Saving the best tip for last when it comes to listening in the workplace. And that is to actually send a memo to the person speaking to you after they've spoken. Summarizing, the briefing, the conversation, the talk. This is the ultimate test. This is where your notes on good old fashioned paper come in handy. You're going to look at your notes, you're going to summarize it in as brief of an email as possible.
Nobody wants an extra 50 page email to go through. But summarizing, perhaps the top three points of the meeting, the key concepts that you think the person was really trying to convey that you do, in fact, remember and understand and take away and then also summarizing exactly what you think the person wants you to do and how you're going to do it. Put that in writing, it's going to help you number one, you know you're going to do it. You'll be listening so much more actively throughout the meeting. Number two, you'll be taking more detailed notes. Number three, you'll be processing this information in a much more powerful way.
And number four, you're also covering your you know what, because if you put in a memo to your boss, the meeting and exactly what you're doing, and the boss then comes back to you two weeks later and say, Well, why didn't you do x? for that meeting I told you about you actually have an electronic paper trail summarizing the meeting, and what was most important and your boss's response back that Yeah, I received it got it. So it is great. It's so many levels. It's also frankly reminding your boss your client customer what they said. People are funny and that people say all kinds of things and sometimes not everyone but sometimes a lot of people who are smart, nice, good clients, good bosses for camp but they said they sometimes say contradictory things.
So, putting it down in text, you've read it. You've sent it to them. They've read it gives clarity for everyone. Everyone knows where they stand. You don't want to do this. For every single conversation, your boss walks up to you, and the refreshment room, the lunchroom and says, hey, let's show up five minutes early to the meeting.
Today, we got to talk about x. I wouldn't take the time to then write a whole memo to your boss. In our conversation in the lunchroom. You said, that's going too far. Again, you gotta use your judgment. But when clients, customers, colleagues prospects, say something that is of importance that isn't just common sense, summarizing it, documenting it, emailing it to them, just letting them know. Hey, listen to you.
Did I get it right? Any feedback? That is the icing on the cake. If you do that, you will be not a good listener. But a great listener.