Listen Up!

Posted in Uncategorized by admin on June 29th, 2010

What if you could change your relationships for the better, instantly?

What if people who used to seem tiresome to you suddenly became interesting?

What if could develop a source of knowledge and insight that is more relevant and useful than books or newspapers?

You have all the tools you need to make all this come true.

There’s one on either side of your head: your ears.

Listening is a skill that we all take for granted, and yet one that – if nurtured and carefully developed – can make our live and those of the people around us much richer, more fulfilling, more meaningful.

So listen up:

When a friend or colleague comes to you with a problem, do you really listen? Or do you assume early on that you ‘know what they are getting at’ and then just wait for a break to jump in with your opinion? This sounds ruder than it is … it’s just how most of us interact with others. We listen long enough to find our own opportunity to contribute, to tell our side of the story, our own similar experiences, our own opinions. That’s human nature, and most of the time it’s fine as a casual way of chatting and passing time.

But if you want more from your relationships, if you really want to learn something from others and if you really want to help them with issues they are facing, you must learn and practice Active Listening.

Most of our listening is passive. In fact, it isn’t so much listening as waiting. And often when we see someone else as being dull or uninteresting it’s because we find it hard during their side of the conversation to think of things to respond. This is because of our tendency to listen for ourselves, not for the other person.

Active Listening is about doing 5 simple things to make our listening more effective – and to make conversations more enjoyable and useful.

1- Shhh

You can’t listen if you’re doing most of the talking. This doesn’t mean simply shutting up while the other person rambles on, but keep your talking focused on moving the coversation along. Give encouraging feedback. Ask for clarification. Offer a relevant anecdote. The trick is not to succumb to the temptation to turn the conversation back to yourself. Think of how a skilled journalist conducts an interview: they are very careful not to interrupt the flow of the subject’s speach, speaking only to keep the momentum going.

2 – Open Questions

Which brings up questions. Here the best technique is to ask open, rather than closed, questions. A closed question can be answered either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and when you get that answer it is rarely enlightening. Asking someone ‘Do you like your job?’ Won’t usually reveal much. Asking instead something like ‘What is it you find most frustrating at work?’ could open the floodgates to true insight into a problem.

3 – Paraphrasing

One way of letting the other person know that you truly are listening is to tell them what you’ve just heard, in your own words. It’s very helpful in reassuring someone that they are making themselves understood. But it is also a great technique for learning. If you get it wrong, the other person realises they haven’t made themselves clear, and they can then elaborate, correcting the misunderstanding.

4 – Emotional reflection

A major reason people confide in others is to express difficult emotions, so that they don’t feel so alone. One way of making listening more effective for people is to recognise the emotions behind the words, to understand not just what is being thought and said but what is being felt. This is the very definition of empathy, and it is essential to develop the ability to read others’ emotional state. As with paraphrasing, you may sometimes be wrong, and so a part of Active Listening is the give and take of conversation: you state your reading of the other person’s feelings, and they respond in kind – either you’re right, and they feel better for having been understood; or you’re wrong, and they can attempt to communicate their feelings more clearly. Often, we don’t actually know how we feel about something, so emotional reflection is a great way of learning what is really bothering us.

5 – Read between the lines

In order to effectively interpret someone’s emotions it is vital that you listen with more than your ears. Use your eyes and mind to interpret their body language. Read their eyes. Are they making eye contact? Are they avoiding your gaze? Are they fidgeting in their seat? Keeping their arms crossed defensively? Pounding the table? These are all clues to what is happening beneath the surface of their words.

Active listening is not easy, because it requires us to resist a very ingrained habit of waiting for our own opportunity to talk about ourselves. But with practice it will become second nature, and you’ll be amazed not just at what you can learn from others, but at how much more interesting they will suddenly find you.

With warmth,
Sheila