Think about it this way…
Let’s assume you just went on a dinner date with a lady you like very much. If you monopolized the conversation and spent most of the time telling her how “wonderful” you are, you can pretty much expect there won’t be a second date. On the other hand, imagine you’d spent the entire two hours together sitting there, listening, and asking her questions. You probably did much better. She did seem happy. She did seem to enjoy the conversation. But still…
After the date she’s going to go home and think about the date. And she’s going to think about you. She’s going to think about whether she should spend more time with you or not. The fact that you haven’t said much of anything all evening is going to be your downfall… because she has nothing to think about. You haven’t told her anything about yourself. She still has no idea if she should be interested in you or not. She knows you don’t monopolize the conversation and you’re a good listener. And she likes that. But that’s not enough to spark any kind of emotion in her.
Well, enough for the love lesson, I’m not Dr. Boyke anyway (Is he a Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Sexologist, Gynecologist, or just a Celebrity Doctor? I still can’t figure that out, hehehe). From the story above, you might going to assume that we need to have balance in our listening and talking skill. That’s true, but how much is the appropriate proportion? Communication experts agreed that the most effective communication activities are those who use around 60% attentive listening skill, and 40% objective talking skill. What was that attentive and objective thing in front of the listening and talking all about? Well, people do listening, but many of them don’t put effort to be a good listener, no eye contact, no cohesive gesture, lack of positive response… And many more talking, but they just say it out loud, being subjective, and out of context. No chemistry…
Why listening is so important? Why should we listen more instead of talking more? The basic principle in understanding the context is by attentively listening your discussing partner, and believe me, listening is harder than talking, translating information from others is not easy, especially when your discussing partner is just below average in articulating his/her mind, not to mention if you have language barrier, noises, etc. And then by carefully understand the context, you can respond accordingly and objectively, which is an easier task, and you can construct a more complete perception based on that. Imagine a conversation that flow when you understand each other, It will be a healthy discussion.
Now, If you think being a consultant should have more talking skill rather that listening skill, I dare to bet you that you are wrong, because you know what; there’s a reason why God creates man with two ears and only one mouth.
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