One of the key skills that any professional can posses is the skill of listening.  Good listening skills automatically raise the bar on your communication interactions.  A tool I created to help my clients hone their listening competence is called the ABLE method.

ABLE stands for Always Be Listening….. Empathetically

Listening empathetically is critical.  It means that during the conversation, you are actively trying to understand the position of the person talking to you.  To have empathy for someone means that you can “put yourself in his shoes.”  Normal listening means you are trying to comprehend the situation presented, while empathetic listening means you are trying to identify with the person speaking and understand what it feels like to be them.

Here are some benefits from using the ABLE approach:

Less talking, more listening:  If your goal is to fully recognize and appreciate what is being said to you, you are more likely to talk less and listen more.  It will be more important to you to get facts than to speak yourself. 

Better questions:  To be fully aware of the ideas being presented, you must ask pointed, thoughtful questions.   These questions are essential.  The goal has shifted from information gathering to idea understanding.  ABLE forces you to ask more thoughtful questions.

Engaged conversation:  Most of the time, we are just waiting for our turn to talk.  We feign true listening by just being quiet.  We are being polite, rather than truly listening.  The problem with this habit is that we are not fully engaged.  This habit is a bad one because we are not digesting what is being spoken about and will most likely forget it in a couple of hours.

Understanding:  If we can empathize with the speaker, our ability to understand them, educate them, provide assistance to them, and communicate back with them is increased dramatically.

Think about how you feel when someone actually takes the time to see your point of view.  What if you could give this gift to everyone you encounter?  How would you be thought of differently?  What might it do for your relationships, your business, and your life?

Give ABLE a try.  I think you will like the results.