Whether your goals include excelling at your job or developing a closer personal relationship, improving your listening skills will help you reach those goals. The following six steps, each of which starts with the letter "P," will help you become a more effective listener in any situation--personal, public, or private. For simplicity, we'll just consider one-on-one conversations here, though you can apply these same principles in a variety of situations.

• Prepare. First, create an environment that is conducive to listening. This doesn't mean a separate room fitted with reclining chairs and dim lighting. Simply remove distractions, both real and potential, to minimize the possibility of interruption. Go into an office and close the door, if possible. If you're on a busy shop floor, move to an out-of-the-way corner, as far as possible from machinery, loudspeakers, and other distractions--mental as well as physical. Commit to yourself to listen to the entire message without responding. Adopt one of the seven habits of highly effective people, popularized by Stephen Covey: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. If you're preoccupied with something, table it until later so you can give the other person your undivided attention. If that's just not possible, for whatever reason, consider postponing the conversation. Explain to the other person that you truly want to give him or her 100% of your attention. You'll actually do the speaker a service by deferring the conversation until you can devote your full attention to it. While you're listening, make sure you face the speaker and maintain eye contact and a relaxed body posture.
• Preview. Before the conversation gets into nitty-gritty details, ask what it's all about. You don't have to ask for the bottom line, just try to ascertain the subject. This will help keep you from shutting down in the event of a surprise. Suppose a valued employee asks to talk to you, and then drops the bombshell that she is considering another job offer. Finding out up front that the conversation will be about an employment issue will help keep you from reacting in shock and surprise, and also will allow you to stay focused on her message. The alternative is that you may find your mind racing with responsive thoughts, such as "What are we going to do now?" "Who can I get to replace her?" and "Should I make her a counter offer?" Forewarned is always forearmed, so don't hesitate to ask for a preview.
• Put it on paper. While this isn't always practical or possible, take notes whenever you can. It's likely that you have a lot on your plate, and it would be bad form at best to let an important issue slip through the cracks because you forgot something that you promised to do. This also helps you to stay focused on the speaker and on the message at hand.
• Parse the message--look at its component parts. Body language is an important part of communication, but don't neglect other aspects, such as eye contact by the speaker, the rate, tone and volume of what they say, or the emphasis they put on certain words. These features are part of paraverbal communication. It's not strictly verbal, nor is it nonverbal. The prefix para- means alongside of or related to, so paraverbal communication goes along with, or alongside of, the words the speaker uses. It can tell you whether the speaker is angry, sad, agitated, excited, positive, negative and more. Determining what the paraverbals are telling you in a specific situation can give you a great deal of insight, although in no case should you completely disregard the verbal message.
• Paraphrase. To demonstrate that you have been listening and that you understand, repeat the message back to the speaker in your own words. You can do this at various points in the conversation to encourage the speaker to continue.
• Ponder. After the speaker has finished, take a moment to consider what he or she has said before responding. You can even let them know what you're doing by saying something like, "I'd like to think about that for a moment." By doing this you communicate that you value the speaker and what she or he has to say.