Active listening is ensuring others that you are listening as well as showing that you are engaged in the conversation. Listening is much more than just being silent.
Its the art of focusing on what the other is saying and avoiding falling into some common pitfalls of: thinking what to say next; thinking what they will say next; thinking about something else; thinking about what you believe the other is saying; etc.
If we do not engage in a conversation to hear what the other has to say, does it make sense to be having that conversation?
The key to a good conversation is to actually listen to what the other person has to say! It can be achieve in three steps:
- Listen;
- Keep listening;
- Stop thinking and listen
There will be a point in the conversation where you will have space to answer, to acknowledge what has been said so far. Here is where active listening will shine.
So when it comes to your turn of talking there are multiple approaches one can take, but they all focus on giving confirmation that you’ve listened. Here are a few examples:
- Incorporating parts of what the other said in your response;
- Resuming what the other said and then continuing with your response;
- Double-clicking;
- Silent nodding or vocalized confirmation: “I see”; “hmm”; “ok”; etc
Find more about [Active listening @ Wikipedia].
How it shaped my leadership
I’m still terrible at listening, as I often get lost in my own thoughts, e.g. thinking about what I really want to say next; to give out the answer; sometimes I even just put myself into the other person’s shoes and completely shape what the other said according to my own beliefs; and so much more.
When I learned about active listening it made me understand that listening in a conversation is much more than just waiting for my turn to talk. It also made me realize that even if I’m silently absorbing everything the other just said, the other person does not have any confirmation that I really listened… did I?
Its normal to sometimes zone-out during long conversations and failing to listen once does not make me a bad person and, if I have that moment of realization that I just zoned out I would either ask for something to be repeated or honestly say that I missed part of the conversation.
Example
A) When having One-on-one’s with my IC’s I would get distracted, but if I had that moment of clarity that I was getting distracted, I would:
- Engage into active listening during without interrupting what the other is saying;
- When I would get my opportunity to talk I would acknowledge that I unfortunately zoned-out;
- I would then double-click into a topic that was said in the meantime, showing that I tried to retain my attention;
B) hmm - Geralt of Rivia
- During normal\professional conversations, one-on-ones, etc I would use\abuse of silent confirmation.
- Using silent confirmations became so automatic that in reality I was no longer that engaged!
- After realizing that I was not really actively listening I tried to wire them into an automatic trigger to change my own posture while in a conversation, where I would have this (mostly in my thoughts):
- “Here I am hmm-hmm’ing again”
C) Surface potential problems and improvements in a team
- Both active listening and double clicking clearly helps and enables you in identifying key topics;
- It will help you build rapport with your team, they will know that you truly listen;
- It changes the focus of the conversation to the other person, they will feel comfortable in sharing more with you.