Active Listening Tips

Here is a summary of tips from my upcoming book on listening. Enjoy!

Purpose
Before you begin, clarify the purpose of your listening. The purpose has to match the needs of the speaker. For example, these speakers have different needs:

• “Check out my new cell phone!” “People should learn how to drive!”
• “Should I quit my job?” “Should I tell my parents?”
• “I’m never going to complete a marathon!” “I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

Paying Attention
Most people know how they should act in a meeting. You close the door, remove distractions, hold the phone, make sure it’s not too hot, cold, noisy, etc.

Additionally, observe voice tones and body language:
• What is the speaker revealing? Anger, sadness, etc.?
• What signals are you sending? Approval, disapproval, boredom, etc.?
• Pay attention to the story logic.

Ask Questions
The set of questions “Who, what, where, when, why and how” are useful in completing a story. Who did it? What did they do? Where did they do it? When did they do it? Why did they do it? How did they do it? Here are additional questions:

• Determine scope. “What else did they do? What else happened?”
• Check assumptions. “Why is this so important to you? Why do you think things won’t or can’t change?”
• Clarify feelings. “What if something worse happened?”
• Examine motives. “What are you really trying to do here? Are you trying to help others or yourself?”
• Explore options. “What if things didn’t change? What if things do change? Do you expect things to change? What’s the cost of changing or leaving things alone? What’s the worse that can happen? Can we find a solution where everyone wins?”

Paraphrase
"Paraphrase" is a different way of saying rewording. It is useful for clarifying or confirming you understand someone. However, it sounds mechanical if the moment itself doesn’t call for paraphrasing.
You can also summarize points and generalize statements when you are listening to someone.

Empathy
Other people’s feelings and concerns are not always obvious, understandable, or relatable.

If it is not obvious, then you have to ask questions, research and use your imagination to uncover the source of conflict.

If it is not understandable, then you have to study the reasons. What is the context? What are the goals? What are the costs and rewards? What are the constraints and challenges? What are the choices and compromises? In a tragedy, what is the loss? Where is the injustice?

If it is not relatable, then find better ways to describe the situation. What are the highlights? What are the hits and misses? What are the struggles and triumphs? Is there an analogy that can be used to explain the situation?

Crisis or Setback
In a bad situation, we might feel despair and not know what to do. If we had to pull ourselves out of this tricky situation, we would have to go back to the basics. What’s the right thing to do? What is the honest thing to do? What do we really want? A good listener makes it easier to ask and answer these tough questions.

If there is despair and sadness, then listen and show empathy. Always acknowledge the speakers feelings first.
If there is confusion, then ask questions and explore.
If their confidence is shaken, review their strengths and achievements.
If there is uncertainty, then help put things in perspective and deal with it. What’s the worse case scenario? What’s the best? What’s most likely? Then hope for the best and plan for the worse.
If there is fear that goals will not be reached, then help reset expectations and plan and execute smaller, intermediate steps.

How to deal with someone who keeps talking

If someone is taking advantage of your good listening habits, there are a couple of things you can do. You can try to gently redirect the topic so that they tell you something of interest to you, or teach you something that you did not know. You can also try to ask them how their topic should matter to someone like you.
You can say, “You seem to know a lot about this subject. I have a friend in the same boat as me. How can I convince him to take more interest in this?”
By doing this, you’re trying to get the talker to be less focused on himself, and to think more about your needs within the conversation.

Active Listening Purpose and Techniques

When you sit down and listen to someone, you have to honestly ask yourself, what do you hope to accomplish? Are you trying to sell them something? Are you just trying to do your job? Are you trying to appease their complaints? Or are you really giving them a chance to voice their feelings and concerns? What if you do not agree with their viewpoint? What if you believe you have the answer to their problem? Do you still give them the unfettered opportunity to speak their mind?

The second issue relates to techniques. Techniques are important. They allow you to accomplish your listening goals. However, listening is not simply a matter of utilizing the right techniques. Getting someone to talk about something difficult, painful, and personal requires the utmost sensitivity. If the speaker notices you are just going through the motions, or recognizes a formula or repetition to your techniques, then your good faith and sincerity are questioned. Emphasizing listening techniques above the human interest is similar to emphasizing writing techniques above the human story. Poor spelling will ruin a story. Poor technique will ruin listening. But good grammar doesn’t guarantee a good story. Good technique does not guarantee good listening. Listen only works well when both technique and purpose work together.