By Silvia De Diego, member of the Baud team.
Summer night on the town: folding river chair, jacket and blanket. The kit to spend a night in the cool and wait for the performance of the masters in the art of conversation to begin.
Neighbors who congregate randomly, fluid chats that end naturally when one of the conversationalists decides to continue on his way, unpredictable jumps from one topic to another, joys and sorrows in the same intervention. An orderly, harmonious chaos.
Since we were children, some of us have had the privilege of participating as listeners of this art, which is becoming scarcer every day.
If we are still lucky enough to admire it today and we do it with attention, we will have the opportunity to put into practice another art that is even more in disuse, that of listening.
Because of the time we spend communicating, almost half of it is spent listening, but we don't always do it fully.
Rodrigo Ortiz, in the book Aprender a Escuchar, included several types of listening. The lower levels range from listening without interest, to listening only to what interests you, listening by selecting the main ideas or listening for answers directed by our questions.
The most perfect level is reached with active listening.
Active listening involves interpreting the entire message:
Non-verbal communication, silences, the intonation of our interlocutor, emotions, but also to show that we have interpreted it correctly.
It generates trust, credibility, complicity and understanding, facilitating access to the most relevant information.
Those summer nights allowed us to exercise active listening even before we knew of its existence. A listening that we now apply with our clients at the beginning of any project. to extract the truly relevant and differentiating aspects of their proposals, the essence that we must find, take care of and strengthen to create unique, but also real brands.