Active Listening Tips

It doesn't take long for anyone to give an example of the frustrations they have felt with individuals who have poor listening skills.

• How often have you come across a sales person who keeps talking without listening to what you want? After couple of canned questions, he dives into his canned speech ignoring your attempts to express what you want.


• When was the last time you left a Doctor's office and felt like you were really heard?


• How about a tech support rep who immediately assumes she knows your problem in two seconds and wastes twenty minutes giving you instructions that has nothing to do with your concerns?


• In the world of romance, when was the last time you heard these words from your romantic partner, "You never listen to me" Or, "We don't talk any more"?

These were just a few examples of effective listening and poor listening skills impact our lives. Despite the Internet, cyberspace, text messaging and emoticons, listening remains a prized skill that can help us:

• Improve our romantic relationships


• Strengthen our friendships


• Increase employee job satisfaction


• Increase sales


• Reduce communication stress


• Improve communication productivity

So what is active listening? I like wikipedia's explanation, "Active listening is an intent to 'listen for meaning', in which the listener checks with the speaker to see that a statement has been correctly heard and understood. The goal of active listening is to improve mutual understanding."

Some think that listening means keep quiet; however active listening encourages the speaker to talk, to clarify point, to express his/her intent, give examples. An active listener quickly and gracefully finds out what the speaker means and helps the speaker feel that he is listened to and heard.

An Effective Listener Accepts Responsibility For The Communication. In extreme cases, individuals may think that an effective speaker can communicate effectively and a listener essentially does not have any role or responsibility. This cannot be further from truth especially in small groups. So, let's separate and delegate responsibilities to the speaker and to the listener.

What can a speaker do to create a listening environment?

• Adjusting voice volume level so that others can hear without shouting at them. Try this experiment, cover both ears with your hands and start reading a sentence with your normal voice and continue reading as you uncover your ears. Did you notice how much louder you voice is when you had your ears covered? Barring hearing problems, our voice is louder to us than anyone else and this is why many speak in a low voice.


• KISS - Keep It Simple Sweetheart is part of speaker's responsibility. It is easier to listen to a simple message than it is to listen to a complex and sometimes convoluted messages. Effective speakers use stories to keep things simple and the message visual.


• Organization and preparations. Effective speakers are organized and prepared because they know losing their place in delivering their message will impact listeners' ability to understand the message. When a speaker says, "Oh, where was I?" you know listening process was interrupted.


• Effective speakers accept the responsibility for using teaching tools but are not dependent on props. When speaker is so interested in showing off the charts, the data, the videos that he/she does not see the question marks on the listeners face, that is when the props become more important than the audience.


• Effective speakers are aware of the listeners' reactions without reading too much into it. When the speaker interprets a smile as a sneer, and questions as objections, he shows lack of confidence which impacts the delivery of the message.


• Effective speakers harmonize their words and body language. Speaking of the mountains and lowering the hand toward a chart, delivering a sad statement with a smile are examples of conflicting messages from the body and the words.

Yes, the speaker has a lot of responsibilities and we have not even scratched the surface, but what about the listeners?

• Effective listeners are attentive - Thinking about the last thing he did, or the next thing she is going to do diminishes the ability to be attentive and listen.


• Effective listeners value and respect the speaker - When we think we have heard what the speaker is saying before and we just wait for our turn to speak, we block ourselves from understanding the speaker's message.


• Effective listeners do not have adversarial attitude - Watching the current political debates among Presidential candidates shows that taking notes, if it occurs, is to argue a point the other candidate makes. This is a debate environment with the high stake prizes on the line and perhaps it should be conducted this way. A person in a debate is not there to understand anything; he is there to make the best argument to win his case and gather followers. Outside of the debate environment, our immediate goals are communication, mutual understanding and productivity and not winning.


• Effective listeners keep personal inclinations, likes and dislikes out of the listening. When someone says it was a rainy day, if we personally don't like a rainy day, we jump to conclusion that the speaker doesn't like rainy days
  or we drift off to those sad rainy days we disliked so much. We allow our personal belief interfere with the speaker's message that could be about how much he loves rainy days.


• Effective listeners reserve judgments - A speaker walks on stage with muddy shoes and we jump to the conclusion that he does not care about his appearance. Behind the scenes he just stopped to help to help a stranded traveler with his flat tire by the side of the muddy road. This is a visual example of judgment that means, I know what he is about and what he is going to say,


• Effective listener asks questions to clarify points. The use appropriate timing and tone so that they do not interrupt the speaker and not come across as adversarial.

Like any skill, effective listening requires constant attention and polishing and we will bring you more tips over time.

These are some suggestions that can help you get started on the way to become an effective listener.

• Remove environmental barriers - When someone wants to talk to you reduce or eliminate the environmental barriers, turn off the TV, go to a quieter spot.


• Pay attention to the vocal tone of the speaker- Are they worried? Excited? Relieved? Tired? Angry? The role and behavior of the effective listener changes accordingly. A tired person may not be able to focus, so the listener can help them focus on their message. An angry person needs some room to vent so they require a little more patience and wrong questions can really fuel their anger.


• Notice the vocal qualities - Are you talking too fast? That could be interpreted as you are either excited or worried about time so it may force the speaker to rush through his message.


• Watch your body language - Do you make eye contact to show the speaker your readiness to listen? Did you just raise an eyebrow which speaker can take as a sign of disbelief? How about checking a watch or doodling which means boredom or impatience. Effective listeners are aware of what body language means and use it appropriately.


• Acknowledge the speaker's feelings by showing sincere interest in the feelings and not just the facts. "What would changing our hosting company mean to you?" is very different than "why should we change our hosting company?" The first question encourages a response and the second illicit a debate.


• Encourage the speaker by using expansion statements such as "tell me more about that." Imagine this scenario. You briefly told your partner a story of something that happened to you and when you are finished, he or she says, "That was interesting, tell me more about what happened." You would feel warm and fuzzy all over. So try it with others.