Listening: A key mentoring skill

The greatest motivational act one person can do for another is to listen. - Roy Moody

Concepts and Exercises in the Listening Section:

  1. How can I become an Active Listener? Find your listening type and learn how to be a better listener.
  2. Mindfulness training or Meditation and their Benefits
  3. Physical Training Some exercises to activate the links between listening and the physical body

Introduction

The cornerstone of the mentor’s role is the ability to listen deeply and actively.  This skill enables the mentor to stay focused and fully engaged in the entrepreneur’s journey.

What is listening?

Well…it’s just “Making meaning from sound.” But there is more to it than that. Here’s a fantastic short talk containing 5 ways to listen better, by Julian Treasure (who thinks listening should be taught in school) at TED:

Why is listening important?

A unique aspect of the Mowgli Mentoring experience is that our mentors will be matched with an entrepreneur in another country, and may therefore perform much of their mentoring role long-distance. The cross-cultural experience of working with an entrepreneur from the Middle East or even another part of the UK is very valuable (‘unmissable!’ as our mentors say) but keeping messages clear and unclouded by misunderstandings when you are communicating mainly via Skype, telephone or email is also a significant challenge, and one not to be taken lightly. Mowgli provides training in communication and listening partly for this reason, and partly because the role of mentoring is centred on listening; providing a safe space for the entrepreneur to be heard.

Cultural conditioning in the Western world often leads us to think that wisdom equates to clever or confident speech, while listening is a passive, subordinate activity: as Shafir (2000) writes, we believe ‘it is the wiser person who does the talking.’ We also think that listening happens automatically: our ears are working, therefore we listen. In consequence, many people have simply never practiced listening. However, listening is not the same as hearing: some studies have found that we only listen at 25% efficiency in a normal working day. Or to put it another way, 75% of the verbal messages we get are misunderstood, distorted, immediately forgotten or otherwise lost between speaker and listener. This, almost inevitably, leads to ineffectiveness at best and conflict at worst. As Michael P. Nichols, author of The Lost Art of Listening, writes: “Talking without listening is like snipping an electrical cord in half and hoping that somehow something will light up.”

Get better at listening!

Improving your listening skills, therefore, gives you an advantage over others and can actually make you more effective. Listening well and responding with care and consideration makes you a person that people want to be around, not to mention do business with: that’s why a key skill advised by the 1936 classic How to Win Friends and Influence People advises is: ‘Be a good listener. Encourage people to talk about themselves.’

The good news is that there are several exercises you can do to become a better listener; all you have to do is become conscious of the need to listen, and train your brain out of some bad habits. The rewards for your hard work will be profound, both in your professional and your personal life. And as a mentor, you will find that the entrepreneur you are working with will respond positively to being truly listened to: opening up to a sympathetic and non-judgmental ear is often a catalyst to valuable reflection and decision making when running a business. This, in short, is what you are here for.

Additional Mowgli Resources:

Additional External Resources:

  • Book: Dale Carnegie (2006), How to Win Friends and Influence People (New Ed). London: Vermilion (Amazon)
  • Book: Michael P. Nichols (2009), The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning to Listen Can Improve Relationships. New York: Guildford Press (Amazon)
  • Book: Rebecca Z. Shafir (2003) The Zen of Listening: Mindful Communication in the Age of Distraction. Quest Books: Wheaton (Amazon)

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