Active Listening

Active Listening How to Communicate Better
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All rights reserved. No part of this document or accompanying files may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise, by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. This book is presented to you for informational purposes only and is not a substitution for any professional advice. The contents herein are based on the views and opinions of the author and all associated contributors. While every effort has been made by the author and all associated contributors to present accurate and up to date information within this document, it is apparent technologies rapidly change. Therefore, the author and all associated contributors reserve the right to update the contents and information provided herein as these changes progress. The author and/or all associated contributors take no responsibility for any errors or omissions if such discrepancies exist within this document. The author and all other contributors accept no responsibility for any consequential actions taken, whether monetary, legal, or otherwise, by any and all readers of the materials provided. It is the reader's sole responsibility to seek professional advice before taking any action on their part. Readers results will vary based on their skill level and individual perception of the contents herein, and thus no guarantees, monetarily or otherwise, can be made accurately. Therefore, no guarantees are made.
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Contents
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Legal Disclaimers & Notices.......................................................................... 2

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Introduction .................................................................................................. 43
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Why It Is So Important To Actively Listen ................................................... 63

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Common Barriers to Active Listening .......................................................... 93

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The Four Components of Active Listening................................................. 123

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Improving Your Active Listening Skills ..................................................... 153

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Reflective Listening ................................................................................... 233

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Conclusion ................................................................................................. 283
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Introduction
Can you recall situations where you have failed to listen to what someone else is saying? When you had a conversation with someone else, you might not have been paying complete attention. For example, how many times have you been introduced to a person by name, only to forget their name thirty seconds later? The reason this happens is because you were not actively listening in the first place. By italicising the word actively, it might suggest that actively listening is different to general listening. In truth, there are only two states when we are communicating with another person: actively listening, and not really listening. Active listening is the art of listening for meaning. For people to gain meaning from the words of another person, we need to be listening carefully and with our complete attention. Meaning is not necessarily assured even when we are actively listening, but we will at least know that we dont understand, and can therefore ask the right questions to gain a better understanding of what the other person is saying. Active listening must become a habit because it is the foundation of all effective communication. Imagine an army officer not really listening to his orders and attacking the wrong target. A failure to actively listen can certainly have dire consequences on a battlefield. Poor listening can also cause significant problems at work and at home. Have you ever had a disagreement with a work colleague or with a partner only to realise that it was due to a simple misunderstanding? Have you ever been accused of not listening? Many people give the appearance of listening but fail to really hear what is being said to them. They assume that listening is such a basic sense that it will automatically happen automatically. This is not the case. Your ears are working all the time but your brain, which is crucial for active listening, might not be tuned in. Or Iit might even be the case that youthey are so used to making all the outward gestures of listening that youthey regularlyare convince yourself thatd it is really happening. It is not difficult to pick up on
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tone of voice, body language and facial expressions, all of which indicate the gist of what is being said. All it then takes is to focus onhear a few key words and it becomes very easy to think you have understood everything youve been told. You will also manage, and to give others the convincing impression that this is so by reproducingreturning appropriate tone of voice, body language and facial expressions. But can you ever recover all the information you have missed out on? Active listening is not as simple as we might think. It requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what he/shethey is are being told. If one of these components is not present,Without this, communication is nothing but a faade. This, which may suffice when you are passing the time of day talking to a neighbour in the street, but it will not ensure much successis wholly inadequate in any business environment. As businesses depend on human interaction to succeed, the quality of that interaction must be as authentic as possibleof the highest caliber, and interaction means communication. There are many reasons why people fail to listen properly. Most of the time, tThey think they arem multi-tasking, attempting other activities whilst listeningay be distracted by an activity they are attempting whilst listening, or harbouring by other thoughts in their head which they deem to be more important. Another even more common reason is, or they might be thinking about what they are going to say next, which is a common flawespecially induring communication between parties whose opinions differ. In such a situation, coming up with the right counter argument, becomes more important and actually listening to the opposing opinion takes on a secondary role. In contrast to this, aActive listening focuses attention on the speaker. It involves you as the listener subjugating yourtheir own needs for a while and tuning in to what the speaker is actually attempting to communicate.in deference to those of the listener. It requires concentration and a genuine willingness to hear what is being said.
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Why It Is So Important To Actively Listen

