Would you like a raise at your job? You want to have better friends. Well I'm
guessing that more effective listening is one of the key things that you would
need to get there. And in this video we're going to identify the six most
common barriers to effective listening so that you can overcome them? Let's get
into the details.
Hello again friends. Alex Lyon here and this channel is here
to help you increase your personal impact as a leader so that you can bring
out all the best and the people around you. And part of good leadership is great
listening. A lot of times if you're like me you have these barriers that come in
that affect your listening skills in a negative way. So we're going to go
through the six of the most common barriers and I'd like to ask you to see
yourself in this list. Which ones of these are you most likely to get caught
up in and I would love to hear your comments in that section below at the
end of the video. So the first barrier is distractions. This is very common if you
have your phone out on the desk when you're trying to listen you can very
likely be preoccupied by that. If you are distracted by noise or another
conversation coming from a different room, that can throw you off. For me my
golden retriever is absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and fun and so if she's
trying to play with me while I'm talking to my wife or my son then she's gonna be
a distraction. So what you have to do is manage these distractions. Turn the phone
off and put a completely way so you can't even see it. Close the door.
Move to a different location. Put the dog in the other room for a little while so
you can focus and not be distracted. The second most common barrier is
preoccupation. It's very related to the first but in this case the preoccupation
is happening in your mind. So you might be already thinking about something else
when you enter the conversation. You might have anxiety about something. You might
thinking about what you're gonna do in the future, in a little while. And that
can preoccupy you. You can also do what we call "drift." So the person says one
word and for whatever reason that pops out and then you go off in your mind you
drift off in another direction on whatever that word
means to you. That can be a huge distraction as well as preoccupation.
The third most common problem and barrier is listening too much to the
details and the facts in a conversation or if you're listening to some content
in the workplace setting. So a lot of times we get focused on the details and
when I try to follow every single move, I get a little bit lost and I lose the big
picture. So the solution here is to back up a little bit and listen for the
overall big picture and not worry so much about the details. You can always
ask follow-up questions later if you've missed something but if you're listening
for the overall message then you're much more likely to tune in and really focus
on what the person is saying. Another barrier to effective listening is the
topic maybe this topic is just boring to you. Maybe you don't care about it. Maybe
it's something that you actively do not like. And that is going to be very
difficult. The solution here is to develop a curiosity and just make your
mind up that you're going to take an interest in what the other person is
saying. There's a comedian Jerry Seinfeld, I quote him often in my videos because I
think he's really funny. He also has a lot of insight but he says
that if you're talking to someone who is completely boring and very ordinary you
can still find something interesting in the most ordinary person if you just
take an interest in what they're saying. So curiosity and taking an interest is a
choice and that's one of the things that I will recommend to you if you're not
really into the topic that the person is talking about. The next big barrier to
effective listening is called the rebuttal tendency a lot of times instead
of listening carefully we're figuring out what we're gonna say next and we're
getting ready to jump in. And if we're thinking about what we're gonna say next
and maybe we want to debate them or have a little comeback then we're not really
gonna focus very much on what they're saying. So don't worry so much about what
you're gonna say next. You can figure that out and there can be a pause in the
conversation that's not a bad thing. That's often a good thing. You don't want
to worry about that just focus on them and worry about your response for
later. And the final barrier to effective listening is unfortunately sometimes
it's the speaker. Sometimes the speaker him or herself is
boring or uninteresting or they're doing something distracting that's
throwing you off they say "um" a lot. Maybe they're a soft talker. Maybe you just
can't get over something about them. And what I like to do in this situation is
try not to be too judgmental of the speaker and I try to have a little bit
of compassion for the person as a human being and not worry about how
they're performing as a communicator, but just tune into who they are as a person
and care a little bit more about them. And that helps me become a better
listener in the moment and get over that barrier. So here's a list of barriers and
I'm wondering where you see yourself in this list which one or more of these are
you most likely to be distracted by or put off by? Which of these are your
biggest barriers? I would like to hear that comment in that section below and I
look forward to reading those. So thanks. God bless and I will see you in the next video.
. . . list of barriers is going to affect you and make you . . .
. . . and part of good leadership . . .