talk and make them feel good by taking things off their chest. That makes people more relaxed and at ease as well as you can think much better on their approach to issues at task.
However there is a second issue that is actually paying attention to what they say. Sometimes they say things that I just simply decide to drop or not pay much mind. This is a bit more challenging since getting the semantics and relevance of the point they make, is not as easy to do in chat.
I have got on google and looked for some articles about this precise issue. Some tips I found useful was to clear space which is a bit challenging since you could be chatting with another person, or just doing something else while talking. Is good to leave those things and actually get more in the conversation.
The other problem however is that I physically can’t listen to a person, sometimes it happens because of Skype or the mic quality being so bad, or the person starts mumbling, so the fear of, saying “please repeat” a little too much, is a bit embarassing. But I guess if I talk a lot with that person, it should be a known problem and maybe typing it while talking about it might help.
Ideas, thoughts and Free Software 