Active listening and successful communication go hand in hand. Where there is an absence of active listening, there is poor communication. Poor communication then leads to, and where there is poor communication, opportunities are missed opportunities and to problems which are created or perpetuated. Active listening enhances our relationships. It encourages people to open up, reducinges the chance of misunderstandings. It, helps to resolve problems and conflicts, and is of course crucial in buildings trust. Research has shown that the majority of people spend up to 90% of their waking time engaged in some form of communication, be itthat reading, writing, speaking or listening. However, it is worth noting that over half of thisour communication time is taken up with listening or what we think passes for listening. Anyone in a managerial or leadership position could be devoitng spending as much as 70% of their communication time to listening, and the higher up the chain of commandrungs of power you go, the more demands are placed on managers to listening to other people becomes imperative.
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Studies have also revealed that we really only hear only around 25% to 50% of what is said to us. In practical terms, this means that oOut of a 10 minute conversation, you may be getting only 2 to 5 minutes of useful information. Whilst this isat may be sufficient to grasp the general thrust of the conversation, it still leaves 50% to 75% that has passed usyou by. Many significant details are thus lost, many times without us even realisng they were even mentioned. The potential for important details to be missed is significant. We all know for a fact how important it is to listen.In a way, the importance of listening hardly needs explaining. No one can live in this modern world and not understand the need to communicate with other people. It is not the importance of listening that really requires stressing; it is rather the misconception that listening is easy and happens by default which needs to be addressed. All human relationships, starting from the most intimate ones personal, that we enjoy with our partner and children, branching out tothrough those we have with friends and or our more extended family, to those that occur in our work life, and even those we experience with mere acquaintances all these relationships are based on our ability to communicate effectively. Think about your last failed relationship or your last disagreement with a loved one. One of the most common complaints we are faced with is that following any failed personal relationship is that the other partywe didnt listen, or that there was a lack of understanding, which really boils down amounts to the same thing. When a person appears to be listening but fails to truly understand what is being said and whatere the other person is really communicatingcoming from, this is because listening has not really taken place certainly not the active listening that matters. No man is an island. Human beings are intrinsically social creatures. Not only is communication unavoidable, it is truly ultimately desirable. We crave interaction as a means of makingenlivening our time on this earth more worthwhile, and because it keeps us (relatively) sane. It allows us to express our emotions our hopes and fears, joys and sorrows and to share them with other people whom we think may bewant to listen to us interested, or who
may be able to help us make sense of them. We need to speak andBut when we do so speak, we need to know that there ishas to be someone listening for it to have anyour action to be meaningful point. Within such a In simplifiede view of reality,terms, speaking involvesis one person reaching out, and at the same time it involves a listener and listening is another person accepting and taking hold. Together, these two aspects, they form communication, and this is the basis of all human relationships. This being the case, it is crucial that the listener is truly listening with the intentiona view to of offering constructive feedback. Consider a scenarioHow catastrophic would it bein which if a depressed individual callsed a helpline and after fifteen minutes pouring out his/hertheir heart, the listener utterssaid: Uh-huh. What? Sorry, I wasnt listening, tell me again. A failure to listen can create immense hurt, if not genuine damage. Active listening acknowledgestells the speaker and makes him/her feel that what they have to say matters. It creates thata sense of confidence that advice is at hand; advice that will be considered and which is useful. A listener is a sounding board that allows the speaker to develop thoughts that may, up to that moment, have been difficult to clarify.
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Common Barriers to Active Listening

Let us consider, at this point, the different barriers that may affect Llistening may be affected by several barriers thatand impede proper communication.
Ignorance and Delusion

