![\"istock_000002727692xsmall.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/10\/istock_000002727692xsmall.thumbnail.jpg\")
We all know that project management is primarily a people business. As such, communicating with humans\u00a0is the most important skill you possess to\u00a0achieve success. How well do you communicate? I have been married for 40\u00a0+\u00a0years and a project manager for over 25 years and I am still trying to improve my communication skills. Ask my wife. On second thought, don’t ask my wife because she\u00a0will say\u00a0I don’t listen.<\/p>\n
Communicating involves sending and receiving information mostly through speaking, writing, listening and reading. How well we do each of these influences our communication competency as well as your effectiveness as a leader and influencer. Of the four skills, I think listening is the most difficult to do well.<\/p>\n
How hard is it to really listen? It’s difficult, because in additional to surrounding distractions, your mind is usually in the process of formulating what you are going to say when the other person stops talking to you. How can you fully understand\u00a0a verbal\u00a0message if you are simultaneously thinking about your response.<\/p>\n
To really listen and truly\u00a0understand\u00a0a verbal\u00a0message, you must focus exclusively on the sender and hear each word, how it is said, observing\u00a0eyes, facial expressions and body language. Even then, you\u00a0must ask clarifying questions to make sure\u00a0you fully understand the message. When you think about it, this is not an easy\u00a0nor a\u00a0innate process. I once had a boss who would\u00a0“listen” to\u00a0me\u00a0while intermittently\u00a0looking at his computer monitor and pounding on his keyboard. He wasn’t listening effectively\u00a0although he thought he was.\u00a0I also felt my messages were not very important to him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Toastmasters, International\u00a0is an organization with a program to develop its members\u00a0to achieve\u00a0basic management\u00a0competency levels\u00a0called\u00a0Competent Communicator and Competent Leader. Members achieve these titles by practicing and demonstrating\u00a0communication and leadership skills during weekly meetings. One particularly effective\u00a0communication exercise is the Ah Counter role. Ah counting means\u00a0you must carefully listen to each speaker during\u00a0a weekly\u00a090 minute\u00a0meeting\u00a0and\u00a0keep track of\u00a0the number of audible pauses such as Ahs, Ers,\u00a0Ums, Hms, “you knows”, etc.\u00a0 The Ah Counter must then give a report at the end of the meeting on each speaker’s Ah count. As you can imagine, you really have to focus on the speaker and the\u00a0spoken word to do this well. For my first try at this, I thought I did a good job but, afterwards, I was told by my mentor that I had missed over\u00a0half of the Ahs and other\u00a0audible pauses.\u00a0Really?\u00a0\u00a0That was a wake up call for me.\u00a0However, after\u00a0practicing as Ah Counter a few more times,\u00a0I was able to catch most of the audible pauses. Initially you will focus on the Ah count, but as you develop, you focus on the speaker and each spoken word and gain a clearer understanding of both the message and the sender.<\/p>\n
Training yourself to listen well increases your ability to understand and demonstrates your sincere interest to the senders.\u00a0Your project team members will want to honestly talk to you more\u00a0when they feel you really listen.\u00a0Try this exercise\u00a0next time\u00a0you are listening and notice how it\u00a0enables you to understand better. However, don’t give\u00a0the sender\u00a0their Ah count because they will think you’re crazy. I do recommend\u00a0Ah counting\u00a0as an ongoing exercise for anyone\u00a0wanting to improve\u00a0their listening skills on\u00a0their way to\u00a0effective and successful\u00a0communications.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We all know that project management is primarily a people business. As such, communicating with humans\u00a0is the most important skill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,1],"tags":[64,1370,93,38,197],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","category-miscellaneous","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-listening","tag-project-management","tag-self-improvement"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13837,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/13837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}