Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf. - Native
American Proverb
Listening is an essential part of communication, and it is
different from hearing. Being a good and patient listener helps you
not only solve many problems at work or home, but also to see the
world through the eyes of others, thereby opening your
understanding and enhancing your capacity for empathy. Besides
which, you learn a lot from listening. As deceptively simple as
listening to and acknowledging other people may seem, doing it
well, particularly when disagreements arise, takes sincere effort
and lots of practice.
Steps
- Place yourself in the other person's shoes. It
is often too easy to wonder about how what the other person is
telling you is impacting you. As you worry about this, you reflect
any tension, annoyance, or irritation back in your body gestures
and facial expressions. Active listening is not about inward
thinking. Instead, you must draw away from the temptation to do
this by looking at the issues from the other person's perspective
and actively trying to see his or her point of view. It is not a
good idea to consider yourself to be smarter than the speaker and
assume that if you would have been in his or her shoes, you would
have seen your way through the problem much faster.
- Remove all distractions. Give the speaker 100%
of your attention. Turn off cell phones, do not let your eyes
wander about looking for a break, and politely brush aside any
interruptions such as waiters or people who suddenly spot you and
want to say "hello." It may be easiest to arrange to talk somewhere
that such distractions will not occur.
- Practice the empathetic sounding back
technique. At appropriate intervals during the
conversation, it is helpful to "summarize and restate" and/or
"repeat and encourage" the main points:
- Repeat and encourage: Repeat some of the things said
by the speaker. At the same time, encourage the speaker with
positive feedback. For example, you might say: "You didn't enjoy
having to take the blame. I can see why." Go easy with this
technique, however, because if you overwork it, it may come across
as being patronizing.
- Summarize and restate: It is also very useful to
summarize what the speaker is saying and restate it in your own
words. This is a form of reassuring the speaker that you have truly
been listening to what he or she is saying. It also provides the
speaker with an opportunity to correct any mistaken assumptions or
misconceptions that have may have arisen during the course of the
conversation. This is an especially good technique to try when you
find yourself getting frustrated or restless in your
listening.
- Do not interrupt with what you feel or think about the
topic being discussed. Wait for another person to ask your
opinion before interrupting the flow of discussion. Active
listening requires the listener to shelve his or her own opinions
temporarily, and await appropriate breaks in the conversation for
summarizing. Abstain from giving direct advice. Instead, let him or
her talk the