The first barrier to active listening is simply not acknowledging its existence. realizing that it isnt taking place. Most of us can get through life perfectly adequately without developing our listening skills. This happens, primarily, mostly because we fail to classify listening as a skill to start with, and also because almost everyone around uselse is in the same state of ignorance. It thus becomesis very easy to then delude yourself into thinking that listening just involves allowing another person to speak in your presence. Even when we are not on the receiving end and are doing the talking,you are the one talking andwhen faced with a lousy listener, it still may not dawn on us that weyou are every bit as bad at listening as they are. It is only when faced with a truly gifted listener one who actively listens that we may become aware of how lacking we are, by comparison.
Reluctance
Nowadays, we lead busy lives and most of us are exhausted by the daily struggle to juggle our careers, family lives and friendships. We are not eager to add to our load. The possible result of actively listening to another person may lead to just that; becoming be that you become embroiled involved in their situation in some way or another. People who share problems often do so because they are seeking advice, but they may also want the listener to become more deeply involved. Whenre this is obvious from the outset, the listener may be reluctant to become implicated and may therefore willfully consciously avoidfail to lending a sympathetic and understanding ear.
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Bias and Prejudice

The listenersOur own personal interpretation of what they arewe hearing may cause usthem to respond negatively to the speaker. At times, it is easy to assume that we fully understand They either assume that they know thea situation because wethey have been faced with a similar state of affairs in the past., or theyWe might even be judgemental and allow their our preconceptions to colorcolour the way wethey respond. In the first case, the listener does not properly listen to the facts because they already think they know the full story, what we might call a been there, done that attitude. This means they might belittle the problem or offer a response that does not meet the needs of the speakerlistener. In the second case, the listener judges the speaker negatively because the speakers opinions or beliefs run counter to their own.
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Subject Matter
The listenerWe might also, quite may simply, not be interested in what the speaker is saying. This may be because wethey find the subject dull, because or we migtthey feel it is too far beyond theirour experiences to be relevant to uscomment on, or even because their our lack of knowledge on the subject causess them us to dismiss the severity of the problem. Any one of these factorsll these will cause the listener to switch off, to a certain extent.
Status of the Speaker

We react differently to different people. The listenersOur personal opinion of the speaker, as a person, may influence the extent to which wethey are happy to pay attention to what he/she has to say and the amount of time we are ready to devotegive their timeto him/her. This may be based on simple likes and dislikes, but evenor on status. In the case of personal affinities,The former situation may cause the listener might be motivated to hang on to every word or to positively resent the
imposition. In the case of status,The latter situation may also produce thesethe same resultsdegree of influence may be noted: the thoughts of a low status speaker may be deemed unworthy, and those of a high status individual may invokeprovoke rapt attention because the listener feels honoredhonoured to have been involvedincluded or consulted.
How the Listener is Feeling

Even if part of ourit is in your job description entails to listening to other people, your ability to actively listen to them can easily be affected by how weyou are feeling at that precise moment. We all know how this goes. If youre were not careful, your emotions can dictate your whole day. This is particularly includes true in situations wherehow you respond to people who want to bend your ear with their problems. If you we are in a good mood, you we feel loving and giving and able to reach out to giveoffer yourthe best of advice based on your incisive analysis of what you we have just actively listened to. If your mood sucks, the very notion that someone wants to burden you us with their thoughts, let alone their problems, just makes you us resentful. So you we resort to fakinge it, and pretending to pay attention and to lookbe interested, resulting in a complete wasteing of everyones time.
Time and Place

These are the physical factors that influence whether weyou are willing or able to actively listen to what wereyou are being told. When we are aware of bieng on a tight schedule,If you have limited time in which to listen, eyou we mightmay be so concerned with time constraints that it becomes hard to you cannot concentrate sufficientlyly to really listen. In reality,The truth is that even five minutes of active listening may be sufficientprove golden time for the speaker to get his/her point across, but it just becomes may not be impossible with a clock-watching listener. Location maycan also prove to be a problem. Having a heart-to-heart in the street next to a mechanical digger in full swing is never going to be conducive
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to active listening. Equally impossible would be, trying to talk about a delicate matter with someone who is hard of hearing and who wont wear an aid in the middle of a crowded restaurant. is doomed to failure. These may be extreme examples, but they highlight the importance of choosing the right time and place. As a listener, it is far better to be honest and schedule a more appropriate time and place than to succumb to the pressure to listen now and then end up not listening at all.
The Four Components of Active Listening

