 Active listening skills for managers can make the difference between being an OK manager and a good manager. 85% of what we learn is through listening. To manage a team effectively and well, learning about each individual and what is going on the team is essential. In a typical business day we spend around 45% of our day listening, 30% talking and around 25% reading and writing. Less than 2% of professionals have had formal training on understanding and improving their listening skills. Given how much time we spend listening and how few are taught to improve their listening skills, working to improve your active listening skills will absolutely help your career progress and enjoyment of managing others. Consistently demonstrating active listening skills firstly makes the speaker feel you care and are interested in them. Secondly encourages the speaker to talk more often leading them to reveal more about their thoughts and feelings. Third, active listening builds the speaker's trust in you and trust is essential in building relationships. Fourth, active listening skills gives you insights into the other person's emotional state which helps you manage them better. Fifth, active listening improves the amount you learn about the other person and the situation. And sixth, it gives you better awareness of group dynamics and what is happening around you at work. So to help you improve your active listening skills we're going to go through firstly seven common actions of active listening, secondly ten signs to pay attention to when actively listening to an individual and then third how to build awareness of group dynamics and what's going on around you. By the end of this video you will know what to work on and look out for so you can further improve your active listening skills. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25-year management career in corporates and household names through to SMEs. Developing good active listening skills was a massive part of my success as a manager and listening skills will be a big factor in your management success too. If you're new to this channel enhanced up training shares business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that will help you improve the performance of your team and business and if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. There are many misconceptions about what active listening actually is so here are seven common actions of active listening skills. Actively listening requires your concentration and focus on the other person throughout what they are saying. Most of the time we passively listen taking in around 25% of using active listening skills increases this percentage considerably. When actively listening keep your mind on the present and on what is being communicated to you. Do not think about what you're going to say next or to allow your mind to drift onto the current problems you're grappling with. Concentrate on what is being communicated to you. Secondly maintain eye contact with the other person to show your interest and attention to them. If they look elsewhere keep your eyes focused on them to demonstrate that you're continuing to listen. The third action of active listening is to manage your own body language to show your interest you know use encouraging facial expressions head nods and attentive postures and be natural in this of course. Your body language should be shouting to the person I am interested in what you're saying. Fourth at appropriate moments when there is a long pause in conversation use paraphrasing and summarise what the other person has been talking about. This provides proof that you've been listening and taking in what has been communicated. Try to use their words and phrases rather than your own. The fifth action of active listening is always keep an open mind withhold any judgment don't jump to conclusions and keep listening until the other person is finished. If you judge too early you'll not really be listening to the remainder and will miss important parts. The other person will sense your drop in attention too. Don't forget that you always have your own assumptions beliefs and approaches to everything and these can often get in the way of you learning the other person's point of view assumptions beliefs and approaches. Keep an open mind to learn about them and you'll find you'll learn plenty in return. Sixth don't interrupt what the other person is saying. Don't finish their sentences for them and when they appear to have finished speaking wait a good few more seconds to make sure they are not just taking a pause before speaking. Don't interrupt. The seventh action of active listening is to ask questions to probe for more depth or expand on the points they're making. Keep these questions open ended. Asking questions is another great way to confirm that you're interested and taking in what they're saying. Practice these actions and each will get better and better and after a while you'll be using your active listening skills without being conscious of doing so. To help you understand what you're using these skills for let's go through 10 signs to pay attention to when actively listening to an individual. When you're using your active listening skills in a meeting with an individual here are some of the things that you should be paying attention to. Firstly the choice of words they say. Secondly the tone of their voice. Third the pace of their voice. Fourth where they pause when they're speaking and where they don't. Fifth their facial expressions. Sixth their eyes you know their movement of their eyes you know when they look away or when they don't. Seventh their attention levels. You know for instance how are they sitting or how are they standing and what is it saying about their thoughts and feelings. Eighth what are they doing with their hands you know are they calm are they nervous are they angry etc. Ninth changes in their skin colour for instance going whiter or blushing and tenth what is their general body language telling you. Do they have any nervous habits are they interested excited bored aggressive etc. Active listening skills taps into all the different ways people communicate. Developing these skills gives you great insight into the other person's mood emotional state and thought process. Having this additional knowledge will make you an even more effective manager. You know for instance do all the non-verbal clues support what is actually being said or are they in conflict what might this mean in the situation that they are in. What impact does this have on the approach that you'll take as a manager. Getting a deeper understanding of the other person their mood and their emotional state for instance puts you in a better position to adapt your management style to the situation and to communicate even more effectively with them. You can for example adopt your body language pace and tone a voice to fit in with their current state or to help them get out of their current state. Active listening skills are skills that anyone can learn and improve. Work out the actions that you're going to take to improve your active listening skills and practice them day in day out. Experience will help you correctly interpret what you observe and be able to correctly use this to improve your effectiveness as a manager. Of course as a manager we deal with many group situations so let's talk about how to build awareness of group dynamics and what's going on around you. These same active listening skills can give you great insights and awareness of the dynamics of various interactions between group members. Which team members influence professionally or socially in the group? Which team members support the group culture and which detract? Which group members lead and which follow? Who likes who and who struggles with who? Good managers are tuned into the dynamics that are taking place around them at all times and as a manager everyone is watching your every move and action. How aware are you of your own body language and the non-verbal communication you're giving out? Team members will trust this a lot more than what you say because it is hard to fake. Build your awareness of what you are communicating non-verbally to team members in different situations. Awareness is the first step to being able to better manage your own non-verbal messaging. You can then start to change this for example sit or stand straight or increase the volume of your voice to project confidence or to slow your voice pace down to portray calmness. Experiment and be authentic. Consciously look for the group dynamics happening around you. Hear what are all the non-verbal clues on display telling you. The more you think about it the more you'll work out. The more you pay attention the more you'll be aware of of course and the more you practice the easier this awareness becomes until it is always on as such. Enjoy building your active listening skills. It is an exciting learning journey in many ways and great for your management career. In summary we spend around 45% of our time at work listening more than speaking reading and writing which companies spend a lot more on in terms of training. Make the time to put into practice what we've covered today. Active listening skills are incredibly useful to develop as a manager. So to recap we've gone through why active listening skills are so useful to any manager. We've gone through seven common actions of active listening skills. We've also gone through 10 signs to look out for when listening to individuals and how to use these same skills to manage group dynamics better as a manager. Keep practicing to improve your active listening skills and if you have any questions please leave them in the comment section below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.