Idea 78: The art of listening
The most important thing in communication is hearing what is not said.
Peter Drucker
Listening is not the same as hearing. It is the positive business of paying heed or giving your thoughtful attention to someone while they are speaking.
The benefits of becoming a good listener include information and ideas that could be profitable to you, helping other people by lending them your ear, and deepening in the other person the desire to listen to you.
As one Ghanaian proverb says:
No one is without knowledge except he who asks no questions.
The first step to self-improvement is to raise your level of awareness of poor or bad listening. The symptoms of the ‘disease of not listening’ include irrational selectivity, irritating ...
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