Active Listening: How to Communicate Consciously - Tips for Leaders, Managers and Team Builders
What is Active Listening and how can it benefit our professional as well as personal conversations?
Do you anticipate your turn to speak during a conversation instead of truly listening to the other person before responding? Or find yourself distracted while someone asks you an important question?
The answer to changing these conversational bad habits is Active Listening. What is Active Listening and how can it benefit our professional communication skills as well as personal conversations?
According to researchers at the University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium, “Active listening is a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker.” An exercise we use to explore the concept of Active Listening we call, “Segue Sparks.” Participants pair off and the first person begins speaking about any subject they wish; what they had for breakfast that morning, something experienced on their daily commute, plans for an upcoming trip. Their partner is instructed to interrupt, overtake the conversation, and change the topic when they hear a word that sparks the memory of a story of their own.
Each time we finish this exercise we have participants share their experience. Without fail we receive a version of the following: “I felt rude interrupting and uncomfortable abruptly changing the topic of conversation.” The reason we like this exercise so much is because it illustrates how we are innately hard-wired to listen intently to one another.
So how can we employ Active Listening on a consistent basis?
Approach each conversation with the notion of what you might come to understand about the other person, You’ll notice I said “understand” instead of “learn”. When we engage in conversation with this spirit of openness and curiosity it encourages our conversation partner to share in greater detail. This in turn encourages a more thoughtful exchange of ideas.
Also, remember that Active Listening exists on a spectrum. Different circumstances call for different levels of listening. Here are three examples of how Active Listening can support you in forging a connection with the person you’re speaking with:
Focused Listening: Giving the other person your undivided attention to their communication.
Interpretive Listening: Going beyond just paying attention but really trying to understand what the other person is communicating.
Interactive Listening: Being involved in the communications by asking clarifying questions or acknowledging understanding of the communication.
Once you’ve embraced the practice of Active Listening, bring your awareness to how it informs your response. You may find yourself responding with a question to learn more instead of redirecting the conversation back to yourself and offering your own opinion or experience.
It’s been said that the platinum rule of listening is to listen to others as they want to be heard. This is not to suggest that you have to always agree with what the other person is saying but instead encourages engaging in an engage in an exchange of ideas in a way that is attuned to the speaker’s feelings so that both parties stand to come away from the exchange having truly listened and having truly been heard.
About the Author
Jackie Miller launched Bespoken in 2015 to channel years of professional performance experience into techniques that improve public speaking, presenting, and professional communication skills. She holds a B.F.A. and M.A. both from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
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