What Happens When You Don’t Listen & the Unforeseen Danger of Misinterpretation
What Happens When You Don’t Listen & the Unforeseen Danger of Misinterpretation…
Poor listening skills can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and missed opportunities.
But even if you do listen by paying attention and hearing all the words, you can still misinterpret what you hear.
How can that happen? A frequent cause is not having all the information or making an assumption which is not accurate.
Example– Your client is married and both husband and wife work remotely at home. You know this because your client talks about both taking care of the two-year old. You remember your client saying that the husband helped her get her job. She works remotely for a hospital system whose home base is in Minnesota. You assume they both work for the same company and decided (for some reason) to live in Pennsylvania.
ACK!!! Your assumptions are wrong. Turns out they live in Pennsylvania in the city of her husband’s professorial job at a university and he does blended work— on site at the university and remote work. They do not work for the same company.
So how to avoid misinformation and inaccurate assumptions? Use clarifying questions like: “Let me see if I understand accurately …” or “Do I understand correctly…” or “Tell me if I have the picture right…”
Develop your skill of listening and asking clarifying questions to increase connection with people, inspire trust and rapport, and build strong relationships that lead to greater satisfaction and successful outcomes.
English Speaking Skills- Make a Goal – Use a Visual Cue
English Speaking Skills- Keep Your Vision In Front of You
Do you have a dream? A dream is bigger than a goal. Here’s a tip- put your dream vision in front of you.
Simple idea- place a visual symbol of your dream in front of you. We move psychologically toward what we constantly see.
What you are want is not “kind of good” communication, At a minimum, you want English speech communication free of “What? What did you say?”
The purpose of your dream for communication is to make connection with people in daily life, at work, or in school with clear, easy to understand speaking voice, and easy to cognitively understand information message. Add to that an English speaking voice which communicates emotion and is pleasing to the ear.
How do you keep your vision of your dream in front of you?
Find a picture of someone you admire – a relative, friend, teacher, broadcaster, or famous person. Or find a photo from a newspaper, magazine or online of people happily communicating. Put it on your bathroom mirror or over your desk— any place you notice everyday.
This visual reminder will help you move toward what you see. Then when you have choices— of talking or not talking, engaging in conversation or remaining quiet, volunteering to answer a question in a small or large group— then you’ll remember the visual aid picture/photo. And you’ll take the extra effort to do clear articulation– leveled-up clear talk mode or careful leveled-up clear talk mode. You’ll do accurate word syllable accent stress. And if you have learned the skill– voice inflection in utterances or sentences which communicates emotion.
hat visual photo or picture will inspire you to do direct practice or more preparation for English speech a few minutes longer before your presentation , meeting or even a conversation. The frequent noticing of your picture or photo will inspire you to put extra effort and focus whenever you take the opportunity to do deliberate practice of your best English speech communication skills in daily life. Your picture will remind you of your dream of better than good— to do great— English speech communication. And you will stride to that dream step by step. It gets easier, and then you will feel leaps. You’ll do what the most masterful people do– direct practice which is like doing homework on your own for your skill, and taking every opportunity to practice your articulation, diction, word syllable accent stress and voice inflection skills.
Or– your picture will inspire you to get more– more systematic, optimal learning for higher level English speech communication skills. Check out your local schools or Clear Talk Mastery — get the best instruction you can.
Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.
Consider doing a CTM coached course– which now leads to yields and gains once thought impossible.
Or on a super limited budget, do systematic and fast acting learning each week using our subscription called ClearTalk Weekly, www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com
English Speaking Training –Strategies for Satisfying Conversations
English Speaking Training-Strategies for Satisfying Conversations
To make a satisfying conversation, first consider the strategy of asking questions throughout the conversation. That makes dialogue and both people are learning about each other.
Satisfying conversations are like tennis games or badminton games. The conversation goes back and forth like the tennis ball or birdie. You talk for a minute or two, then you ask the other person a question.
What to do if you can’t think of a question after you have shared something? Try this: “What do you think about that?”
Now the respondent can go in any direction in response — refer back to something you said earlier, express an opinion, or even change the topic by saying “That reminds me of something that happened to me last week.”
Open-ended questions invite the other person to open up. Also, use them when in negotiating or planning.
“What do you think about that?” is fantastic in everyday conversation. You can get farther in understanding other people by learning about their experience and opinions. That makes for building relationship and ultimately trust.
Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.
Check out our weekly tutorial program for efficient, systematic learning of accurate American English pronunciation, the subscription called ClearTalk Weekly, www.subscription.cleartalkmastery.com — less than five dollars a week.
Or…. do you feel your pronunciation skills learned in your personal one- on-one coaching course with Clear Talk Mastery has drifted and needs work? Clear Talk Weekly will get you back on target right away! Or better yet, go to the next level with your next coached course!
Offer Your Help
Offer Your Help- Make a Call
Make this call to offer support and make yourself available as a resource. When you hear about a project or challenge someone is facing, reach out and call. If you hear someone is job searching you can call and offer ideas and moral support.
Ask questions to find out what is really needed.
Keep Communication Lines Open
The “Thinking of You” Call
Call friends, clients, and associates occasionally for no particular reason other than to say hello and let them know you are thinking of them.
No sales pitch, no request, no agenda, no expectations. Just “Hi, how are you? I was thinking of you and want to know how things are going.”