There are four basic components that make it possible for allow active listening to take place, and the responsibilityonus for these restsis on the listener. These are: acceptance, empathy, honesty, and specifics.
Acceptance
Acceptance is about having respect for the person you are talking to, not solely on the basis of what they have to say, but rather based on the simple fact that they are a human being who has the right to express their thoughts. Although tThis acceptance should be as unconditional as possible, we need to
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keep in mind with the proviso that there may be instances where the beliefs or opinions expressed are so revulsiveanathema to legality and morality that acceptance must should be withdrawn. Accepting also means trying to avoid expressing agreement or disagreement with what the other person is saying, at least initially. Putting aside our judgements serves toThis encourages the other person to be less defensive and to be more open. The speaker feels comfortable to further exploring their situation and revealing more of themselveshimself/herself.
Empathy
Can a woman understand what motherhood entails until she has children? Is a spouse able to comprehend the pressures of a managerial position unless he/she has held a similar post? This is where empathy or lack of it comes in. This is usually interpreted as the listeners ability to understand the speakers situation on an emotional level, based on the listeners own frame of reference rather than a sense of what should be felt which is sympathy, not empathy. In other words, to be able to empathize with the speaker, weyou should know how they are feeling because weyou have experienced the same or very similar feelings ourselvesyourself. For instanceexample, weyou cannot properly have empathy with a bereaved individual unless weyou have experienced a similarthe loss of a loved one firsthand. Empathy may also be defined as the listeners desire to feel the speakers emotions, regardless of their own experience, but this this is decididely difficult to achieve in real and tangible terms.does not really get to the heart of the matter. True empathy is a rare and wonderful thing, and requires that there is a genuine emotional reaction in the listener based on personal experience.
Honesty
There are no two ways about honesty.is is self-explanatory. An active listener needs to beThis refers to openness, frankness, and genuineeness on the part of the listener. This means that the listener is open in his/herabout their reactions
to what they have heard. Acceptance comes first and being honest features at a later stage,This must necessarily come after the acceptance component, and once the speaker has divulged as much as they are going to. If we are hHonest reactions given too soon, we can easily stifle further revelationselucidation on the part offrom the speaker. The idea behind thisaim is that straightforwardnesscandor on the part of the listener evokes straightforwardnesscandor in the speaker. When one person comes out from behind a facade, the other is more likely to do the same.
Specifics
This refers to the need to deal within details rather than generalities. Often, when wea person who haves a problem, we will resort to defence mechanisms, avoiding painful feelings, by being abstract or impersonal. WeThey mightay speak about general situations that other people experience, without directly involving ourthemselves or suggesting that wethey are in any way affected. However, forFor ccommunication to be worthwhile, the speaker needs to be specific. Speaking in general terms will not lead to positive and meaningful outcomes.the listener should therefore request that the speaker is more specific. At times,This may necessitate a direct challenge to the speaker, needs to be challenged to open up on a personal level and helped to own the problem they are pussy-footing around. Clearly, this could work two ways.
For these four components to work effectively, they need toshould be clearly evident in the listener. Whilst some people may speak openly within the the vain and unsubstantiated a genuine hope that their listener will respond appropriatelycorrectly, others will require upfront signs that their words will be received as they would wish. This is a decidedly tough ask, especially in a business environment where the two people may be manager and employee and have little knowledge of how the other person usually behaves. It is in
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such situations that the speakers intuitions play an important part. The listener might try to create the perfect listening persona but it is the vibes he/she communicates to the speaker which really count. In this case, it has more to do with the speakers intuitive assessment of the listener than on the listeners ability to create the perfect listening persona.
Improving Your Active Listening Skills

