Why listening is the most effective tool to improve relationships

Social skills are often talked about as if they were reduced to our ability to do things. reach others our message, make our ideas and points of view prevail when dialoguing with the rest. However, to believe this is to miss a good part of what it really means to develop good social and communication skills in general.

In fact, the ability to listen is a key element to improve our relationships and establish more stable links with our interlocutors, regardless of whether they are part of our personal life or our work life. Let's see why.

• Related article: "The 14 main social skills to be successful in life"

Knowing how to listen allows us to connect emotionally

There are not a few who fall into the trap of assuming that, in most cases, the time they spend on Listening to what the person you are having a conversation with is actually wasting time. This feeling occurs when we believe that we already know in advance what the other will say, when he gives us the feeling that we are good at grasping the ideas and intentions behind the speech of our interlocutor:

we assume that what we are hearing could be summarized much more, reduced to less textual information.

However, these kinds of experiences are a mirage that leads us to underestimate listening, mainly for two reasons.

The first is that we are never able to know instantly and at all times what another person thinks and wants. The belief that we can "read minds" is based on a cognitive bias, the confirmation bias, which predisposes us to see as a confirmation of our preconceived ideas about what is happening around us (in this case, our hypothesis about the mental processes of another individual).

We may be relatively good at “reading between words” because Homo sapiens is a social animal after all, but we will never be perfect at it; The worst thing is not making these mistakes, but not expecting them to happen or not knowing how to detect them when they happen. Overestimating our ability to anticipate what the other is going to say can be very expensive, by causing misunderstandings or generating offenses.

The second is that having a conversation is much more than exchanging information in turns, as if it were a task that is carried out sequentially; we must adapt our ideas and our perspective of what happens. When we interact, we are not only turning out what goes through our heads, we also learn of others, but we will be worse at doing it if we do not have an open and humble attitude in the conversations. Seeing dialogue as a more symmetrical experience, in which both give and receive in the communication process, helps us to live relationships that are richer and more nuanced.

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Main benefits of listening to improve relationships

We must bear in mind that we should not value listening skills very much only for what it represents morally. It is not that knowing how to listen brings us closer to the idea of ​​“the good”; is that really, from a pragmatic point of view, it is also very beneficial to know how to listen, helps us establish healthy bonds with others both at work and in our lives private. It could be said that listening is the visible face of empathy, and empathy is the basic pillar of the relationships we maintain on a daily basis.

So, the benefits of apply our listening skills to social interactions have several ramifications to take into account, and the main ones are these:

• makes possible the empathy and live more meaningful and enjoyable relationships, which makes it easy to bond and have a personally satisfying social life.
• In negotiations, it helps us understand the motivations and interests of potential clients, which allows us to give them what they are looking for.
• We promote fluid communication in which it is easy for the other person to communicate bad news that, although uncomfortable, must be transmitted to prevent the problem from becoming bigger.
• It makes it possible to adopt leadership strategies that are flexible and open to the cooperation and participation of several people.
• Offer others our humbler side, which prevents them from becoming defensive or hostile.
• It helps us approach conflict with a more open attitude and a greater ability to understand what we have done wrong or what we could have done better.

• Related article: "The 5 Communication Barriers, Explained"

Do you want to develop key communication skills?

If you want to train to learn the theory and practice of the fundamental communicative elements to connect with others both in your personal life and in the professional context, you will be interested in our courses and Masters in coaching.

In European School of Coaching We specialize in training in all facets of the coach's work and in teaching coaching strategies and techniques to professionals. who, regardless of whether they plan to work in the world of coaching or not, want to be able to apply these resources to areas such as team leadership, public communication, negotiation, self-motivation before projects, managing emotions, and plus.