Why Listening is Hard Work—And How You Can Make Sure You’re Being Effective At It

Listening seems like the simplest thing in the world. After all, we do it every day without much thought. But have you ever found yourself nodding along, only to realize you missed half of what was said? The truth is, effective listening is not just a passive activity; it’s a skill that demands intentional effort and concentration. While it may feel easy, true listening is hard work. It requires technique, patience, and the ability to resist the urge to jump to solutions or rush through conversations. In our fast-paced world, where speed is celebrated and multitasking is the norm, the art of listening often becomes a chore rather than a meaningful exchange. So, are you truly listening, or just hearing words?

A recent article, Could You Be a Lousy Listener Without Knowing, from the excellent Leadership Freak blog had interesting insights on what bad listening looks like. I have translated that a bit into what listening can be. I would recommend checking out that article to compliment what I have written below.

1. Listening Takes Effort

If you are not a little tired at the end of a conversation, you probably didn’t listen well enough. Effective listening is hard work. No wonder good listening takes practice and time, you have to build up the muscles for doing it. We capture a lot of sound with our ears every day, but how often do we stop to hear what is happening? When we are directly engaging, the challenge is to block out the rest of the noise and only hear what they are saying.

Listening is intentional. It requires focus and undivided attention.

2. Listening Is Connecting

There are probably hundreds or even thousands of books or articles on the subject of listening that will try to teach the techniques of listening better. I have written some of them. Listening is about connecting with other people, not the techniques that make it happen. Once you realize the techniques are only meant to help you connect more deeply with another person, you can actually get to where you want to be.

Stop trying to perfect listening, and just fully engage with the other person.

3. Don’t Think About Solutions

In those same articles, most will tell you the first step to effective listening is to not listen to solve the problem. As soon as you go into problem-solving more, you are worried more about what you’re going to say, instead of what the other person is saying.

Hear first, solve later.

4. Listening Requires Time

A conversation cannot be rushed. It takes time for information to be shared, and understanding to occur. If you are always rushing through your discussions, you made need to plan for critical conversations differently. When the other person feels rushed, or that you are distracted by time, connections will be compromised. If you need to break the discussions into different parts in order to ensure you can fully engage, do so. It will make a significant difference for both of you.

Connections take time. Listening takes patience and practice.

5. Enjoy The Conversation

Both parties should get something from the conversation. Even difficult talks can come with meaningful rewards. While, not everyone may “enjoy” a performance coaching session, that doesn’t mean it is not valuable. In fact, in those moments, being able to hear the other side may be career changing. Conversely, listening to the other person’s perspective can serve to help you help them even more in the future.

Good conversations require listening on both parties. It is always a two-way street.

I recently overheard part of a conversation, after a conversation. A friend of my son’s had been speaking to my father at a get-together. Before that event, they had not spoken. The friend remarked after the conversation that he hadn’t encountered someone in similar situations that really was interested in what he was talking about. My father always asked more questions, encouraged him to talk more, and go into further details. The friend got as much from the conversation as I am sure my Dad did, if not more. The friend came away not only with a stronger connection to someone he’d never spent time with before, but a real lesson in the value of listening. By the way, so did I. Being a part of the conversation after the conversation really opened my eyes to the impact listening can have on individuals. When you are listened to, truly listened to and heard, the reward is the conversation itself. Not to mention the connection it creates between two (or more) humans and the value of how powerful that is.

I love that in the original Leadership Freak article, he challenges the reader to consider, ‘what would make this conversation great for you?’ That should be a question to consider on both sides of the discussion. Think about what that could mean if all parties sought to listening and learn from each other. To digest what was said before trying to solve or respond. What if the goal of the discussion was to connect in a more meaningful way, with no preconceived ideas ahead of time. How would that change this conversation itself, and more importantly the outcomes from it? Some big things to consider there…

How can you listen more intentionally? How will you approach the questions and challenges listed above?

Join other retail leaders in continuing their development journey with Effective Retail Leader.com. SUBSCRIBE today to receive leadership tips directly to your inbox and monthly newsletters that provide many tools to help further develop your leadership skills. JOIN NOW!

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash