Coaching Corner: Are you listening?
By "Coach" Marilou Butcher Roth
Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking at a Women’s Council of REALTORS meeting -- our discussion was around listening. As an exercise, I gave them a quiz on listening, and I thought you might enjoy answering some of these questions yourself:
When someone is talking to you, do you:
- Make people feel that you are interested in them and what they have to say?
- Think about what you want to say while others are talking?
- Acknowledge what the speaker says before offering your own point of view?
- Jump in before the other person has finished speaking?
- Pretend to be listening when you are not?
- Make judgements about who is worth listening to and who isn’t?
These are just a sampling of the questions, and they are enough to get your brain activated to begin to examine your own listening skills. One of the fun pieces of this was to answer the questions from two perspectives -- a significant other, and a client. Most of the participants found that their listening was much better with clients than with significant others -- that’s interesting to think about, isn’t it?
This week, take the time to give your listening skills a refresher course -- allow yourself to be present with your conversations, regardless of who you are talking with. Let the thoughts of other clients, work to do, etc. be on hold while you are talking. You may be surprised at what your learn!
Marilou Butcher Roth
Marilou Butcher Roth is the owner of The MBR Group, a coaching and training company working primarily with REALTORS who have a desire to work and live from a more inspired place. She is also the Broker/Owner of Group REALTORS in Cincinnati.
Marilou is a member of the Ohio REALTORS Board of Directors and past chairman of the organization’s Communications Committee.
