Six Active Listening Tips
We sometimes try so hard to be heard that we forget communication requires listening skills more than it requires speaking abilities. Listening is a sure way to be heard as long as we are an active listener. The following are six tips to improve your active listening.
1- Eliminate environmental obstacles – Remove or at least reduce the impact of environmental barriers such as the TV, Radio, ipods, etc. Go to a quieter spot.
2- Tune into the vocal tone of the speaker to find out if they are worried, angry, excited, tired, etc. and respond accordingly. You don’t want to provoke and angry person or demand too much mental focus from a tired person.
3- Pay close attention to the vocal qualities – Without attention you could mistake being in a hurry for excitement. Instead of encouragement, you could cut them off.
4- Watch the body language – That is your body language and theirs. Tapping a pencil on the table means, hurry up, I have things to do. Leaning slightly forward and making eye contact shows that you are listening.
5- Feel the words – Break out of the mold of mental concepts and facts. Human beings feel more often than think through the problems. Acknowledge the speaker’s feelings by asking probing feeling questions. “Why don’t you exercise harder to lose weight?” is very different than “How would you feel in a size 6?”
6- Expand and not contract – Yes or no questions attempt to get to the bottom or rather to the end of a conversation which is not necessarily a good thing. Encourage the speaker by using statements such as “tell me more about how your idea is going to increase our website visitors.”
This active listening help you focus, save you time, create a warm and fuzzy feeling that ultimately allows for the best solutions to come forward and be implemented.