After ordering your meal in a restaurant, how do you feel when the waiter repeats your order to make sure he got it right? A recent study showed that 85% of people prefer when their order is repeated because it makes them feel “heard.” By repeating what you think you heard, or asking for more clarity, you are validating the other party and confirming that you wish to accurately hear what was said. In addition, you give the speaker the opportunity to say “Yes, you got it right”, or “No, that’s not exactly what I meant.” This takes out any guess work and clears up misperceptions immediately. Overall, repeating what you think you heard improves your listening skills, demonstrates professionalism and respect, and provides the opportunity to operate clearly and effectively together.

Another powerful and effective communication skill is empathy. Empathy is the ability to connect with another person’s feeling and experience even if you haven’t had that same experience yourself. For example, if someone tells you about a serious health problem they’re going through even if you’ve always been in good health, you can still identify with feelings associated with illness. For example, an illness may make one feel inconvenienced and forced to make changes in their schedule to take care of themselves. It might make one feel out of control, a victim, and that they are unable to control the outcome of their situation. We’ve all been faced by things that had us make unwanted changes in our routine or schedule. We’ve all had to deal with things when we don’t have control of the final results. How about responding with something like, “I’m sorry you have to go through this, I can imagine it’s been a real challenge” or “I imagine dealing with this has been difficult for you, how are you coping?”

Expressing genuine empathy results in people feeling you are connected to them because you understand what they feel or are going through.

A third powerful skill, and perhaps the hardest to achieve is to listen without being defensive. Defensiveness is when we interrupt the other person before they’ve finished making their point because we feel we have to explain “our side”. It is also when we make someone out to be wrong, just because they don’t think like we do. Because we undermine the other person’s thoughts and feelings when we get defensive, we miss the opportunity to see their reality and that they also make sense. Listening to another’s reality and understanding their perception without being threatened, demonstrates an ability to make others feel heard and accepted. Accepting someone’s reality does not mean you are in personal agreement. It means you can hear and accept without being threatened, a key factor to successful business negotiations and respectful personal relationships.

Don’t underestimate the fact that we all want to be heard and understood as well as to be good listeners in both personal and business relationships. Listening, empathy and non-defensiveness are fail-proof tools to get you where you want to be! Good luck!