Tools and Techniques to Become a Better Listener

How does ‘not interrupting’ improve listening?

Interrupting is rude and if it doesn’t turn the other person away from you, at the very least it blocks good listening.  Let the other person say what they have to say, even if it takes some time and then use some of the techniques that come in this video to understand what they are saying and engage in a mutually beneficial conversation.

What is ‘empathetic understanding’ and how does it help better listening?

Empathetic understanding is defined as an ability to perceive and communicate accurately and with sensitivity the feelings of the person and the meaning of the feelings you hear.  The ability to understand what other people are experiencing is a skill that can be learned.  In the act of listening, it is about not assuming you understand but finding out whether your understanding is accurate.  Unfortunately, it is easy to fall into the trap of saying ‘Do I hear you right that you feel sad/bad/angry’ which is a rather blunt tool and can come across as annoying to the person with any of those feelings.

Great listening is like putting on a particular hat and accepting you have a specific role to play, namely to:

• ‘Put yourself in their shoes’ in order to understand what they are perceiving and experiencing
• Be willing not to be the centre of attention; rather put any of your own problems on hold
• Accept that others have much to teach us and we need to respect and value their differences
• Make sure their wellbeing is preserved.

What is ‘forming reflections’ and how do they help better listening?

Reflective Listening is where you make an honest guess about what the speaker means but instead of asking a question, you phrase it as a statement.  For example, instead of asking ‘Do you mean that you are upset?’, you drop the first part and remove the question inflection so that you simply say ‘You are upset’.  This can feel strange at first, what if your guess is wrong? Instinctively you feel you should ask it as a question instead of telling.   But actually, the change in inflection, typically encourages the Speaker to keep on talking, moving along the same road without having to dodge a roadblock.    If your guess is not right, there is no penalty because they will just tell you what they do mean.  And as the feedback is immediate, so you are validating and clarifying assumptions in a supportive way and getting closer to their truth.

What is’ feeling felt’ and how does it make for better listening?

‘Feeling felt’ is the difference between feeling talked ‘at’ and talked ‘with’.  The former is ‘removed’ listening where the ‘Listener’ is not really there, almost like a speaker delivering a speech.  The latter is known as ‘receptive’ listening which can lead to a meaningful evolution of a conversation.  It works on the premise that the speaker knows best what their experience is, and the role of the Listener is to reflect the experience back to the speaker, to mirror it.

Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes can change the dynamic of the relationship in a second.  One explanation for this is that when a person ‘gets’ what someone else feels, the other person automatically feels grateful for that and wants to understand in return.

So, if in a listening situation you can attach an emotion to how you think the other person is feeling, your listening experience will be much more supportive and you can explore that feeling by saying something like, ‘I am trying to understand what you are feeling and think it is…….  Is that right?’