What is the most valuable asset in business?
Here are a few hints. It’s priceless. It must be earned and deserved. It takes years to build and can be destroyed beyond repair within seconds.
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Building mutual trust is crucial to success in business because business is about relationships between people and people are bound together by trust.
If a good advisor were someone who simply had all the answers, then machines would have already replaced us by now! A good advisor is someone who asks the right questions and truly listens to understand. A trusted advisor is someone who deeply cares for their clients as individuals. What good is our expertise and guidance if we fail to understand or care where our clients are, how they got there, and where they want to be?
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Active listening is a pathway to connect with others, learn new things, and exercise empathy. Unlike machines, we humans are neurobiologically wired to connect with one another and we crave authentic connections. Listening allows the speaker to feel heard, respected and valued.
To listen is an active choice to give someone your full attention, hear their truth, and believe them. It does not mean you have to agree with them, necessarily, but it means you accept their perspective for what it is without judgment or commentary. This powerful act of compassion builds a foundation of trust upon which deep connections can grow.
Compassionate listening requires an open mind and willingness to see from a different point of view. When you temporarily suspend your judgment to consider another perspective, you leave yourself open and vulnerable. The new information could lead you to change your beliefs and behavior. What is more vulnerable than that?
Naturally, we all want to be heard, but listening is a skill that doesn’t seem to come very naturally. Most people listen just long enough to start thinking of their response. We all know the crushing feeling of talking with someone who is busy scrolling their phone or otherwise distracted. It feels like rejection. Why should we share unless they truly care? How do our clients and teammates feel when we’re not giving them our full attention?
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As the world exceedingly adopts more technology, our industry is shifting rapidly and our only choice is to adapt! We can simply out-human the machines! By learning to communicate with one another more effectively, we can strengthen our human relationships and deepen our authentic connections.
Imagine if we all invested the time to listen to each other better. What problems could we resolve? What new things could we discover? What conflicts could we avoid altogether?
The first step to improving your listening practice is by practicing better listening. The best way to learn something and retain it long-term is through play. That’s right, it’s all fun and games until somebody learns something!
Games have a built-in learning process, which is what makes playing games so enjoyable. Games offer fun and interactive ways to learn rules, set goals, adapt, take risks, solve problems with creative thinking. Playing games as a group allows us to practice our communication skills while having fun, laughing and bonding with each other.
Improvisational actors use group exercises and games to strengthen listening skills and build trust with one another. During an improvised scene, actors enter the stage without a script or plan and act out scenes they create together in the moment. If that seems scary to you, just remember that you are already improvising everyday with co-workers, friends and family without a script!
If you want to experience how fun group games can improve your listening skills, please join us for a special training workshop. Listen Up! Building Trust through Active Listening
By participating in unique and fun group exercises, you will learn proven techniques used to practice:
- Staying in the present moment
- Sharpening your focus and concentration
- Accepting new ideas and information
- Listening to understand
- Responding with brevity
Join us at Scaling New Heights for the 10th anniversary of the most fun learning experience for/by/with trusted business advisors. Can’t wait to have fun while learning together with you and 1,632 of our best friends and colleagues in June! See you in Atlanta, y’all!