Talk Less, Understand More: Discover Active Listening
Imagine having a conversation where the other person feels truly heard and understood. This is the magic of active listening, a communication technique that goes beyond simply hearing words. Last month, we learned that listening is a skill we often fail to practice. Today, we will delve into the most common mistakes and describe useful techniques to build empathetic and constructive interactions.
What Does Listening Mean: A Definition
Listening is the act of applying meaning to a sound, allowing the brain to organize accordingly, resonate with what we have heard, and activate emotions and thoughts in a receptive and expressive exchange. The goal of this piece is to learn to listen actively, training this social skill to develop a deeper interest in understanding others and their perspectives, consequently improving relationships.
Active Listening
Active listening is a theoretical concept developed by Carl Rogers, a 20th-century American psychologist. While foundational to his client-centered therapy approach, Rogers’ ideas have since been expanded to other areas such as education, human resources management, conflict resolution, and any context where effective communication is crucial.
In active listening, the listener is genuinely interested in what the other person is saying, both verbally and non-verbally. These are the main aspects:
Focused Attention: The listener must give their full attention to the speaker, avoiding internal and external distractions. This includes maintaining eye contact, using open body language, and eliminating distractions.
Paraphrasing: Repeat in your own words what the speaker has said to ensure you have understood correctly and to show that you are listening attentively.
Non-Verbal Feedback: Use non-verbal cues like nodding, smiling, or maintaining eye contact to show understanding and interest.
Open-Ended Questions: Ask open-ended questions that encourage the speaker to provide more details and insights. This helps keep the conversation alive and shows that you are interested.
Reflecting Feelings: Acknowledge and reflect the speaker’s feelings, showing empathy and emotional understanding. For example, “It seems like you’re feeling frustrated about what happened and I get it”.
Avoid Interruptions: Allow the speaker to express themselves fully without interruptions, giving them the time they need to complete their thoughts.
Summarizing: Periodically summarize what has been said to confirm understanding and clarify any misunderstandings.
Before everything else, there are psychological barriers we must overcome to truly engage in active listening:
Judging: This includes non-constructive criticism and the tendency to label. Making judgments from the listener’s perspective and approving or disapproving of what the person says based on those judgments is the main barrier to effective communication.
Suggesting: Offering solutions to a problem is not wrong, but is my help respectful? Giving advice can be risky. If a solution seems too obvious, consider: Has this solution been tried? Did it fail, and why? If the obvious solution hasn’t been adopted, why not? Are there factors I’m not aware of? This is a clear example of active listening. Giving orders, threatening, or moralizing by positioning ourselves as the ones who know best does not make the other person feel heard and safe. Instead, it sends the message, “You can’t solve this, but I am better/smarter/more experienced than you.”
Avoiding the Other’s concerns: we avoid topics by diverting to others or reading the situation in rational terms, dismissing feelings. This barrier deprives the person of the chance to talk about their fears or tries to convince the speaker they are unfounded or silly. Avoidance can be conscious or unconscious: sometimes we miss signals of a request for listening, while other times the topic is too demanding, and we lack the time or energy to dedicate to it. Or, it touches us so deeply that we want to stay in control of the conversation, keeping it in our comfort zone. The reasons for avoidance may be legitimate, often defending us from further pain. However, instead of denying the listening request, it would be better to acknowledge this personal block and arrange a more suitable time or situation to respond.
We are not done yet
Focused listening of this kind requires to temporarily detach oneself from worries, distractions, and preconceptions, which is impossible without self-work. Psychological barriers are perhaps the most complex as they make us less available and reduce our listening capacity. For instance, prejudice places a filter between us and the speaker, making us focus on aspects that confirm our expectations rather than paying attention to the whole argument.
The Solution
Accurate self-observation. Being aware of our needs and emotions helps distinguish our experiences from the speaker’s, avoiding projecting our own issues onto them. A start could be reflecting on daily interactions, how they made us feel, and how much of ourselves we attributed to someone else during a conversation.
Lastly, remember that failing to listen well is normal and natural! We aren’t born with active listening skills but acquire them over time and with experience. So, allow yourself to make mistakes, and to return to your thoughts and inner dialogue. What makes the difference is having respect for the other person and their concerns, recognizing a distraction, and make up for it.
– Wendy Fiagbe, 10th July 2024