The first step is to come to realise and to acknowldegeaccept that improvement is possible and necessary. Once this idea has been accepteddone, there are specific skills that need tocan be learnt or perfectedlearned to enable us to so that you can almost instantly become an active listeners and ultimately more effective communicators. Practice, however, is the key to your the success of this endevour. Only through the repeated application of these skills will ensure that they become second nature to us to you. Bear in mind that body language plays a very important role inis a large part of active listening. WeYou mightmay be perfectly able to actively listen whilst lying on your back, sprawled on a bed with your eyes shut., Bbut that will that not convince the speaker that we that you are paying full attention, or will our body language likelyand may cause them to be reticent with their information, or not even to bother speaking at all?. Face the speaker It is important to adopt the correct physical stanceattitude. For instance, sSlouching in a chair that is facing a window, whilst the speaker is positioned towards a corner of the room,placed to one side of you does not create the right impression. We You should aim to be sitting up straight, with ouryour body facing the speaker. Slightly leaning forward shows the speaker that we are interested and canted slightly forward to show your interest through positive body language. Maintain eye contact This does not mean never blinking or looking away. We just need to be careful that when eye contact is broken, it should not be to take an interest in someone or something else. On the other hand, the speaker will not be comfortable if he/she feels scrutinised. There needs to be a balance, a comfortable and comforting degree of eye contact when two people
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are communicating. Where eye contact is broken, it should not be to take an interest in someone or something else. It is pretty obvious when this is happening. There is no magical formula for when to break eye contact, for how long, and where else to look. We need to be awareJust remember that eye contact will be largely governed by how genuinely interested weyou are in what the speaker is saying. If what the speaker is saying does not really capture ouryou have no interest, and weor are not concentrating with active listening, then you can be fairly confident that yourour level of eye contact will certainly will be giveing the game away. Assess the emotion, not just the words We need to be very sensitive to the speakers nonverbal messages, to what he/she is not saying but is still communicating. Active listening also involves actively analyzing the speakers body language, tone of voice and facial expressions. Very often, words, on their own, are a poor guide as to how a person is feeling. Face to face communication has the added advantage of providing an opportunity for validating the speakers words. SometimesAt times however, they are in direct contradiction. If communication is to be effective, it must be honest, so the goal of active listening is to decipher the truth of a situation., Even if it is the speaker who has approached uscomes to you, we need notdont assume that they will be upfront straight-talking. They may want usyou to look beyondhind the words, at their body language, because they may need the truth coaxed out of them, especially if it is too painful to simply utter. Minimize external distractions Trying to speak or listen when there are distractions around you is difficult. WeYou need to turn off the TV, switch off the radio, stop reading, stop writing, and just pay attention. Nothing can be more important than listening at that moment. Trying to speak or listen when there are distractions around you is difficult. The speaker must also cease any distracting activities. Respond appropriately If we you are genuinely interested taking an interest and making an effort to listening, this should take care of itself. However, let us do bear in mind that some people are less animated than others. If s, and if you happen to be a bit of a miser with your commentsare like this, you may
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want to insert a few nods or verbal acknowledgements. It may help to say you understand or offer other spoken encouragements every so often. Be careful not to overdo it, though. Saying wow!, really?, and fascinating repeatedly every few seconds can be a distractionng in itself. It may also seem superficial, or it may seem false, as though you are sticking to some formula you read in a book, especially if they are not habitual phrases for you. You can also ask questions, provided they do not interrupt the flow of the speakers thoughts. Focus on the speaker This is one of the most difficult things to uphold. It refers tomeans fighting the temptation to prepare what you are going to say whilst the speaker is talking.y are speaking. This can be difficult to resist, especially when the speaker says something that strikes a chord with us. We would like to put our foot in it and voice our own opinion, so we think about what to say and hold on to our thoughts, in sparks a useful response in us that we the fear that we mightwill have forgotten what we wanted to say by the time the speaker finishesey finish speaking. As we do this, we shift the focus of attention onto our own agenda and fail to focus on the speaker. If weyou do want to recall a point that the speaker has mentionedthey have made, we could try