Active Listening is the NEW Team Building

By Solomon Masala | Team Building

Aug 20
Active listening IS team building

Active listening IS team buildingManagers, supervisors and business owners, listen up. No, we mean it, you need to listen to your employees to be effective in leading your team at the office. If you don’t hear them, you’re missing valuable feedback that benefits each person, the team, your role as a leader and the company itself.

No pressure, of course.

With the amount of information any leader must process each day, it is easy to forget how important it is to hear what others on your team are saying. But, listening is part of being a team player – perhaps the most important part. If you’re not listening, actively, you’re missing out on one of the easiest team building activities in the office.

Active listening is team building because it is the basis of teamwork. When you put the energy into listening, you stop putting the energy into responding. You become part of the team you’re growing as each person feels heard, not put off or ignored. You take the information you’re hearing and you integrate it into a response or action that takes into account the needs of your employees and your team. If that’s not team building, we don’t know what is!

(Wait, yes, we do: experiential team building programs!)

There are plenty of strategies and activities for team building, but, if the two-way street of communication isn’t there, nobody can really move forward. When you’re actively listening, you open up that road of communication and allow the conversation to be your best team building exercise. Plus, like exercise, the more you practice active listening, the easier it gets and the more powerful the impact.

Put your energy where it matters and transform your team, simply through active listening. Their feedback is your ticket to success, and you may be surprised at just how much information you’ve been missing.

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About the Author

Solomon is a trainer and consultant who works with organizations and teams in a graceful, energizing, and insightful manner - transforming the individuals and the whole. Inspiring, palpable and sustainable, positive change is always a result.