Effective listening is more important than talking
Communication skills are the most important skills a human can have. All our practical life is based on our communications and interaction with other people, a (wo)man is more successful if (s)he is good at delivering his/her thoughts or ideas. To convey an idea to someone else one should have a sound knowledge about that idea as well as (s)he should have an experience in human psychology and (s)he should understand how far the audience would easily digest his/her thoughts and to which extent (s)he would have to pay more attention on convincing something unusual by relating proper examples, making an argument and then defending it with logic or facts and figures, etc.
No doubt art of impressive speaking is a key to being successful and having an affective personality, but there is something more important before using the persuasive art of speaking, and that is effective listening. There is an old saying “Knowledge speaks but wisdom listens” listening is something that makes a (wo)man able to speak. In human development, the most important thing is the knowledge s/he attained during his lifetime, and the most frequent source of this knowledge is listening to someone else. In this way, listening comes before talking. A good listener would be a good and persuasive speaker. No doubt, wisdom is the main supportive power -to attain more and more knowledge- in the human personality. Similarly, good listening skills would result in excellent talking.
If we put it in another way the picture would become clearer. There is no doubt that listening enhances our understanding of a certain issue. Most of the time miscommunication results in severe loss, the most common mistake in such situations are only bad listening. We believe in our ideas with all of our hearts, and we try to deliver them without any interruption, most people commit a common mistake here, they never wait for the questions or counterarguments. They pay their full attention to conveying their idea and don’t pay attention to counterarguments or they just ignore the questions, which results in bad communication. We have to understand that, no Metter how strongly we believe in our ideas or how experienced we are, listening is no less important than speaking. Good listening is the most important source of knowledge in the first place, while it got more importance in practical life.
Another important –worth understanding- point in this regard is that humble listening can solve many issues regarding our understanding. A common mistake on the listener’s end is that the listener tries to make his/her argument before properly listening to the speaker which arose a lot of complications in the communication. Another commonly observed mistake on the listener’s end is questioning before listening to a complete argument. When a listener speaks(makes an argument or asks a question) before listening properly and completely to the speaker’s argument, a loss of proper communication occurs and most of the time speaker cannot deliver his/her opinion in such situations.
So no Metter where we stand, proper and effective listening is far more important than talking, and a way to successful practical life.
