By Craig Galati

Published Monday, Oct. 29, 2007 | 1:41 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, April 28, 2009 | 10:45 a.m.

I’m not sure why, but it seems to me that we like to talk more than we like to listen. In our society today, it appears that talking is even valued more than listening; but over my 25-year career in business, I’ve gotten myself in trouble more from opening my mouth than from opening my ears.

Why do we feel a need to voice our opinion so readily and constantly, even when we are not asked?

In order to better understand why we feel this need to voice rather than listen, perhaps we need to go back and look at our educational system. Remember when we were in elementary school and class participation was part of our grade? Remember how class participation was determined? I don’t have empirical data to support this conclusion, but my sense is that class participation was determined more by how much we spoke up rather than on how much we listened. The child who sat, listened, and learned probably didn’t get high marks in class participation, yet he’s probably the one who learned the material. Others, however, received praise for class participation, even though they didn’t pay as much attention to the subject because they were too busy formulating their questions, judging the material, and mentally constructing and defending their positions.

Fast forward to business today. The ability to truly understand a situation is paramount to your business’s success. This understanding does not come from talking, but from listening. It’s not too difficult to surmise that business success is dependent upon how well one listens.

If so many of us are poor listeners, and we developed these flawed skills so early in our lives, how do we now become good listeners? I believe the answer lies more in our mindset than in our skills. We need to want to be good listeners before any training will help us. Besides, if we don’t change our mindset, we probably won’t listen to a trainer either.

Each one of us has different reasons why we don’t listen well. To find them, we need to look deeply into ourselves. Some common reasons and how they are embodied include:

• Insecurity (the louder the person talks, the less he knows about a subject)

• Arrogance (the person who thinks he already knows what is going to be said)

• Ignorance (the person who doesn’t know he isn’t a good listener)

• Disinterest (the person who doesn’t care what you have to say)

There are a whole host of reasons. The key is to be honest and find your situation.

Another phenomenon of today’s society that keeps us from paying attention and listening is multi-tasking. We are doing too much at any given moment to listen effectively. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled Yes, Sell My Stocks. No, the 3:15 From JFK. And Get Me Mr. Sister, by Jared Sandberg illustrates this point.

Sandberg tells the story of a gentleman who, while on the phone booking a reservation, is also e-mailing his colleagues regarding an important matter. Neither thing he is trying to accomplish turns out very well. This story illustrates how we all make mistakes when we are not paying attention to the task at hand. And yet we continue trying to juggle too many things at once. All this multi-tasking keeps us from listening effectively.

To be effective at anything we do–especially listening–we need to focus and concentrate on what it is we are doing. Because if we continue to live life without listening well, just think of all the things we’ll likely miss.

Some suggestions:

• When you catch yourself multi-tasking, think about how you are short-changing each task.

• When you are having a conversation with someone, suspend your urge to talk, and instead concentrate on what the other person is saying.

• Focus on what the other person is trying to tell you instead of on your experiences with the issue.

I’d like to hear from you:

• Do you have any tips on how to listen more effectively?

• What do you do and how do you feel when you know the another person is not listening to you during a conversation?

• Do you catch yourself not listening or being pre-occupied with something else? How do you overcome it?

Until next week…

Craig