remembering just one trigger word that will help us go back to the subject, rather than working out ayour whole reply in your head, well in advance. Remember that the conversation will usually follow a logical flow once the speaker has finished, so there should be no need to do anything other than listen. Minimize internal distractions If you are finding that your own brain is chattering away when you are meantsupposed to be listening, try to refocus your thoughts on the speaker, and keep doing this as often as required. Your ability to do this will improve with practice. Once more, it is a question of focus. It might seem dramatic but try to It may help to behave as though your life dependeds on what the speakerey hasve to say. Another useful tactic is to , or you could try repeating their words of the speaker mentally, to help you focus on the content and think on what the speaker is communicating. as they say them.
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Be sincerely interested The above two skills will be easier to master if you are genuinely interested in what the speaker has to say. As mentioned earlieralready, disinterest is a huge barrier to active listening, and conjuring interest may not always be the easiest thing to doy. However, once we are devoting time to listening, we might as well use this time productively. We can surely think of ways in which what the speaker is saying could be useful to us, especially if were talking at business level. Have sympathy, feel empathy Although sympathy and empathy are not on the same level, it is possible to be sympathetic when empathy is not possible. These will allow you to take more of an interest. You can empathize by remembering a time when your emotions were on a par with the speakers. If you cannot really recall such an occasion, you can sympathize through acceptance accepting that they are a human being who requires understanding. Be open-minded Prejudice can kill communication. When a speaker feels that the listener is being judgemental, he/she will weigh his/her words. Dont prejudge the speaker. Even when the speaker starts off withy begin with a comment that irritatesrankles with you, wait until they have finished before making any decisions. Some people do not express themselves too well and may not mean exactly what they say. They might subsequently pass other Ccomments thathey make subsequently make put their place a different perspective on their initial comments in a completely different persepctive. The key is to be patient and to wait. Do not assume, or allow preconceptions to wreck communications. The moment people start to disagree, the harder it becomes for both parties to actively listen. Avoid me stories Dont we all love to speak about our experiences and about ourselves? These happen whenAt times, a speaker says something that triggers a memory of something similar in your own experience. Then you are just waiting for them to shut up so you can share. This can be disastrous for communication because as soon as the speaker ends their sentence, we are ready toyou jump in and take over. Me stories normally begin with Yeah, thats just like me Phrased in such a way, the listener has justified their
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interruptionjection by linking their circumstances with the speakers. However, such stories are little more than an opportunity to talk about your favoritefavourite subject: yourself. We might They may also end up taking the conversation so far off-topic that the original impetus is lost. Keep your stories to yourself, unless the speaker specifically asks if you have experienced a similar situation because they genuinely want to know how you handled it. In such a case, your own experience would come in useful in putting the speaker at ease, however the focus must remain on the speaker and his/her needs.
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Dont be scared of silence Active listening requires that you take time to absorb what you have heard, analyze it, and then respond. Commenting instantly may give the impression that you have been formulating your response when you should have been listening. You may also be coming in too early. The speaker needs time to collect his thoughts too. He/She The speaker may only have paused to clarify their thoughts before speaking again, and may need that silence. In such circumstances, silence can be golden.to think in. Be assured that if they do want you to speak, they will let you know. They may ask: What do you think? or What would you do? Practice emotional intelligence This is all about being aware of your emotions and opinions. As much as your emotions can aid active listening by creating empathy, they can also hamper communication if they cause you to disagree with the speaker. ItThis willcan clearly produce negative results if you end up start an arguing with the speakerment, but it can also be detrimental even if you keep your counsel and say nothing. Even if you are too ecstatic about what the speaker is saying, you need to keep track of your emotions to be able to listen actively. Being aware of this is of utmost importance. Once you know about it, you can deal with it. Having negative thoughts about what you are being told will work against your ability to actively listen, and you will almost certainly transmit this to the speaker in your body language. We need to be emotianally intelligent. It is our thoughts which should govern the situation and not our emotions.You can combat this problem by being more emotionally intelligent. This means accepting that the feelings weyou have, could, if weyou let them, affect your listening abilities, and then deciding to keep them under wraps, at least until the speaker has said all they want to say. Take notes Although this needs to be done casually without too much empahsis and may, in practice, make you appear like a psychiatrist, jotting down a few key words can really help. This counters the need to interrupt for fear of forgetting, and provides a clear reference for important points you would like to speaker to elaborate on. The speaker needs to be taken on board in this. It might be policy to ask whether the speaker minds you scribbling a
