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<< Celebrate World listening day and the Art of listening >>

Tami Lancut Leibovitz

On July 18^th, we celebrated the Annual Listening Day, a day dedicated to listening to different subjects that concern the environment and raise awareness about the growing number of individuals and groups efforts that creatively explore Acoustic Ecology This year’s theme for World Listening Day was “H₂O”, and more specifically – the global water crisis.

More than 750 million people around the world lack access to safe water. Water is rapidly becoming an expansive commodity of the 21st century and the catastrophic effects of climate change are already felt and has negative effects on water sources. Rising sea levels, terrible floods, melting ice in Antarctica and droughts spreading throughout the globe, all highlight our increasingly unpredictable relationship with water.

Water is so important to our existence, water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, and 60% of our bodies are made of water! It’s believed that water is at the core of our existence. World leaders and environmental groups believe we need to create a cultural shift in how we think about water. We need to be more aware to the value of water and we need to make critical changes to avoid a major global water crisis.

It’s a wonderful initiative, to take the time and listen to subjects that are crucial to our existence and to our wellbeing. I would love to also talk about how important is listening to others in society.

Did you know? Scientists say we only listen to others 25 percent of the time, the rest of the time we are too distracted with other things around us.

 Listening is a business skill! And being a great listener or learning how to be one, is a great business trait!

Why listening is so important? Those are the top 10 reasons why being a better listener will maximize your business success:

1. You will surely learn new things when you fully listen – about you, the person, the industry or the business.
2. You will be able to use and take advantage of the information you acquired at some point.
3. You have a better chance to read the person you work with correctly.
4. It’s a great way to avoid misunderstandings, when you fully listening and ask the right questions in the right time.
5. It’s a chance to learn more about your client or colleague – his needs, his experience, and his advantages.
6. Showing consideration and genuine care will elevate your interpersonal connection with the person in front of you.
7. When you listen, you’re not talking – simple enough? But while not talking, you let the other person a chance to show you his way of luring you into business or capturing the person conversation skills.
8. You seem emphatic, supportive and genuine, even in days that you might not feel like that.
9. When you fully listen, you always ready for a shift in a conversation. Day-dreaming while the person is talking can insult the other person when he realizes it.
10. Take the chance to improve your language skills and conversation skills, every person is a new challenge.

But how you become a better listener? Check out those key tips and become a great listener:

• Show genuine interest: Even if you don’t find the person in front of you as interesting as he thinks he is, It’s business! And what he is saying will serve you later, you can learn about him or his business, you can gain information or get a new outlook. Show you are interested, ask questions and develop the conversation. If you are getting instructions or a training, it’s even more important, you will seem not professional and not serious if you ask questions about things that were explained and discussed already.
• Listen with your body! Don’t slump around looking tired, stand up straight (A good rule for every business situation) don’t look stiff but comfortable. Keep an eye contact and don’t get distracted by people or things around you, stay focused. Also, direct your body towards the person so he will feel your close attention. Talking about close, don’t need to sit too close but not too far, make sure the flow of conversation works and you are not too far from each other.

Listen to yourself and to others is a great rule for life! I would love to listen to any “Netiquette” question or any other etiquette question, please feel free to visit the question section on my site and leave a question - http://bit.ly/AskTami or write me at tami@tll.co.il.

For more about Business etiquette and so much more, please visit my website! For more information about my new book, The International Business Language, visit Amazon and check me out: The IBL Code: International Business Language.!