Great communication starts with listening, let’s do it properly

Communication in organisations is so often focused on what goes out – there’s something we need to say so we quickly set about working out what we want to communicate, and when and how we’ll do it.
There’s a reason for this. The need to inform and engage in fast-paced, complex organisations creates constant pressure and even with the best will in the world communication activity by any business will always be part proactive, part responsive.

But what is that old phrase about the best communicators? That’s it, they’re the best listeners. Paradoxically, listening to our audiences is something we typically spend much less time doing and in many cases neglect to do at all.

Listening, or certainly listening to really understand what is being said and why, often takes a back seat to the hustle and bustle of our activity when it should be at the forefront of our thinking.
But what does real listening in organisations look like and how do we create the buy-in, skills, conventions and collective understanding needed to ensure listening sits at the heart of our approach to communication and our wider work?

On the occasions we manage to carve out time to listen we normally revert quickly to traditional methods like surveys and workshops. These, of course, still have value, but they are too often employed as outputs we sporadically use to gain intelligence and feedback when we have the chance to think ahead, rather than tools which are embedded and indicative of a true culture of listening in our organisations.

Real listening can only be done with a proper understanding of our audiences. On the one hand the unique challenges they face, their preferences and any barriers to effective communication and on the other their personality, and what motivates, drives and matters most to them.

Only with a greater understanding of the psychology of our audiences and a focus on ensuring the people in our organisations understand what it really means to listen will we be able to make sure our activity is landing.

Deepening our understanding and employing a mode of empathetic and active listening has the potential to transform the experience of our colleagues and customers. It’s the difference between an organisation which feels enabling and empowering and one which feels hierarchical and closed off. Between having leaders and managers who understand what it means to truly listen and foster effective communication and those who unwittingly hamper it. Or creating a culture we can be proud of and paying lip service to our values. It can, in essence, be the difference between the messages, outputs and products and services we provide matching the expectations and needs of the people we are providing them for or them missing the mark.

As I prepare to start my role as a non-executive director at Creative Bridge in January, it has been fascinating to learn how a deeper understanding of the psychology of listening is influencing the products being developed to support businesses to get to the root of their communication challenges. This includes a menu of evidence-based workshop and training options led by psychologists that organisations can take up to support colleagues in their business to gain a deeper understanding of listening, the factors which influence how our audiences engage and some practical and implementable tools to embed a listening culture.

In all the talk around psychologically safe spaces, listening and truly hearing is perhaps the skill in 2025 that could create a culture that genuinely supports this.

Simon Sinek, the English-born American author best known for his TED Talk on the concept of WHY, summed it up perfectly when he said: “listening is not simply hearing the words that are spoken, listening is understanding why the words were spoken.”

If we’re to communicate and operate effectively this is what we must aim for.