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little as they speak, and to explain the purpose of doing so. He/she will also gain insight on their thoughts once they have the opportunity to go back to what they have said.once the speaker has finished so that you know you will be able to address the pertinent issues. Some people may want to speak at length without interruptions,interruptions and even the most attentive and active listener will then struggle to recall all the details they wanted to comment on. This tactic obviously has more relevance in formal and business situations. It might be policy to ask whether the speaker minds you scribbling a little as they speak, and to explain the purpose of doing so.
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Check your understanding Even good listeners can get the wrong details. This is aA good way to focus your thoughts on listening and, to demonstrate to the speaker that you really are listening is to ask questions to check understanding. This helps, to help clarify the listenersour thoughts, and to make sure that weyou genuinely do understand This might also involve. This is a matter of asking clarification questions when appropriate, and may involve restating part of what has been saidyou have heard. YouWe may start off with: So, I am right in thinking or Let me just clarify or So are you saying ?
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Reflective Listening
Reflective listening is linked torefers to the final point mentionedmade above, and it deserves a separate chapter because it concerns how the listener deals with what they have heard. This is what makes or breaks the art of communication. The four components of active listening acceptance, empathy, honesty and specifics all work towards creating reflective responses in the listener. The main guidelines forprinciples of reflective listening are: Aim to Llisten more than you talk. Deal with personal specifics, not impersonal generalities. Decipher the feelings behind the words, as this will help to create a better understanding of the real issues. During the conversation, make it a point to rRestate and clarify what you have heard. Step out of your own shoes toUnderstand the speakers frame of reference and avoid responding, using only your own perspecitve as reference. from your own frame of reference. (Frame of reference concernsmeans the views a person has on an issue based on his/hertheir own subjective experience of it.) Respond with acceptance and empathy, not coldly or with fake concern. Dealing with personal specifics means that the listener chooses to explore the concerns that the speaker is presenting, focusing on the effects on the speaker. If someone is worried that they may be about to lose their job, the focus should primarily bebe firstly on that persons fears, not on the current state of the job market. The speaker will undoubtedlyno doubt have already researched the facts and figures and probabilities. He/she, and will have heard a hundred times from well-meaning individuals that their job may not be lost
after all. What the speaker is really afteris required in this case, and what reflective listening provides, is the chance to express his/her let the concerned person express their fears to another human being. This is often the primary reason for embarking on a conversationtalking. When the listener responds on a personal level, the conversation remains at the level the speaker intended. The listener will be validating the speakers feelings and thoughts, acknowledging the speakers reality. This allows them to further explore their feelings, improve their understanding of the situation, and perhaps attain a healthier attitude. There is no point in the listener saying: Dont worry, Im sure it wont happen. Such a phrase This is an empty banallityplatitude that gives away the fact thatreveals the listener has not even slightly grasped the reason the speaker opened up. Telling a worried person not to worry is tantamount to ending the conversation there and then. Although the listener might think that the situation should not be tackled in the way the speaker is dealing with it, and it does not merit so much importance, the speaker will not be helped by a downplaying of his/her concerns. It is dismissive of the real problem, which is the speakers emotional reaction to the situation. This is particularly damaging when opening up and revealing emotions was a it has been such a huge step to reveal those emotions in the first place. Reflective listening is concerned with responding, which underpins all effective communication. It imakes its necessary for the listener to avoid not about leading the speaker in thea direction chosen by the listener because the listener believes this to be the best course of action based on their own frame of reference. The responsive listener addresses those matters that the speaker is currently discussing. At the same time, hHowever, the reflective listener must evaluate not just the words spoken, but all that the speaker is conveying through their body language, tone of voice, and facial expressions. This holistic viewAll this will provide the best interpretation of the speakers true emotional state. When a person feels that they are understood at an emotional level, thats the moment when they feel they are truly understood.
