Active listening requires an active mind and increased energy. Listening is the most important factor in effective communication. Active listening intentional focuses on who you are listening to, whether its in a group or one-on-one to understand what the person is saying. As a listener you should be able to repeat back into your own words what that person has said to you. To improve your active listening skills consider these four tips:
- 1.)Ask open-ended questions, because questions that come with yes, no, or one word answers will get responses that are less revealing to the listener. But if you ask questions like “What else might influence the way we handled this problem” or “What are your goals”. As a speaker you want to encourage the talker to give and force you to pick up the conversation where they left off.
- 2.)Paraphrase, this will make sure you are listening and the other persons perspective is clear to you. When you are pushing yourself to paraphrase its pushing you to become more actively involved with the other person. This will usually happen when your having a conversation with a student, doctor, or anyone.
- 3.)Listen first, advise second. When someone comes too you with a problem or an issue, our first impulse maybe to offer advice or a solution to that person. But sometimes the other person may just want someone to listen and understand them. By listening first, it will help you understand the problem better, but if they don't solve their own problem by talking about it then you should give them advice on what to do.
- 4.)Commit completely, the big key factor to becoming an active listener is don't let anything distract while listening to someone speak. For example if your in an office have a better, forward you phone to voicemail. Always make sure you show the other person eye contact as well because its a top priority to listening.
By practicing these four tips it will help make yourself more aware of the way you communicate, and the bad habits you should avoid in the listening process.Listening is the most important part of communication, because if you don't understand the message being expressed to you, you will also fail in providing a good response back.
Sources:
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/active-listening.html
As someone who needs to work on listening and communication with other people, this is a great resource for me to come back to. I think that the post is very good on what one can do in order to become a good listener. Something that the post could do is have a separate numbered list for things that show bad communication skills, to set a clear compare and contrast set.
ReplyDelete- Dan O