Last week was National Conversation Week. An important part of communicating and having a conversation is listening. Active listening is an important skill to develop in your personal life, when networking and in the workplace.
What Active Listening?
Active listening is when you listen beyond the words being spoken – you understand them. Often people will listen to respond, rather than listening to what is being said. Your mind might think about questions to ask, what you want to talk about next, what you might be able to respond with. Often the thoughts can overtake the listening and you don’t fully listen to what the speaker is saying.
By actively listening to the person speaking you take in what the person is saying, you remember more, absorb more information and allow the person to properly finish what they are talking about without interruption. You can then follow on the conversation with further questions or comments, thinking about your response once you have finished listening to what they have to say.
Skill Development Plan
To develop the skill of active listening you should try the following:
01 Pay attention
Start by giving the speaker your full and complete attention. Look at them directly and maintain eye contact, ignore distractions around you and perhaps most importantly DON’T think about your reply while they are still speaking to you.
02 Show them you are interested
Show the speaker that you are interested in what they have to say. Use body language to engage with them and give them non-verbal clues (such as smiling and nodding) that you are listening and engaged with what they are saying.
Allowing them the time to say what they need to say means listening to them without interruption. However, it can appear unnatural so minor verbal prompts can help as well such as “yes” and “uh huh”.
03 Clarify your understanding
You need to ensure that you understand what the speaker is saying. You might do this by summarising and paraphrasing what they have said. You might do this by asking questions or asking for examples etc.
04 Don’t interrupt or redirect the conversation
Listen without interruption. Interrupting is not helpful and can be irritating to the speaker. It can also redirect their conversation so that they don’t finish what they want to say or get distracted from their message. So try and ensure that the speaker has finished what they want to say before saying anything. Before saying anything ensure that the speaker has finished a point.
05 Respond
Once the speaker has finished their point. Respond having taken the moment of pause to pull together your thoughts. Be positive and unconfrontational in your response.