Always remkeep in mindember that the emotion you read fromin a persons body languageexpression may be completely at odds with the content of their spoken message. Content refers to the ideas, reasons, theories, assumptions, and descriptions that are expressed verbally by the speaker. These are more or less constructed and can be governed by our thoughts. Since many people do not state their emotions explicitly within such content, the listener will need to respond to the implicit emotional tone. A simple example would be if you asked how a friend was doing, and they responded in a monotone and with pain in their eyes: Im doing great. Which message would you take as the real one? The reflective listener would respond to the evident sadness and distress in their friend. This is a crucial skill to master: the ability and willingness to confront negative emotions and deal with them constructively. Once such a skill is mastered, the listener will need to invest more time to the conversation as This may involve the listener in a long conversation, where a simple Dont worry! will not do any moreould not. Even if this might mean adding pressure to our already tight schedule, However, unless those underlying negative emotions need to beare dealt with., then Aalthough the initial listening may have been actively performed, it can still be ruined by a lack of reflection. Once more, such a situation needs to keep the focus on the speaker. Reflective listening does not entitle the listener to makingThis does not mean that assumptions should be made; this is responding from your own frame of reference. We rememberYou know that the last time we feltyou looked so miserable, something terrible had happened, so it is easy toyou assume that that must be the case now. What if tThe friend in question ismay indeed be doing great; he/she just happened to twist his/her they may just have gone over on their ankle and is be in a little pain at that precise moment. The only way to establish the truth would be to respond with a gentle challenge: Are you sure youre feeling all right? You look like youre suffering. This expresses concern but at the same time keeps a neutral tone, offering a lead for the speaker to continue the conversation.
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Pitfalls to Avoid
Repetition in responses Constantly using the same response can give the impression you are on autopilot. You should also avoid your responses being statements, such as, Youre saying or You feel It is better to respond with questions. Although empathy involves validating, and so repeating, the emotions of the speaker, it does not mean constantly parotting what the speaker says. Pretending to understand Since we are human, we are bound to switch off at some point. Especially It is quite possible when listening to an emotional person, it is very possible to get a little lost. Emotions can muddle our thoughts and words. We are easily drawn off, at a tangent, to think of something the speaker has expressed. If you get lost, speak up and ask for clarification or you may spend a great deal of time operating in ignorance or on a misconception.
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Trying too hard As much as you may want to help, and feel that you have understood every nuance of the issue, resist the temptation to offer explanations that go beyond your knowledge base or beyond the facts that are definitely known. Keep to familiar waters and be genuine in what you say. Amateur psychologists are a dime a dozen. Not trying hard enough Being alert and focused is very important. Make sure to gauge the speakers emotions as best you can. Missing key emotions or devaluing them may cause the speaker to clam up in frustration. Rambling on Keep your responses short. Remember you should be listening more than talking. Dont mistake long-windedness for helpfulness. Missing non-verbal messages This is a huge mistake, for reasons already stated. Once we have the advantage of being face to face with the speaker, we need to make the most of it.
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Conclusion
Once we are interested in improving communication, we are already on the right track. We now Anyone interested in improving their communication skills should understand how active listening differs from the listening wethey normally practice. Remember that there are two types of listening: active listening and fakenot really listening. Active listening is not some super-listening skill beyond the reach of mere mortals; it is a skill we can surelyanyone can master once weif they are willing to accept ourtheir current inadequacies and make the effort required. Active listening is also not just a skill that belongs in a business or other professional environment; it is useful for anyone who seeks to improve the quality of their communication with other people. Only once wewhen you begin to actively listen will weyou realize just how much weyou were previously missing previously.
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